PERSPECTIVES ON THE INNER CITY:

Its Changing Character, Reasons for Decline

and Revival

L.S. Bourne

Research Paper No. 94

Draft of a chapter for "The Geography of Modern Metropolitan Systems"

Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, Columbia, Ohio

Centre for Urban and Community Studies University of Toronto

February 1978

Contents

1. INTRODUCTION

Objectives

2. WHAT AND WHERE IS THE INNER CITY? DEFINITIONS AND CONCEPTS

A Process Approach A Problem Approach

1

3

5

6 9

3. DIVERSITY: THE CHANGING CHARACTER OF THE INNER CITY 14

Types of Inner City Neighborhoods Social Disparities and the Inner City Case Studies

4. WHY THE DECLINE OF THE INNER CITY?

16 20 25

30

The "Natural" Evolution Hypothesis 30 Preferences and Income: The "Pull" Hypothesis 32 The Obsolescence Hypothesis 35 The "Unintended" Policy Hypothesis 36 The Exploitation Hypothesis: Power, 40

Capitalism and the Political Economcy of Urbanization

The Structural Change Hypothesis 43 The Fiscal Crisis and the Underclass Hypothesis 46 The Black Inner City in Cultural Isolation: 48

The Conflict Hypothesis Summary: Which Hypothesis of Decline is Correct? 51

5. BACK TO THE CITY: IS THE INNER CITY REVIVING?

6. CONCLUSIONS AND A LOOK AHEAD

Problems, Policies and Emerging Issues Summary Comments

FOOTNOTES

REFERENCES

55

63

66 69

71

73

Preface

The inner city is again a subject of widespread debate in

most western countries. This paper undertakes to outline the

nature of that debate and to document the reasons for inner city

decline and revitalization. The argument is made that there is

no single definition of the inner city which is universally ap­

plicable. Nor is there a unique set of properties, nor a single

theory, which would account for the diversity of inner cities and

for their decline and/or revival. A set of hypotheses related

to decline is examined and all are found wanting; as is the evi­

dence which would support or refute assertions of a widespread

return-to-the-city movement.

This paper represents a draft of a review chapter prepared

for a textbook entitled "The Geography of Modern Metropolitan

Systems", edited by R.A. Harper and C.M. Christian. The book is

to be published later this year by Charles E. Merrill Publishing

Company, Columbus, Ohio and is reprinted here with their permission.

The purpose of releasing the paper in this form is to solicit re­

actions, from an audience, not likely to be consumers of the final

textbook, in time to permit revisions. Since this is a preliminary

draft, formal permission to reprint figures and tables has not as

yet been obtained. Comments would be appreciated.

L.S. Bourne

PERSPECTIVES ON THE INNER CITY: Its Changing Character,

Reasons for Decline and Revival

L.S. Bourne University of Toronto

1. INTRODUCTION

The inner city represents both a geographic area, albeit vague,

and a cluster of social problems. In recent years governments, the

media and academic researchers have shown a renewed interest in

changes within the inner areas of their largest cities. Those tradi-

tional problems so often equated with the inner city - physical de-

terioration, poverty, a declining economic and population base, crime,

social pathologies and fiscal difficulties - all appear to have wor-

sened under recent pressures of inflation, high unemployment, racial

tension, economic uncertainty and slower population growth.

Although the oldest parts of cities have been considered cri-

tical areas in one regard or another since cities began (see Vance,

1977), current trends and problems are usually attributed to the

process of rapid urbanization under industrialization in the late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The growth of the indus-

trial city, particularly the larger metropolis, laid the basis for

many of the inner city characteristics which we observe today. Rapid

and uncontrolled economic growth, unplanned and often poorly con-

structed working-class neighborhoods, and short-sighted government

policies combined with inadequate social services, created a legacy

of debt which was not to be called in for many decades.

- 2 -

Historically, political interest in the inner city has been in­

consistent, and policy initiatives have been largely cosmetic. Only

during periods of unusual social or economic stress has the inner

city been in the political forefront. For example, the inner city

became an area of social concern during the period of massive in­

dustrial growth in nineteenth-century Britain, when working-class

and often poor-quality housing districts expanded dramatically (Engels,

1844); in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century America when

immigration swamped the older cities; during the immediate post-war

reconstruction period in Europe; during the 1950's urban renewal

phase of American urban policy; and following the 1960's social

(racial) riots in U.S. cities. At other times interest in the inner

city waned (Kennedy, 1974; Harrison, 1974).

What is different about the current interest in the inner city -

and the rationale behind this chapter - is the recognition both of

the increasing scale and complexity of the problems involved and

the broadening context within which explanations and solutions are

sought for these problems. The latter trend has resulted in the

formulation of competing hypotheses to explain inner city decline.

In particular there has been a shift away from simplistic assertions,

often blaming the victim for the problems, towards an attempt to

link the inner city to changes in the national economy, in demographic

structure and in social attitudes, as well as to the direct and in­

direct effects of government and institutional policies.

- 3 -

Objectives

The purpose of this paper is to outline the nature of the

debate relating to the character of the inner city. It is not an

attempt to provide detailed summaries of the geographic form and

social problems of inner cities; these are available in numerous

standard texts. Instead it seeks to clarify what processes are (or

have been) operating to shape the character of the inner city, set

in a spatial context whenever possible, and to outline the arguments

on what can and should be done in terms of policy. vThe key questions

are "why" have inner cities developed as they have, and why are

many such areas now in rapid if not precipitious decline, while

others remain relatively healthy and still others are revitalized.

The approach used here draws heavily on national and international

differences in the character and well-being of inner city areas.

Emphasis is giveq to the diversity of these areas, within the same

city and between cities in different regions or countries. Gener­

alizations across national boundaries are always difficult, but

are even more so for the inner city. All too often we assume that

our own images of what the inner city is like are universally appli­

cable; by and large they are not.

The chapter is organized into six broad sections. The follow­

ing section examines definitions and concepts. What is the inner

city and how is it defined? Is one set of common definitional cri­

teria possible or necessary? The third section examines the diverse

- 4 -

and changing character of inner city areas, with examples drawn

from cities in several western countries. The fourth section looks

at explanations for the increasing plight of inner cities in many

western countries and the fifth examines the question of inner city

revitalization, and the so-called "return to the city" trend. The

concluding section looks briefly at differing views on the future

of the inner city.

- 5 -

2. WHAT AND WHERE IS THE INNER CITY? DEFINITIONS AND CONCEPTS

There is no single definition of the inner city; nor should

there be. The term is strictly relative. That is, the inner

city has to be defined from a specific point of reference and set

within a particular social and political context. In some instances,

such as a planned new town or a city centred on religious or his-

toric monuments, the term inner city has little meaning or utility.

To most observers, however, the inner city means the older por-

tion of an urban area innnediately surrounding the central business

district (C.B.D.). To some it includes the C.B.D., to others it

does not. Geographically it may extend only a short distance out-

ward from the C.B.D., or it may extend to the political limits of

the central city or even beyond. It may also refer only to the

area of "transitional" land uses between the C.B.D. and the ring

of "mature" neighborhoods beyond.

The term inner city itself is also value-laden. To many stu-

dents of the city it conveys the image of an area of blight, poverty

and crime. Some equate the inner city with the slum or ghetto, or

with specific kinds of ethnic or racial communities which happen to

be located near the C.B.D. These views are not only misleading but

they are clearly ethnocentric and class-specific. They reflect the

- 6 -

...... adle-class social status of most urban observers and writers.

Not surprisingly, given the vagueness of the term inner city and

the prevalence of subjective interpretations of its character, most

standard texts totally avoid any formal definition. Use of the

term in geography and planning is largely implicit.

A Process Approach

Whatever definition we use it must reflect the processes which

are operating to produce the specific attributes we assign to the

inner city. Since these processes vary from one city to another,

and from one political and economic system to another, the meaning

of the term inner city will also vary.

The inner city is defined here as a geographic area or set of

areas in which the built environment, that is the social overhead

capital, is on average older than that in the rest of the urban area

and which, by definition, occupies a central location. Here we ex-

elude the C.B.D. It is this unique match between central location

and such specific attributes which defines the inner city. As such,

the area is subjected, and has been for some time, to three dominant

and parallel processes:

1) the aging and obsolescence of its housing, social services, infrastructure and industrial base.

2) land use competition through the expansion of central area (or C.B.D.) commercial functions, as well as of highways and institutional uses.

3) demographic transition, notably the aging of the population and the loss of family households.

- 7 -

. -The first and third of these pressures obviously reflect the timing

of development of the inner city, as well as the costs of renewing an

aging physical plant; while the second reflects location and the threat

of redevelopment and land use succession. The three sets of processes

are of course related: as an area ages the pressures for reuse of the

land generally increase.

This simple definition avoids prejudging the character of the

inner city. It allows us to include for example both high status

residential and commercial areas in the inner city as well as those

of the lowest status. It also suggests that the area of interest

need not be spatially contiguous nor adjacent to the downtown core.

And it implies that where these processes do not produce undesirable

outcomes, the inner city need not exist as a problem area.

A simple illustration of this type of definition is provided

in Figure 1. Here the inner city of Toronto is defined on the basis

of only one criterion: the average age of the housing stock. Cen-

sus tracts are included in the inner city if the average age of the

stock (in 1971) was more than twice the average age for the entire

metropolitan area. Tracts which did not meet this criterion, but

which were surrounded by those which did, were also included. Note

that the area encompasses almost all of the politically-defined cen-

tral city, except in the north, as well as some of the older inner

suburbs. It also includes areas of the highest income and those

of the lowest income in the metropolitan area, and it includes areas

which are declining and those which are stable or improving.

Figure 1: One Definition of the Inner City of Toronto.

Average f;amily Jncome

I Under $8.000

$8,000 - 10.4 99

$10.600 - 12,999

$13,000 - 16,499

$15.500.

co

- 9 -

This definition is not as inadequate as it might seem at first

glance. The age of an area's housing stock is an important ele-

ment in the calculus of urban change, and a critical variable to

be monitored by planners and researchers. Moreover, it is an expli-

cit criterion which can be measured directly and easily applied.

Nevertheless it has some obvious limitations. Notably it obscures

those areas which are in fact subject to stress through land use

competition, and those undergoing serious physical deterioration

or rapid social change.

A Problem Approach

A complementary approach to the above process-based definition

is to begin with a list of those social and physical problems typi-

cally associated with large and/or "mature" cities. This list for

most western cities would include many of the following:

1) a declining economic base, loss of blue-collar jobs and

high unemployment.

2) an overall loss of population, particularly in the most pro-

ductive age groups, which undermines both the demand for

social and retail services and the social diversity needed

1 to maintain an attractive residential environment.

3) the in-migration of low income, unskilled groups; which pro-

duces a mis-match between workers' skills and the kinds of

jobs available.

- 10 -

4) absolute poverty: the disproportionate concentration of

society's most economically disadvantaged.

5) crime, disease, social pathologies and the fear of ethnic

or racial groups which are seen to be different.

6) physical deterioration of buildings and roads and of social

services such as schools, police, fire and garbage collection.

7) environmental pollution, litter and noise.

8) fiscal problems deriving from the interaction of a declining

tax base and the increased costs of social services.

9) discrimination by private lending agencies and government

housing problems.

Those areas which consistently show the highest incidence on some

or all of these problems constitute the inner city.

One example which combines several of these indices is given in

Figure 2. Here neighborhoods in Philadelphia are classified accord­

ing to environmental quality and the need for public intervention.

Where one draws the line for the inner city depends of course on

one's definition of desirable levels of neighborhood quality, and

on one's ideology regarding the desirable extent of public inter­

vention in urban development. Or we could simply define the study

area as that area reflecting specific social problems, such as

housing abandonment, crime, overcrowding, or as areas in which

children are frequently bitten by rats. Figures 3 and 4 illus­

trate the spatial distribution of the last two problems. A word

of c<;lutio'Il_,~ howgyer,:_. not all urban social nrohl.ems ar.e. . ..exp~c:i~d -

spatially.

- 11 -

0

0 •

N•i9hborhood 01tality

,, ... 1 •• "'*••: '"'*"-*'-• ,., ,.,.,.,, ....... "•• Hi1h Priottt,

'•••t•w.t/OpH' S11toic.

Figure 2 ;· Philadelphia Housing and Neighborhood Improvement Strategy Areas.

(after Dear, 1976).

•

•

- 12 -

• u•--•-*°'""'--'""''"'• .. o-•••""' CJ lf,.H'll. .,.,,.,.,,..v., ..... o-·..-41'M

D ~··· " ... '" ... o .... ,-.. v ........ o..a •• .,,,,..

..... ""'"" ............. - •. c..,

Figure 3: Overcrowded Housing in Atlanta, 1960-1970.

(after Mercer and Hultquist, 1976) •

.................................................... !' ..... & .............. -................................ .

!

~ !.,.:

i ; ! ; :

• ......... ,

" :. ...... :

Region of Rot-Bitten Babies

loom::• 0.1~0.., ................... ....._.CortHf;JOnt..-c:•1•1t.

CITY OF DETROIT

Figure 4: Rat-Bitten Children in Detroit.

(after Bunge and Bordessa, 1975).

- 13 -

Most of these same problems, however, could arise anywhere,

in rural areas or small towns. Thus it must be the intersection

of the process and problem definitions which delimits the inner

city for present purposes. Like the term "suburb•', which has no

clear geographic definition other than the political one (i.e.

suburbs are outside the central city), the inner city has meaning

only in a particular social and political context. Our search

for simple definitions should end here, and our search for explan­

ations should begin.

- 14 -

3. DIVERSITY: THE CHANGING CHARACTER OF THE INNER CITY

No single essay can hope to convey the rich diversity of areas

which we might define as constituting the inner city. If we dig

deeper, beyond those superficial generalizations which we find in

the literature of the inner city as a slum or ghetto, we find im-

mense heterogeneity in social character, attitudes, housing types,

life styles and vitality. Perhaps the common image of a grey, im-

proverished and decaying inner city is simply a middle-class view

from the picture-windows of suburbia, particularly those in white

American suburbs.

In reality any detailed look at the older central part of our

cities shows both areas of rich and poor, containing representatives

of all racial groups, both the old and young populations and stable

as well as declining areas. When we undertake to compare cities

in different countries this diversity becomes so large that the

term inner city itself begins to loose any explicit meaning. It

hardly seems appropriate to talk of the inner city of Paris or Rome

or Peking, not to mention Jerusalem, Mecca or Williamsburg, as decay-

ing regions. Nor does the image fit much of the Third World where

the wealthy tend to l.ive in the city and the poor in squatter settle-

ments and shanty towns around the suburban periphery (Mountjoy, 1978).

- 15 -

The concept of the inner city as an area under stress, with

an implicit connotation of a declining social status, is clearly

not universal. It applies primarily to older industrial cities

2 in western countries, and perhaps only to Anglo-Saxon cities. Of

course most cities have neighborhoods in central locations which

are subject to the ~redominant processes of aging and land use com-

petition outlined above. Although the processes may be universal,

their physical and spatial expression is certainly not.

The inner city crisis is not typical of cities in France or

Germany or much of Scandinavia, and not of Eastern Europe or the

Mediterranean region. But why not? In most of these countries the

negative consequences of land use competition are more closely con-

trolled; the cities are anchored by central areas of historical or

cultural significance; government policies have generally not en-

couraged decentralized; and residents appear to place a higher value

on the amenities of older housing and a central location compared

to those of the suburbs, at least relative to the preferences ex-

pressed by residents in most North American cities for example. At

the same time the opportunities for relocation, and the attractive-

ness and accessibility of the suburbs, are often considerably less

in these countries. Neither have these countries felt the massive

decentralization effect of the automobile, at least not for as long

as North American cities. Moreover, in most Eastern Europe and

Mediterranean countries, unlike North American and Britain, there

is still a severe housing shortage. The demand for housing

- 16 -

high everywhere, including the inner city. Further many

inner cities of Eastern Europe, as well as Germany and

Japau are new, having been extensively rebuilt after the second

world war.

Types of Inner City Neighborhoods

Given this diversity we would not expect that a single compre­

hensive classification of types of inner city areas would be pos­

sible. This holds true even if, as in this chapter, our attention is

on residential neighborhoods. Such areas could be differentiated

on the basis of any number of criteria or combination of criteria:

broad socio-economic characteristics, race, housing conditions and

mixed land uses, or on the basis of social problems, such as physi­

cal deterioration (Dear, 1976), crime (Harries, 1974), unemployment

or poverty (Harrison, 1974), or specific indices such as rat bites

among children (Figure 4), noted earlier.

An alternative set of criteria looks at older neighborhoods in

terms of the direction of change, irrespective of their initial

character or starting position. One example set out in Table 1 is

a classification developed by the federal Ministry of State for

Urban Affairs for application to Canadian cities. Four types of

neighborhoods are recognized within the inner city: 1) declining,

2) stable, 3) revitalizing, and 4) those undergoing massive redevelop­

ment. Differences between neighborhoods are drawn on the basis of

TABLE 1: INNER-CITY NEIGHBORHOOD TYPES

Decline Stability Revitalization Massive redevelopment

Population Continuing loss of population No significant losses or gains Little change Gain in population Socio-economic status Decreasing Stable Increasing Increasing Family status Increasing proportion of non- Maintenance of population mix Maintenance of population mix Loss of families, gain of singles,

family units and elderly young couples Ethnicity Varies-can be influx of deprived Sometimes strong ethnic Sometimes loss of ethnic Seldom important

ethnic group or breaking down community groups of traditional community

Community organizations Poorly organized, unstable Varies Increasingly well organized Usually unorganized Physical conditions Worsening Stable Improving Improved housing, possible

environment problems Housing/land costs Increasing much less than Increasing at same rate as Increasing more rapidly than Increasing more rapidly

metro average metro average metro average than metro average Tenure Increasing tenancy Varies, but often high Little change Tenancy

ownership t-'

Non-residential functions Loss of commercial-industrial Maintaining a mix of functions Maintaining a mix of functions Losing some commercial "-J

functions with no replacement functions, but gaining others Pressure for redevelopment Low Low Strong, but controlled High

Source: McLemore, Aass and Keilhofer, 1975.

- 18 -

variations from metropolitan-wide average changes in population,

socio-economic and family structure, ethnicity, physical and

housing conditions, land use succession and pressures for redevelop­

ment.

Although the specific characteristics attributed to each type

are readily apparent in the table, and need not be repeated here,

it is worth stressing that these same characteristics can apply

to very different communities. Stable neighborhoods can be rela­

tively low income working-class neighborhoods or high and middle income

enclaves, both may consist of either low-rise or high-rise housing as

well as ethnically different populations. Only the revitalization

process usually implies a particular social group - higher income

professionals - although even that image is changing. We now recog­

nize the modest but important contributions of ethnic or minority

groups to inner city revitalization (Chow, 1976; Hall, 1977). More­

over, public agencies have begun to enter the field of subsidized

rehabilitation for those of modest income (Plan Canada, 1973; Mercer

and Hultquist, 1976; James, 1977b).

To illustrate this diversity, Figure 5 outlines a schematic

classification of different neighborhood types in the inner city

which combines three sets of criteria: 1) average income levels,

2) the type, tenure and density of housing, and 3) recent directions

of change in neighborhood quality as previously outlined. In all

INCOME

high

middle

low

none

High Rise/

Rental

Gold coast

public housirtg

DENSITY/TENURE/HOUSING TYPE

Medium/Mixed/ Apts, Row­

housing

.Society Hill

working­class areas

Low/Owned single family

Rosedale

working-.. class are·as

~

'°

Redevelopment:

Revitalizing

••• skid row ••• Stable

Figure 5: A Classification of the Diverse Types of Inner City Neighborhoods

DIRECTION OF CHAi.~GE

- 20 -

48 different types are possible here~ but note that each could be

further subdivided by race or ethnic status, degree of non-resi­

dential land use penetration, average age of building construction,

or position relative to the metropolitan area as a whole. Examples

are given of well-known inner area neighborhoods: the Gold Coast

in Chicago, Society Hill in Philadelphia and Rosedale in Toronto,

to suggest the range of diversity which is possible.

Social Disparities and the Inner City

With so many different types of neighborhoods in the inner city

aggregate comparisons can obviously be misleading. Nevertheless

some useful summary statistics can be cited.

Perhaps the most pervasive single characteristic of inner cities,

in the context of western industrial countries, is their deprivation

relative to suburban areas. In the United States, for example, inner

cities, particularly in the northeast and north central regions,

have lower incomes, poorer services, higher taxes, and older popula­

tions than do the suburbs. Since comparative data on these char­

acteristics are not available on a uniform basis for inner cities,

the best approximation we can use is a 1977 study of central city­

suburban differences in the nation's 85 largest urban centers (Ad­

visory Commission on Intergovernmental Affairs, 1977).

Table 2 provides a summary of some of the indices in that study

for selected metropolitan areas in which the central city-suburban

TABLE 2: SELECTED INDICES OF DISPARITY BETWEEN U.S. CENTRAL CITIES AND SUBURBS

Age Racial Se~resation Structure Seatial Structure

Index of Change Percent Change in Rate of Number of City Pop. City Pop. Income in Income Change % Pop. % Pop. Change local as % of Density

Central Disparity Disparity in Jobs Black Black in Pop. Gov't SMSA (per City and 1973 1960-73 1960-70 1970 1960-70 18-64 Age Units 1973 acre) S.M.S.A.:f (1) (2) (3) (4) 1973

1. Newark 0.56 0.86 -12.5 54.2 +20.1 -.12 207 0.19 24.4

2. Cleveland 0.66 0.96 -12.9 38.3 + 9.7 -.16 210 0.33 13.9

3. San Antonio 0.65 0.88 49.4* 7.6 + 0.5 .14 69 0.81 4.6

4. Hartford 0. 72 0.86 o.o 2 7 .9 +12.6 -.04 68 0.22 13.3

5. Dayton 0. 77 0.83 14.0 30.5 + 8.7 -.05 161 0.25 8.7

6. Miami 0. 77 0.88 7.4 22.7 + 0.3 .11 33 0.25 16.l

7. St. Louis 0.78 0.95 -14.2 40.9 +12.3 -.21 483 0.23 14.2

8. Baltimore o. 79 0.87 - 4.6 46.4 +11. 7 -.05 29 0.41 17.5 N

9. Boston 0.79 0.98 - 4.0 16.4 + 7 .3 I-'

-.08 147 0.22 20.9

10. Chicago 0.80 0.92 -12.1 32.7 + 9.8 -.08 1172 0.45 22.5

11. Detroit 0.80 0.90 -18.8 43.7 +14.8 -.12 241 0.33 15.7

12. San Jose 0.80 0.87 49.9* 2.5 + 1.5 1.25 75 0.45 5.5

13. Rochester 0.80 0.87 0.5 16.8 + 9.4 -.07 198 0 .31 11. 7

14. Milwaukee 0.82 0.90 -10.2 14.7 + 6.3 -.05 149 0.48 11.3

15. Philadelphia 0.83 1.01 - 4.1 33.6 + 7 .2 -.05 852 0.38 22.6

16. New York 0.84 1.00 - 1.9 21. 2 + 7 .2 -.01 538 0.67 39.8

17. Birmingham 0.84 0. 72 5.7 42.9 + 2.4 -.11 92 0.39 5.6

18. Washington 0.84 0.85 8.2 71.l +17.2 -.02 90 0.24 18.6

19. Atlanta 0.84 0.83 19.5 51.3 +13.0 .01 86 0.30 5.3

20. Buffalo 0.85 0.94 -15.8 20.4 + 7.1 -.15 142 0.31 16.0

Continued ...

For all 85 largest cities

Mean 0.96 0.92 15.8** 19.6 + 4.0 +.14 - 0.44 8.5

Standard deviation 0.17 0.09 22.5 14.5 + 2.5 .32 - 0.14 5.6

Coeff. of variation 0.18 0.10 1.4 o. 7 0.6 2.28 - 0.32 0.7

Notes: 1. ratio of per capita income in central city (cc) in income for areas outside central city (occ)

2. ratio of cc/occ income in 1960 to cc/occ income in 1973

3. employment by place of work

4. % Black 1970-% Black 1960

*Annexation involved **Unweighted average

tRanked in order of disparity index, 1973.

Source: Advisory Collllll.ission on Intergovernmental Relations. Trends in Metropolitan America, Washington, D.C., 1977.

N N

- 23 -

disparity is greatest. The largest disparities, as expected, are

in older industrial centers, such as Newark, Cleveland, St. Louis,

Baltimore and Detroit, which tend to have high proportions of black

populations and to have had a rapid loss of jobs between 1960 - 1970.

Newark and Cleveland for instance, lost 13 percent of their jobs,

St. Louis lost 14 percent and Detroit nearly 19 percent. During

the same period the relative shift in population from white to

black within the central city was 20 percent in Newark, 15 percent

in Detroit, 12 percent in St. Louis and Baltimore and 10 percent

in Cleveland. Thus, the black population which has subtantially

lower average incomes nationally, in moving to the central city has

faced a rapidly declining base of job opportunities. The number

of jobs still exceeds the labor force in most of these cities, but

there is an increasing mismatch between the skills of the labor

force and the type of jobs available (Harrison, 1974). Not sur­

prisingly income disparities have also increased in these same

cities, notably in Newark and Baltimore.

But a declining economic base is not always the source of

central city-suburban disparities. Nor are inner city problems

only found in the north east and north central regions. Note in

Table 2 that three sun-belt cities, San Antonio, Miami and San Jose

have substantial and increasing income disparities between central

city and suburb, despite increases in the resident labor force and

in the number of jobs in the central city. Although all three

have relatively low proportions of blacks in the central city, pro-

- 24 -

portions which did not increase significantly between 1960 and

1970, they do have large populations of other minority groups.

This lends some credence to the hypothesis developed later in

this paper that racial and ethnic discrimination plays a major

role in the current plight of the inner cities of urban America.

What is perhaps most disturbing about these disparities is that

they seem to be increasing, at least through 1973. In the study

cited above the mean ratio of central city-to-suburban income for

all 85 cities was 96 percent. This is not in itself a large dif­

ferential, in part because the central cities of many metropolitan

areas in the southwest and west are defined to include all or most

of the high-income suburbs. The ratio of changes in the income

index between 1960 and 1973, however, was 92 percent. The gap

between central city and suburban is clearly widening.

In part the reason the gap is widening is because of the dif­

ferential income of migrants moving into or out of the central city

(Barabba, 1975). For all central cities, the average family incomes

of out-migrants between 1970 and 1974 was $14,169, compared to

$13,349 for all families living in those cities in 1970. In-migrants

on the other hand had average incomes of $12,864, over $500 less

than that of all families at the beginning of the period, and $1300

less than those who left. The aggregate loss of income to the cen­

tral cities in only four years was estimated at over $27 billion.

This in turn reduced the demand for retail and social services, and

decreased the tax base.

- 25 -

What these data do not reveal is what is happening to income

distributions within the inner city. Here comparative data are

less readily available. Table 3 attempts to demonstrate the dif­

ferentials in income between racial groups and family types within the

central city and suburbs. Unfortunately the data do not refer to change.

Yet even where the central city/suburban income ratio has remained

close to one (in Table 2), income differentials within the central

city, and the inner city in particular, have in many instances in­

creased. Even those inner cities which have retained their high

income populations, such as New York, Boston and Washington, have

also lost middle income and working-class households and gained more

of the lowest income groups. The result is a polarization of income

by social class and race, as well as geographically, within the

inner cities. All of the imperfections of our industrial society

and its labor markets are mirrored here.

Case Studies

To extend this analysis of inner city-suburban differences

further requires that we restrict our discussions to case studies

of individual urban areas. Two examples selected for comparison

here are ones with which the author is personally familiar -

metropolitan Toronto and Melbourne, Australia. Data for the

inner city of Toronto are compared in Table 4 with those for Mel­

bourne. This comparison adds an international dimension to the

- 26 -

TABLE 3: INCOME DIFFERENTIALS, CENTRAL CITY-SUBURBS, BY RACE AND TYPE OF FAMILY, U.S., 1973

Central cities Suburban rings Family Type (c.c.) (s. r.)

All families

Total $11, 343. $14,007

White (w) $12,332 $14,214 Black (b) $ 7,517 $ 9,019

Ratio (b/w) 0.61 0.63

Families with female heads

Total $ 5,357 $ 7,069

White (w) $ 6,490 $ 7,429 Black (b) $ 4,176 $ 4,829

Ratio (b/w) 0.64 0.65

Source: U.S. Bureau of Census

Ratio (c.c./s.r.)

0.81

0 .86 0.83

0.76

0.87 0.86

- 27 -

TABLE 4: A COMPARISON OF INNER CITIES IN THEIR METROPOLITAN CONTEXT, 1971

Criteria*

Population (1971)

% of CMA Population

Average Income: households per worker

Age: % 65 and over

Education: less grade 9 (%) Univ. graduates

Professional occupations (%)

Unemployment (%)

% Housing owner-occupied

% Apartments (or flats)

Foreign born (%)

Overcrowding (%) > 1 person per room

Crime rate (per 100, 000)

Population change (1971-76) (in thousands)

(in percent)

(%)

Toronto

Inner City

642,290

24%

$10,104

10

42 6

16

9

43

43

45

9

na

-78,000

-12.1

Census Metropolitan

Area

2,628,070

$11,911

8

32 6

19

7

55

37

34

6

na

+175,000

+5.6

*Definitions of these criteria are not entirely compatible. **education less than 6 grades na = not available

Melbourne

Inner City

634,016

25%

$3,933

11.0

24** 4

16

5

65

33

36

na

29.1

-82,000

-12.9

Metropolitan Statistical

Division

2,503,450

$4,272

8.2

17** 3

18

2

84

8

27 .5

na

19.3

+101,000

+4.0

Source: McLemore, Aass and Keilhofer, 1975; Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, 1977; Carter, 1977; Statistics Canada estimates, and calculations by the author.

- 28 -

preceding discussion and it also shows examples of two inner cities

which are not in decline. The Toronto inner city is as defined in

Figure 1, while the Melbourne inner city incorporates approximately

the same area and population, but is delimited as the fifteen older

and central municipalities of the metropolitan area (Melbourne and

Metropolitan Board of Works, 1977).

In many ways the inner cities of Toronto and Melbourne are

remarkably similar. Both show many of the expected characteristics

relative to their metropolitan aggregates. In both inner cities

the population is now declining, after remaining relatively stable

between 1961 and 1971 because of extensive redevelopment and massive

foreign innnigration. Incomes are generally lower than the metropolitan

average, the population is older with lower average levels of edu­

cation, and a higher proportion is foreign born. Also, unemployment

and crime rates tend to be higher, and the housing stock shows a

higher proportion of tenant-occupied units, apartments and higher

levels of overcrowding.

The inner city-suburban differences often are not large, nor

are the problems of the inner city as yet severe, but both are pre­

sent. Ironically, the inner city income differential; in Toronto

(0.85) and Melbourne (0.91) are in line with those cited for

American cities in Table 2. Yet in both cases the inner cities

have remained relatively healthy and generally pleasant places to

live (Maher, 1978). The question is why have some inner cities

- 29 -

declined and others such as Toronto and Melbourne, or Boston and

San Francisco, have not? Is it simply a matter of the age or

timing of development: that Toronto or Melbourne will age and

follow Cleveland and Newark into decline? Or do these cities

have unique characteristics which maintain the strength of their

central areas? In the next two sections we examine these questions

in more detail.

- 30 -

4. WHY THE DECLINE OF THE INNER CITY?

Given the widespread interest in those inner cities which are

declining it seems appropriate to attempt to isolate those factors

which have been cited uo account for the decline. The diffi-

culty here is not, as Leven and Mark (1977) note, that there are

too few hypotheses but that there are too many. Everyone has their

own list of "causes", their own theory of decline. Each may have

some value in reference to particular cities at certain times, but

none are universal. A conventional listing of the causes of, or

factors encouraging, inner city decline would be a lengthy and ted­

ious exercise. Instead we might develop the various arguments that

have been put forward as hypotheses of inner city decline. Specific

factors will then emerge from each of these hypotheses.

1. The "Natural" Evolution Hypothesis

This cluster of ideas derives largely from the literature of

human ecology. This view, typified by the early work of Burgess

and the Chicago school of urban ecology, sees the inner city as

the natural point of entry into the city for immigrants and other

disadvantaged groups. These groups tend to occupy older areas and

inexpensive housing near the commercial core abandoned by higher

income groups who had moved to the growing suburbs. Inevitably,

the ghetto, and the transition zone of mixed land uses around the

core, expand at the expense of immediately adjacent residential

- 31 -

areas located further out. This is the process of ecological suc­

cession, with the spatial result being an urban area stratified

into concentric zones of increasing social status outward from the

city center.

The driving factor in this model is the growth of the city's

population through in-migration, particularly of ethnically differ-

ent populations, and the corresponding geographic expansion of the

C.B.D., through economic growth. The means by which this growth

becomes translated into spatial terms is through competition among

land uses for space and the filtering down of older housing from

high to low income groups. As the city grows the spatial segre-

gation of land uses and social groups increases. The sequent oc­

cupance of different concentric rings by socially or ethnically distinct

groups then appears to be an inevitable response to growth and to

structural changes within the city.

The impression is one of a "mechanistic" or "natural" evolution

of the urban structure, not unlike that of biological communities.

The older inner parts of the city become the depositories for those

unable to compete and those newly arrived. As we now know there

is little about this process which is in fact "natural" or predeter­

mined. It assumes rapid urban growth, in-migration, an industrial economy

and the relative absence of planning. In other words, it reproduces

the City of Chicago. To some critics this approach is, in effect, both an

- 32 -

intellectual and perhaps an ideological straight-jacket (Castells,

1977). It is devoid of any consideration of social organization

or politics or psychological attitudes. It ignores the variety

of other forces which can lead to decentralization and the segre­

gation of land uses and social groups, and to inner city decline

or revitalization. The decline of older neighborhoods is not, as

Guest (1977) argues, inevitable even with segregation.

2. Preferences and Income: The ''Pull" Hypothesis

This approach, based largely on microeconomic (and neoclassi­

cal) models of urban structure, sees the declining inner city as

the logical consequence of the working-out of preferences and

tastes in the market for urban land and housing. People, as well

as industries, have chosen not to remain in the inner city, or at

least have shown a preference for living in suburban areas, despite

the higher costs of commuting to work. As locational preferences

shift away from the inner city, and the demand for housing declines,

then housing will deteriorate and abandonment will spread. The

argument is that people are willing to move to the suburbs because

their preferences for new housing, larger lots, lower densities, three

cars or other amenities, outweigh the costs and inconvenience of

commuting. In other words, the elasticities of demand for suburban

housing services are higher than for older housing, and commuting

- 33 -

becomes an inferior good. The result is that people are "pulled"

to the suburbs and away from the central city.

The underlying social premises in this argument are weak for

a number of reasons. First, the fact that households, and industries,

have moved to the suburbs in large numbers in the past does not

necessarily mean that this reflects their preferences. It may, but

it also may reflect constraints on the choice of a residential location.

Not everyone has a choice in housing between the inner city and the

suburb, either because of their low income, race or physical immo­

bility, or through exclusionary zoning in the suburbs. Third, a

strict focus on preferences ignores those factors (or disamenities)

cited above which act to push residents out of the inner city - such

as high taxes, poor services, crime and pollution. Moreover, since

the journey-to-work is now no longer for suburban residents in many

cities than for central city residents, the hypothesis of a trade-

off between housing and commuting costs as an explanation of sub-

urban growth is now open to serious question.

Finally, the micro-economic approach ignores the direct role

of institutions and government in designing the structure of the inner

city. It assumes the free hand of a competitive market, while in

fact that market is heavily constrained by public bodies, regulations

and social attitudes.

- 34 -

Perhaps the single most important factor facilitating the

realization of this preference for suburban locations has been the

rapid growth of personal income. Here the evidence is reasonably

clear. Throughout most of the 1950's and 1960's incomes in North

America increased faster than housing costs. People were able to

consume more housing, in terms of size or quality of service pro­

vided. Units of lower quality could be exchanged for higher qual­

ity units. Higher income, however, does not explain why increases

in quality were made largely by relocation rather than by improving

the existing units. Nor does it explain why the units selected in

relocation tended to be in the suburbs rather than in the older

central city.

The explanation comes in part from what Berry (1975) calls the

cultural predispositions of Americans and the social bases of urban­

ization in the United States. He refers to the tendency for Amer­

icans to prefer the new over the old, private over public places,

low density over high density and mobility over stability. The

former are all characteristics of the suburbs. While most of these

are still true, although there has been a rapid convergence between

central city and suburb in terms of indices such as density, they

in turn do not explain why some inner cities are declining in pop­

ulation much faster than others within the U.S., and why extensive

decentralization is taking place in other countries which purport­

edly do not have these same value systems. We must therefore look

for additional reasons.

- 35 -

3. Jhe Obsolescence Hypothesis

Related to the argument on preferences is the assertion that

the built environment and social infrastructure of the inner city

have become obsolescent. Obsolescence can take several forms:

1) functional, in which the existing structure, such as a port

facility, is no longer economically usable because of design, lo-

cation or demand; 2) physical, in which the structure is now simply

uninhabitable; and 3) social, where preferences have changed to

the extent that the structure is no longer in demand.

A typical view of this source of the problems of the inner

city is summarized in the following quotation:

"The root difficulty of the older urban regions ... is a secular one. They.ere built at too high population densities, with too much vertical and inefficient factory space to be fully competitive either in the eyes of to-day's housing consumers or today's business producers (George B. Peterson, quoted in Reigeluth, 1977, p. 550).

There is considerable validity to the technological (physical

and functional) obsolescence argument in this hypothesis. The

inner city is generally older, and as our earlier process-based

definition suggested, is continually subjected to the pressures of

aging. Nonetheless, aging need not implyobsolescenc~ except in

the impact of technological change on industrial buildings and or-

ganizations. Social obsolescence on the other hand requires a change

- 36 -

in preferences or a change in policies which alter the choices avail­

able for consumers. High densities, for example, are relative not

absolute. They are only high in comparison to some other areas,

among which there is a choice. Obsolescence then is an important

factor, but it is largely socially-defined.

4. The "Unintended" Policy Hypothesis

One variant of an approach which emphasizes the important role

of the public sector in shaping our urban areas is to view the de­

clining inner city as the indirect and largely unintended result

of a set of non-urban policies. These policies were designed to

achieve other results and objectives, such as transportation im­

provements, but when combined have had the side-effect of creating

or accelerating many of the traditional inner city problems. It

is in this sense that we speak of a "hidden or unintended urban policy"

which has designed the decline of the central city.

In the U.S., for example, one can identify a long list of pol­

icies whose side-effects have been particularly severe on the inner

city. Among these are the agricultural and rural land banking acts

of the 1930's and 1940's, which were intended to make agriculture

more efficient and stable, but also resulted in the dumping of a

large number of rural migrants on the central cities. These cities

were for the most part unprepared to receive these migrants, and

of course agricultural policies were not directly concerned with

the destinations of the labor force they displaced.

- 37 -

Perhaps the two most significant post-war policies affecting

the inner city are those on housing and on transportation, notably

highway improvements. The former policies accelerated the con­

struction of new, owner-occupied housing in suburban areas, through

such means as the provision of inexpensive mortgages, tax benefits

and subsidized services. Initially intended for returning war

veterans, these programs were gradually expanded to include a much

larger proportion of the growing middle class. Although the ob­

jectives of these programs seemed laudatory at the time, their net

effect, when combined with unfavorable tax treatment on improve­

ments to older housing, was to seriously undercut the demand for

existing housing units. This in turn reduced the incentive to

maintain the older housing stock in the inner city. At the same

time financing for older housing was costly and restricted (Stegman,

1973; Harvey, 1975).

In the transportation field, the national highway planning act

had two mutually re-enforcing consequences. It lead to the con­

struction of an extensive network of interstate and intraurban

"freeways", which vastly improved the accessibility of outlying

suburban areas as places for living and working. In doing so, how­

ever, it encouraged decentralization and reduced the relative lo­

cational advantages of the inner city. Moreover, the financing

- 38 -

of the highway system diverted public funds which might otherwise

might have gone into public transit maintenance and the financing

of new transit construction, further depressing the attractiveness

of the inner city. Similarly, federal regulatory policies have

favored truck transportation over rai~ further encouraging decentral­

ization. Second, the construction of the highway network itself

had a direct effect: it destroyed vast areas of the inner city.

It removed social infrastructure, or paved it over, reduced the tax

base, depressed land values and ruined the environmental quality

of many inner city neighborhoods. Had these consequences been

more fully anticipated at the time, it is unlikely ~hat the intra­

urban portion of the interstate highway system would have been

built in the same way or to the same extent.

Numerous other government policies with similar but perhaps not

as dramatic negative effects could be cited. Among those are tax

policies which discourage reinvestment in older, smaller businesses

and in the existingbuildingstock; national defense and treasury

policies which favor high technology industries over high employ­

ment industries, where the latter are often located in the inner

city; the fight against inflation and the rising costs of public

services; immigration policies which do not provide services for

- 39 -

new immigrants; and the restrictive policies of financial insti-

tutions in lending to inner city properties and households.

Tax policies have been particularly injurious to older central

cities, especially the larger ones. A recent report of the Urban

Institute (1977) concludes that federal tax provisions have:

1) favored low density sprawl over compact development, thus accelerating decentralization

2) favored the construction of single-family owner-occupied housing over rental and multi-family housing

3) favored the development of new commercial, industrial and residential buildings over the maintenance of older capital stocks

4) tilted the terms of economic competition towards the sub­urbs and against the older central cities

5) favored investment in new housing over other types of in­vestments

It is difficult to quantify these effects as such, but there

is no doubt of their serious negative impacts on the inner city.

These negative consequences have not been counter-balanced, in the

opinion of most observers, by government initiatives in the central

cities. Only recently has research begun to explore the impact of

this ''mesh" of non-urban policies on older urban areas (see Adams,

1976; Urban Institute, 1977; Rand Corporation, 1977). As this evi-

dence accumulates the strength of the unintended policy hypothesis

will no doubt increase.

- 40 -

5. The Exploitation Hypothesis: Power, Capitalism and the Political Economy of Urbanization

Another line of argument based on the role of institutions in

the inner city may be called the exploitation hypothesis (Edel,

1972). The literature in this area seems to show two avenues of

concern. One examines power relationships within urban areas and

specifically who makes decisions which influence the inner city

(Shank, 1976; Pahl, 1977). The second approach views inner city

decline as the inevitable consequence of systematic exploitation

under a capitalist system (Harvey, 1977; Gordon, 1977; Castells, 1977).

The two are often so intertwined that their separation becomes diffi-

cult.

The first hypothesis sees inner city decline as the result of

an imbalance of power in decision-making. This imbalance occurs

between central city and suburb, as well as among social groups and

business interests. The city is "manipulated" to suit the needs

of particular interest groups (Harrison, 1974; Gale and Moore, 1975;

Alcaly and Mermelstein, 1977). The city is designed from outside.

Thus, as Boulding (1968) notes:

"everyone knows that the problem with central cities is that decisions made on their behalf are not made by people who live there nor in fact have many of them ever been there, except passing through".

- 41 -

In the politically fragmented American metropolitan area, in which

the central city contains by far the largest deposit of the socially

disadvantaged and economically-weak, it is not surprising that pol­

itical power rests elsewhere.

In some instances the arguments go beyond the lack of power

by attempting to identify a "conscious plot" on the part of some

sectors of society to undermine the economic base, community struc­

ture and environment of inner city areas. It is difficult to identify

the culprits and the form of the plot, but selected examples can

be cited. Some landowners, real estate agents and speculators at­

tempt to drive down the price of land and housing so as to buy cheap

and sell later at much higher prices for private or public renewal.

The automobile companies, historically, benefitted enormously by the

decline of urban transit systems, most of which were located in· the

inner city. Some municipalities benefit by the deterioration of

the business climate in a competing city. And some businesses of

course benefit by altering the geography of market areas within and

between cities. Some others argue that the plot, at least in U.S.

cities, is based on racism.

Others criticize the role of public institutions and agencies.

Financial institutions, notably building societies and residential

mortgage lending institutions have in their allocation of loans also

discriminated against older inner city housing and ethnic neighborhoods

- 42 -

(Williams, 1976; Boddy, 1976; Harvey, 1977). However, recent e.vi­

dence tends to refute this hypothesis, better known as "redlining",

at least with regard to F.H.A. lending policies among black and white

neighborhoods, although there is still a bias against older housing

(MacRae and Struyk, 1977), and the poor.

Generally, however, these arguments blend into the approach

which in geography and economics is now called the "political

economy of urbanization" (Harvey, 1975; Harloe, 1977; Broadbent,

1977). In its broadest sense this hypothesis states that the mas­

sive urban concentration which took place in the 1950's, and metro­

politan decline of the 1970's, are the social and spatial outcomes

of the operation of an economic system which encourages, if not

necessitates, the under-employment of certain people and regions.

Large cities were created by the economic system in order to secure

the economies of agglomeration. Now that those economies are of

decreasing importance the industrial city is being abandoned. The

inner city, in this context, becomes one of the spatial and social

scrap heaps of modern capitalism.

The specific reasons why capitalism now seems to encourage the

running-down of the inner city is that the private sector can make

more profits elsewhere, usually where short-run private costs are

lower. But what is wrong with that? This approach argues that it

- 43 -

is wrong precisely because the private sector receives most of the

profits, but does not bear its fair share of social costs. These

costs relate to structural change in the economy, to job retraining

and industry relocation, and to the rebuilding of worn-out urban areas.

These areas provided the infrastructure and human resources on

which earlier private profits where made. Inner city problems then

become not failures of the market, as the micro-economic approach

suggests, but the result of the competitive market itself (Inner

City Working Group, 1977).

This approach explicitly raises the question of who benefits

from and who pays for uncontrolled economic change and urban growth.

The argument is that private land owners, business and financial

institutions are the major beneficaries of inner city decline, a1ded

by governments which are dominated by property and business inter­

ests. The costs are borne, in general, by society as a whole, through

its tax base, and by individual members of the society who are trapped

by such changes in declining regions or inner cities.

6. The Structural Change Hypothesis

The term structural is used here in the general sense of aggre­

gate or macro changes in the national space economy and in demo­

graphic structure. The basic argument is that the national space­

economy, the integrated urban-industrial complex and its appended

institutions, has shifted in structure in recent years to the detri­

ment of particular inner city areas. No one is to blame, just the

system and exogeneous events beyond our control. Of course the

- 44 -

inner city has always borne the brunt of excessive swings in the

national economy, as well as of changes in political attitudes

and in public policy. The spatial impact of such national shifts

is almost always uneven. Some regions gain others lose.

Numerous examples could be cited to sustain this line of argu­

ment. Recent declines in manufacturing employment in most western

countries, due to investment uncertainty, technological obsolescence,

reduced consumer demand and low-cost international competition, have

been felt most severely in the older industrial districts (Sternlieb

and Hughes, 1975; Chinitz and Jacob, 1977). Many of these districts

are in the inner city. In the U.S. many industries in the older

industrial districts in the north-east and north-central regions

have moved to, or expanded into, cheaper locations in the west and

south, or even outside the country. New foreign plants have followed

suit. Interestingly this decline does not appear to be related to

size of city (Chinitz and Jacob, 1977). Thus, one interpretation is

that a new version of the familiar process of interregional competi­

tion is now being waged with the industrial inner cities of the

north as the new victim.

In the U.K., industries have also moved out of the inner city,

but in London at least more jobs have been lost through plant clos­

ings than through relocation (Gripaios, 1977). A stagnant indust­

rial sector nationally, and resulting attempts at "rationalizing"

(which means concentrating) the ownership and location of

- 45 -

remaining industries, have meant massive changes in British inner

cities (Massey, 1976). Ironically the British government's regional

policy during the 19SO's and 1960 1s, which sought to encourage the

decentralization of population into new towns and of industry from

the major centers into depressed regions, clearly has contributed

to inner city decline (Hall, 1977).

Other national structural changes have had similarly severe

impacts on the inner city. One is the recent and dramatic change

in demographic structure and the shift in migration patterns. Not

only have population growth rates slowed, but family and household

size have declined sharply during the late 1960's and early 1970's.

If the inner city is typically an area of low fertility, and high

turnover and out-migration, with the resident population replaced

by in-migrants from outside the urban area (or outside the country),

then it is the first to feel the effects of slower population growth

and lower rates of foreign immigration. Decreases in family size

have of course "thinned-out" the population of almost all residential

neighborhoods in the city, but again the initial effect was felt

in the inner city where the population base was already thinning

through continued out-migration.

In the U.K., where out-migration has been accelerated by public

programs to relocate the resident populations in new towns outside

the urban area, and to demolish the older housing, the impact has

- 46 -

been devastating. The decline in population growth has left vast

wastelands of cleared land for which there is no innnediate use in

cities such as Liverpool and Birmingham (Stone, 1977).

At the same time interregional migration patterns in the U.S.,

and the U.K., as in most western countries, have shifted away from

their traditional orientation to the major metropolitan areas to­

ward smaller urban centers even rural areas (Tucker, 1976). Most

of the largest metropolitan areas (SMSA's) in the U.S. now have

very large negative migration balances (Morrison, 1976). In fact,

fully one-seventh of all SMSA's declined in population between

1970 and 1975. The inner cities, as noted above, which have tradi­

tionally replaced at least part of their population through in­

migration have been hit first and hardest.

7. The Fiscal Crisis and the Underclass Hypothesis

A subsidiary hypothesis on inner city decline emphasizes the

increasing financial difficulties of the central cities, on which

there is now a rapidly growing literature (Advisory Connuission on

Intergovernmental Relations, 1973; Nathan and Adams, 1976; Carey,

1976; Gorham and Clazer, 1976; Hill, 1976; Alcaly and Mermelstein,

1977). Basically the argument is that the declining resource base

(in people and jobs) and rising costs of providing services in U.S.

central cities have discouraged investment in capital stocks and

- 47 -

stimulated the out-migration of households and firms. As out­

migration continues, balancing the municipality's financial books

becomesmore and more difficult. Taxes rise and services are with­

drawn, further stimulating out-migration in the classic model of

circular and cumulative causation. New York's current crisis may

be a prototype of the future.

One specific reason given for the crisis is the highly politi­

cally fragmented American metropolis. In this setting the central

city.is burdened with much of society's social debts, including the

operating costs and consequences of numerous federal programs, but

less of society's total revenues. This produces sharp inequalities

between city and suburb and even among the latter. There is now,

as shown in Table 2, ample evidence of the existence and the extent

of these inequalities (Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Re­

lations, 1965 and 1977; Hill, 1974; Masters, 1975; Coates, et al.,

1976).

Those households with lower income left in the central city,

the 'underclass',are caught between rapidly rising costs and taxes

and static or slowly declining real incomes (Eversley, 1972;

Lineberry, 1975). In part rising costs are directly reflected in

property truces and in user charges for public services, but these

are generally considered to be regressive in that they penalize

inner city and rental housing units, and thus the poor. Although

- 48 -

the debate on the "regressive" nature of property taxes and public

services is still continuing, there is little doubt of their nega­

tive ~mpact on the older parts of the central city.

More generally, the fiscal crisis of central cities is seen

as part of the continuing financial crisis of government in western

societies (Hill, 1976), but it also has a specific geographic di­

mension. A common argument is that the near bankruptcy of central

cities is due in part to the absence of a metropolitan government

structure which would spread both costs and revenues more evenly

over the urban area. This is true to an extent, at least if one

looks at the financial situation of urban areas which have metro­

wide tax sharing (i.e. Toronto) or area-wide-services (i.e. Minnea­

polis) or those that do not have restricted central city political

unit (i.e. Houston). But it does ignore the difficulties faced by

all local government units because of the imbalance between services

provided or demanded, and revenue sources available. The latter

is again compounded in the inner city by a declining population and

employment base.

8. The Black Inner City in Cultural Isolation: The Conflict Hypothesis

Perhaps the prevailing characteristic of American inner cities,

particularly those which are now in economic difficulty, is that

their populations are made up increasingly of minority groups, notably

- 49 -

blacks. The extent of segregation in American society and in its

cities is a fundamental consideration in understanding the state

of the inner cities (Becker, 1971; von Furstenberg, et al., 1974).

The inner cities are simply the most recent geographical expression

of the segregation process, and a reflection of cultural isolation

and polarization.

The inner city when viewed in this context becomes the fron­

tier, a cultural "outpost" well removed from the mainstream of

American urban life (Rose, 1972; Edel, 1972; Bunge and Bordessa,

1975; Downs, 1976; Castells, 1977). External cultural conflict with

the larger white society, and uncertainty, disorganization and con­

flict within, are the basic parameters of life in the inner city

(Wolpert, Mumphrey and Seley, 1972). Ley (1974) acknowledges the

wide divergence between society's perception of the black community

as beseiged and monolithic (thus the outpost terminology) and the

reality of disunity within that community. Benge and Bordessa (1975)

liken the cultural distance between the increasingly black inner

city and the white suburbs to that between white (and imperialist)

America and the Third World. Not only is the black inner city cul­

turally isolated, it also suffers from many of the problems common

to frontier regions: high disease and death rates, inadequate

social services, economic uncertainty and exploitation by a distant

(in cultural not physical terms) elite.

/

- 50 -

There are at least two principal implications of this thesis

for the present study. One is related to our previous hypothesis

of the declining inner city as the result of systematic exploitation

and the isolation of minority racial groups. The second is the

distorted image of the black inner city h~ld by white suburban

America. This image in. turn has contributed to the further decline

of the inner city, the segregation of an important social group,

and to the repulsion of blacks from white areas and whites from

black areas. The latter no doubt encouraged the massive out-migration

of white Americans to the suburbs during the 1960's; at a rate

which exceeded that of any previous decade (Reid, 1977). Although

the importance of this "repulsion" effect is perhaps not as over­

whelming as the literature has lead us to expect (Leven and Mark,

1977), its imprint is still readily apparent.

An additional implication of this line of argument is that

current urban policies directed toward an improvement of the inner

city through physical rejuvenation are likely to be ineffective.

If images, and prejudice, play such a large role in isolating the

inner city, then cosmetic solutions will be insufficient.

Ironically, Bunge and Bordessa (1975) and Harvey (1977) come

to this same conclusion, as does Banfield in his controversial book "The

Unheavenly City" (1974), although the latter starts from a very dif­

ferent perspective. Both groups agree on the importance of social

class and racial conflict in shaping current inner city problems,

- 51 -

but they disagree on both the origin of the conflict and its solu-

tion. For the former the conflict derives from exploitation of one

class by another; for the latter it means that one social class

(the middle-class and elite) is simply better able to take advantage "~·----

of opportunities. Other classes are simply left behind in the com-

petition.

Summary: Which Hypothesis of Decline is Correct?

Although each of these hypotheses of inner city decline has

validity, none is correct in that it applies consistently to all

of the areas studied. The point to stress here is that the relative

importance of each factor varies between cities and over time.

Similarly, the balance between external and internal pressures

will also vary. Each factor must be studied in its appropriate

social and geographic context.

Perhaps the most convenient form of summary is to identify

those factors which act to push people and businesses out of the

inner city, and those acting as attractors to the suburbs or which

encourage business and households to pull out of the inner city.

For convenience these factors are smnmarized in tabular form below

(Table 5). No priority is intended by the ranking; nor do we need

to discuss each factor at this point. Although we cannot attach

- 52 -

TABLE 5: PUSH-PULL FACTORS IN INNER CITY-SUBURBAN COMPETITION*

Criteria Push Factors (from inner city)

Population base declining

Environmental quality deteriorating inner city

Jobs declining

Racial balance increasingly black or ethnic

Densities high

Initial construction often poor

Infrastructure aging

Housing stock old, often deteriorating

Income level decreasing

Financing (mortgage) restricted/expensive

Property taxes high

Pollution levels high

Social services/schools deteriorating

Highways destructive

Crime high and obvious

Industrial capital obsolescent

Land \lse competition severe

Redevelopment extensive (or threat of)

Public covenants building code enforcement/ fire regulations

Pull Factor (in suburbs)

growing

suburban amenities

growing

homogeneous and white

low

more recent/subject to tighter controls

incomplete but new

new

increasing

abundant/inexpensive

lower, but increasing

lower

new

improved accessibility

high, but less obvious

new

limited

minimal

some times relaxed, but buildings new

*These factors emphasize the problems faced by inner city areas, particularly those in American cities.

- 53 -

weights to these factors, it is clear that not only have economic

and social pressures been working against the inner city, but that

government policies seem to have increased rather than lessened

these pressures.

The iµterested reader might well ask: if the suburbs have

all of these attractions, why not encourage more suburban develop-

ment? One direct answer is that much of the suburban phenomenon

of the post-war period took place at the expense of, rather than

in a complementary fashion to, the older central city. The massive

scale, low densities and relatively low costs of suburban housing

construction were made possible to an extent precisely because

resources were removed from the central city. Moreover, suburban

municipalities were able to avoid paying their share of the costs

of providing services for the full range of social needs, and of

maintaining the central cities where most of them worked. Nor did

they pay their share of the social costs of pollution, industrial

obsolescence and segregation, because these were located in another

jurisdiction. And through exclusionary zoning they were able to

preserve amenities by restricting the access of others to suburban

3 living.

Ironically much of the initial low cost and attractiveness of

suburban sprawl has turned out to be short term. Servicing costs

are now rising rapidly in suburban areas and property taxes have

- 54 -

virtually exploded. The future promises more of the same. As the

need to replace or extend public services in these low-density

suburbs increases, and as the cost of energy and the difficulties

of commuting rise and when the social costs of underpopulated inner

cities begin to appear in government expenditures, then perhaps

the real long-run costs will be visible. At that time the social

value of land, housing and location in the inner city may be better

appreciated.

- 55 -

5. BACK TO THE CITY: IS THE INNER CITY REVIVING?

Despite the emphasis on decline in the preceding section it

is premature to talk of the demise of the inner city. Even in the

battered inner cities in the industrial northeast of the U.S. there

are signs of revival. Almost daily our newspapers carry articles

on the revitalization, primarily through private means, of an inner

city neighborhood. How common is this process? Why and where does

it happen? Does it involve people already living in the city, or

is there in fact a movement of population back into the city? Is

this the mechanism which will save the inner city? Or is the pro-

cess so small, short term and sporadic as to have only a minimal

effect on the quality of inner city life?

Although there is increasingly widespread interest in this pro-

cess, empirical evidence on recent trends is very thin. There al-

ways has been some movement of upper and middle income groups into the

inner city. Often, but nct:necessarily, these movements have been

into formerly low-income areas: a process known by such euphemisms

as "gentrification" in the U .K. and Australia, ''white painting"

in Canada, and as neighborhood "revitalization" and c01mnunity con-

servation in the U.S. Some cities have never been without such

activity. However, what does seem unusual about the trend of the

- 56 -

1970's, at least in American cities, is that the numbers involved

now appear to be larger than in the past and that the location and

character of the areas undergoing revitalization are different.

The data that do exist for U.S. cities (Stegman, 1973; Goldstein

and Davis, 1977; James, 1977a, 1977b, 1977c) suggest that there has

been considerable re-investment in the existing housing stock in

general, much of it in areas of the inner city which previously had

been deteriorating. In addition, there has been some growth in the

proportion of residents with high income (or professional occupations),

both within or adjacent to the C.B.D. and at other locations in the

central city. These trends, however, as Lipton (1977) shows, are

restricted to a few cities. Figure 6 demonstrates the wide variabil­

ity in location and growth (or decline) of high income areas in the

U.S. inner city between 1960 and 1970. In some inner cities the

high income areas have continued to decline and to shift outward

(Atlanta) while in others they have expanded (Chicago, Houston);

in still others they are now almost non-existent (Baltimore and

Newark). The association between high income and housing stock

revitalization is of course tenuous. But areas which record

relative increases in income are also likely to show corresponding

improvements in housing quality and public services.

Those cities most likely to show substantial housing stock

reinvestment, and the maintenance or expansion of existing middle and

high-income areas, are those with: 1) primarily government or

1970

1960

I' /

·-' I ~ .. ,

I

,. / __ f

i..'i

Atlanta

Newark

- 57 ------~----·

Baltimore

AREAS WITH AIOVE MEDIAN EDUCATION & INCOME

0

LEGEND

Boston

\ TWO Mllf RADIUS FROM CENTRAL IUSINESS DISTRICT

"1wo MILES/ mop• by I. o!>d c. ogrot~y

Figure 6: Changing Areas of Above Average Income and Educational Levels, 1960-70, Selected Cities

(After Lipton, 1977).

'II

Chicago

Houston

- 58 -

service-based economies, 2) strong downtown office concentrations,

3) areas of historical, cultural or architectural significance,

4) a relative absence of racial conflict, 5) natural environmental

amenities, and 6) viable public transit systems. These attributes

act to maintain the relative attractiveness of the central city.

It also helps if there is somewhat restricted access to new housing

and jobs in suburban areas, either because of the distances and costs

involved in commuting or topographic barriers. New York, Boston,

Washington and San Francisco are obvious examples of American cities

with these attributes; Toronto, Vancouver, Melbourne, Sydney and

London are other examples.

Another index of the rate and timing of revitalization used

by James (1977c), is the relation of average prices for owner­

occupied housing, and rents for tenant-occupied housing, between

central city and suburb (Table 6). Average housing prices and

rents in central cities lagged behind those in the suburbs in the

1950's and 1960's. The differential then began to drop between 1970

and 1973. In 1973-75 the differential was reversed: housing prices

and rents increased at a faster rate in.the central city. This

shift is directly reflected in the marked increase in building

permits for improvements on existing housing units since 1973, in

relation to the total number of new urban housing starts. Figure 7

demonstrates this relationship for Washington, D.C. and Atlanta,

Georgia between 1967 and 1976. Clearly improvements to the existing

stock are counter-cyclical: they rise when new construction declines.

- 59 -

TABLE 6: TRENDS IN MEDIAN RENTS AND AVERAGE PRICE OF HOUSING IN U.S. CENTRAL CITIES AND SUBURBS, 1950-1975

(in percentages)

Owner-Occupied Units Rental Units

Area 1950-60 1970-73 1973-75 1970-73 1973-75

Suburbs 50.1 41.8 19.8 24.6 13.7

Central 33.0 36.0 20.7 22.4 15.7 Cities

Source: Adapted from James 1977c and U.S. Bureau of the Census, Metro­politan Housing Characteristics, Washington, D.C., 1976.

The reasons for this reversal of recent building and price

trends are many and varied. First, there is the importance attached

to particular cities as places to live, noted above. Second, a

number of social and structural changes have also taken place.

The dramatic shift in demographic structure toward smaller families,

fewer children and non-family households, as Kern (1977) argues,

has reduced the attractiveness of larger suburban houses which tend

to have more bedrooms and outside play space for children. More-

over, housing suitable for non-family households, and unattached

individuals, is less readily available in the suburbs than in the

central city. Similarly, the rise in female labor force participa-

tion, and therefore in two-income households has somewhat restricted

the choices in residential location open to those households because

of their joint commuting difficulties. The central city, with a.

60

50

40

20

10

\ \

\ \

- 60 -

greater diversity of jobs and variable modes of transport, thus be-

comes more attractive. At the same time energy costs are beginning

to influence the willingness of households to undertake long dis-

tance connnuting from the suburbs to the inner city. This too would

encourage central city workers to live nearer their jobs. 4

ATLANTA

~--

••••

' \ '

itiASlllNGTON, D.C.

~ HUllber of auilding Penait• for llome lmprove...,nta in the City

••••••Annual lloual.ng Start• in th• Metropolitan Area

( lo h~dr~., • • • • • • • • • • • • . .. . . .. . _,. ·.

1967

' . . .. . . . ,___ .. ·· . . ·. --- ..... --- ...... · .· . . ·. ........ , . . · .. ~

• I

. I

"/ I

I

(:ln tboueande) •. •

• • • • • • • "' ·. ... ___ ./

..... . / . ' ·r -..

1968 1969 1970 1971 'Oil

1972

"" / . . ··... . . . ··.. ..······ . . . • • • • •. :·: .....

1973 1974 15175 1976

Figure 7: The Relationship between New Construction and Improvements to the Existing Housing Stock, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. (after James, 1977c).

- 61 -

It may also be argued that the recent inflation in housing

prices and costs has curtailed the ability of young families to

purchase housing. This in turn has restricted the demand for new

suburban owner-occupied housing (Struyk, 1976). More explicitly,

James (1977c) argues that the recent revitalization of older hous-

ing and inner city neighborhoods is directly related to the collapse

of new housing construction between 1974 and 1976. This argument

emphasizes the point made earlier in this paper in reverse: that

policies which encouraged the massive construction of suburban hous-

ing have been a major factor in the deterioration and abandonment

fi . h . 5 o nner city ousing.

Whether this modest improvement in inner city housing, and

the relative increase in middle and upper income households, is a

short term or long term movement is uncertain. The process is by

all accounts not yet substantial overall. Nor will it likely be-

come so, except in a very few cities, at least without significant

changes in housing and taxation policies. Fortunately there are

signs that the pendulum of housing policy is beginning to shift

back toward an emphasis on preserving the older stock.

There is also insufficient evidence to conclude that the American

inner city is being extensively revitalized. Granted revitalization

is happening, even in cities with t;1e worst image, such as Detroit.

But as yet it tends to be limited in scope and impact. Nor is there

much evidence that this process is a function of a back-to-the-city

movement. The majority of households involved in revitalizing inner

- 62 -

city neighborhoods have not come from the suburbs. They are pri­

marily in-migrants from outside the urban area or central city

residents who have not moved out. As Lipton (1977) found this

tendency was greatest in cities with high proportions of service

and professional occupations and in those in which commuting dis­

tances from the suburbs are long. Whether the increasing costs

associated with suburban living noted above will lead to a substan­

tial back-to-the-city movement in the future is impossible to

predict; hut the signs are good.

If, on the other hand, the rate of new housing construction

improves, as it has done during 1977, particularly in terms of

single-family units in the suburbs, then the demand for housing in

the inner city could again decline. The dilemma for policy makers

faced with high unemployment levels, if the above argument holds

true, is that any stimulus to the construction industry which favors

suburban housing will take away some of the incentive for revital­

izing inner city housing. Similarily many suburban municipalities

have vacant serviced lots which they want developed for tax pur­

poses. These pressures are likely to increase as population growth

rates decline.

- 63 -

6. CONCLUSIONS AND A LOOK AHEAD

This paper has attempted to demonstrate the immense diversity

of inner city areas. It has been argued that there is no single

concept or geographical definition of the inner city; nor a uni­

versal set of characteristics which apply to all inner cities even

in the same country. The term itself has become so clouded, often

with overtones of racial or ethnic prejudice, that it can serve

little purpose as an analytical construct without a formal redefin­

ition in reference to specific processes or policy issues. By

emphasizing diversity we are implying that any definition of the

inner city must be directed to real problems not at some blanket

statement of the "inner city crisis". Moreover, we must ask:

whose crisis is it? Who suffers and who gains?

This is not to say that the inner city, however defined, is

not important. Indeed the older inner areas of most cities have

serious problems, and these areas are emerging as one of the most

difficult dilemmas facing urban policy makers in the 1980's. Some

cities in the U.S. and U.K. have already reached the stage of rapid

decline (U.S. House of Representatives, 1977; U.K. Department of

the Environment, 1977); and cities elsewhere, such as western Europe,

Canada and Australia, are beginning to show similar trends (Reigeluth,

1977). Whether these cities follow the same path as those industrial

centers in the U.S. and the U.K. is impossible to predict.

- 64 -

Our images of the future of the inner city are shaped by the

publicity given to extreme events. We have all seen pictures of

abandoned housing in the Bronx being put to the torch; of relative­

ly new housing estates in Britain vandalized and boarded up; of the

sordid world of the movie Taxi Driver; of riots and the destruction

of vast areas of Detroit and Los Angeles. However critical these

problems are, the only properties that these inner cities have in

common with most others, as noted at the outset of this paper,

are that they tend to have older infrastructure, declining popula­

tions and densities, and that they are continually subjected to

stress through obsolescence, land use competition or rapid social

change. Even these characteristics do not apply equally to all

cities: to those with historic or cultural centers and those re­

built after war-time destruction.

Overlaying these processes in many American centers, and in­

creasingly in other countries, are the imprints of social and racial

segregation, poverty, crime, unemployment and pollution. Yet the

latter are largely national problems, emanating from the social

fabric, cultural predispositions, the economic organization of

society and the unequal distribution of wealth generally. These

problems may be concentrated in the inner city, and perhaps are

made worse by being there, but they are not problems of the city.

Consequently, they cannot be solved by urban planning alone.

- 65 -

On a more specific level we have seen that the image of a de­

clining inner city is also not universally applicable. It is

particularly evident in those older or mature industrial centers

in the U.S. and the U.K. which historically never had a strong

central focus, where employment has declined and racial tension

has increased and in which inner city neighborhoods were often

speculative and poorly-built in the first instance. These problems

are also not restricted to the largest cities. Although the large

city has been the focus of this paper, and of much of the litera­

ture, it should not be overlooked that many smaller cities have

the same difficulties, often without the counter-balancing attrac­

tions of central city locations as places for living or working or

the difficulties of commuting from suburban areas.

Nor is there a single theory of inner city growth, decline or

renewal which is universally applicable, even among industrial

cities. A mix of conditions which in one city may lead to decline,

in other cities does not. In some cities a racially and ethnically

mixed population may lead to tension and segregation and to an

"escape-from-the-cityn movement, while in other cities it creates

a pleasant heterogeneity. In some cities low-income neighborhoods

are stable; in others they are not. Moreover, some observers view

these problems as reflecting a failure of the competitive market

mechanism; others argue the reverse: that they derive from the ef­

ficient operation of that mechanism (Inner City Working Group, 1977).

Depending on which view one subscribes to, the policy implications

will be very different.

- 66 -

Similarly each city has its own unique set of factors con­

tributing to inner city residential stability and neighborhood

revitalization. These may include an historical shrine, a parti­

cular type of minority or immigrant group, scenic topography, an

enlightened leadership, an architecture style which is in vogue,

or the absence of inner area expressways; any number of which may

become determinants of revitalization in their own right.

On balance, the process of neighborhood revitalization and

the return-to-the-city movement seem to be less widespread than is

commonly believed. Most of those cities with relatively stable and

healthy inner area neighborhoods have seen continual revitalizatton

of their housing stock. There is little evidence as yet of a sub­

stantial movement of population back to the city; the revitalization

process has been heavily dependent on residents from other parts

of the central city, most of whom never lived in the suburbs, or

on migrants from outside the urban area.

Problems, Policies and Emerging Issues

The real problems of the inner city - a declining population

base, jobs, physical obsolescence, housing abandonment, pollution,

the declining quality of local services, and the concentration of

the nation's disadvantaged - defy simple generalization. Some are

problems for which solutions are obvious, although politically dif-

- 67 -

ficult, such as equalizing social services across a metropolitan

area or the creation of more jobs. Others offer opportunities -

for example, a decline in population densities in areas of very high

densities may facilitate redevelopment at a more socially-acceptable

density, allowing more park space and improved services.

Still other problems represent what Peter Hall (1977) calls

classic dilemmas. One example is that of housing policy cited

above; another is the suggestion of stimulating the migration of

black Americans to the suburbs. The latter might reduce territorial

segregation, but it would also further undercut the population base

of the central city. Similarly attempts in the U.K., Canada and

Australia to reduce foreign immigration, in the face of rising

national unemployment, are beginning to reduce the population in-flow

and thus the demand for housing in their inner cities. This immi-·

gration has in the past been a principal factor in maintaining the

6 relatively high quality of these inner cities.

When we look ahead, one of the most critical issues facing

inner cities is the probable impact of rapidly declining population

growth overall. As previously noted, aggregate population growth

rates in most western countries are now at or below zero growth.

In some countries there is also zero or negative urban growth. As -Alonso (1973) notes, structural change in cities and thus the pro-

- 68 -

blems facing public policy may in fact be greater under zero

growth than under the rapid growth of previous decades. Whether

the inner city will suffer more under these new conditions is

difficult to say, but it is likely that population decline will

continue in most cities regardless of planning initiatives. The

call is now frequently heard that we must begin to plan for de­

clining cities (Gans, 1975); or in another euphemism of American

urban planning, to develop methods to allow the mature metropolis

to age gracefully. Clearly the policy response in the future will

have to be different than it has been in the past.

For most of the traditional inner city problems there have

been corresponding policy initiatives, far too many to even identify

here. These have included legislation encouraging a wider preser­

vation of historical.buildings (Zeigler, 1971)! urban homesteading

(Struyk, 1976), in-fill housing (Plan Canada, 1973), a bewildering

array of community and neighborhood preservation grants (U.S. Dept.

of Housing and Urban Development, 1977), job creation subsidy pro­

grams (Chinitz and Jacobs, 1977), the public acquisition of land

for redevelopment (U.K. Department of the Environment, 1977), new

towns-intown (Henley, 1975), changes in land taxation (Carey, 1976),

public housing (Mercer and Hultquist, 1976), and on fiscal transfers

(Gorham and Glazer, 1976), to name but a few. Equally important are

the cut-backs in such destructive policies as inner city highway

construction and the renewal of interest in public transit, and in

the decentralization of civic powers to local neighborhoods in areas

such as education and the police.8

- 69 -

In most instances, however, these measures have been too little

and too late and often misdirected. There has not been to date,

a comprehensive policy designed to deal with the real and emerging

structural problems of the inner city. This is not a passing issue

since today's inner city problems are tomorrow 1 s problems for older

suburban areas.

It does not seem unreasonable to conclude, moreover, that there

will not be any significant improvement in the condition of those

inner cities which are declining unless there is a fundamental change

in social and political attitudes, in government policy and in the

structure of the economic system in western industrial nations.

This is a strong generalization, and perhaps an irrelevant one,

but it does suggest the limited utility of much of our current

thinking on inner cities.

Summary Comments

Finally, we must rid ourselves of our simplistic notions of

the character of and direction of change in inner city areas.

These notions, particularly those of physical decay and social de·-

cline common in the U.S. and U.K. tend to become self-fulfilling

prophesies. And, we must remove our preoccupation with theories

which imply that inner city decline is a natural and inevitable

process. It was argued, instead, that we have in fact "designed"

the inner city of today: through such means as ad hoc and

mented political structures and decision-making processes; the

operation of a competitive market system in which economic benefits

- 70 -

are privatized while costs are socialized; the segregation of

minority group~ cultural predispositions which seriously under­

value what is old; the restrictive practices of financial insti­

tutions; exclusionary zoning in fortress-like suburbs; and

perhaps most important, the direct but unintended consequences

of non-urban policies such as housing and transportation which

have favored decentralization and suburban sprawl. At a minimum

we should acknowledge that the inner city is the product of our

design efforts and that we can in turn redesign an alternative

model if we wish to do so.

- 71 -

FOOTNOTES

1. One of the limitations of existing measures of population change over time in the inner city (or central city) is that they use fixed boundaries. Given the universal tendency for urban densi­ties to decline, one would then expect that the population of any fixed built-up area would also decline over time, unless there was massive redevelopment. A more appropriate measure of change would be one which reflects the growth of the urban area. If we compare the populations of the area of Toronto in Figure 1 in which the age of housing was more than twice the metro­politan average, in both 1961 and 1971, we find that the population of the inner city grew rather than declined.

2. London provides a well documented example. Between 1961 and 1974 the population of Greater London fell by 803,000 and the number of manufacturing jobs declined by 335,000, fully one­third of its manufacturing jobs - a decline seven times the national average. These declines took place not just in indus­trial sectors which were declining nationally but in those sectors which were stable or growing at the national level. Between 1970 and 1975 the income level which defined the lowest quartile of the income distribution - roughly the population living in poverty - fell 7 percent in real terms although it remained stable in the rest of the country. Roughly 650,000 families in London survive with incomes below the poverty line.

3. Some recent studies have indicated that the homogeneity of sub­urban municipalities is considerably less than commonly portrayed (see Pack and Pack, 1977).

4. Higher energy costs could of course have the reverse effect on the inner city: of stimulating a more rapid decentralization of jobs to the suburbs. Both trends will occur. However, given the large number of jobs already existing in the downtown core, and the continuing attraction of that location as a place of employment, the impact of energy costs on balance may benefit the central city.

5. The scale of housing abandonment in some inner cities in the U.S. is staggering (see Dear, 1976). In St. Louis for example, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (1973) estimated that over 10,000 or 4 percent of the total housing stock was vacant and derelict. In some neighborhoods the per­centage rose to over 20 percent. In Baltimore, it was estimated

- 72 -

that nearly 5 percent of all inner city housing units are boarded up; about half of which are due to the abandonment process itself, the rest to government action (see Grigsby, et al., 1973). The rate of withdraw is about 4,000 units annually. This phenomenon is still rare in other countries except in the U.K. where aside for vandalism almost all of the vacant dwellings are the result of government action in clearing substandard nineteenth century housing.

The reasons for abandonment vary from one neighborhood and city to another, although Grigsby (1973) argues that low income is not the major factor. The rising cost of mainten­ance, absentee landlords, poor management of rental properties, vandalism, high turnover, racial change and the threat of government action, are the major causes. In some areas inade­quate initial construction and overzealous code enforcement have also contributed to the process of abandonment. At the same time most governments do not have comprehensive housing policies which are directed to these issues.

6. This has led in Britain to suggestions that Commonwealth im­migration be stimulated to bolster the population of the inner city.

7. With the passage of the Tax Reform Act in 1976 in the United States, significant new tax incentives became available to owners of historic buildings who wish to rehabilitate those buildings. The effect of this change, however, is likely to be small.

8. Some central cities, such as Detroit, have sought to reduce crime through the creation of multi-racial police forces and the establishment of mini police stations across the city. Crime rates have in fact declined in Detroit, as elsewhere in the U.S. in the last few years, only a part of which could be attributable to police reforms.

- 73 -

References

Adams, J. ed. 1976. Urban Policy Making and Metropolitan Dynamics: A Comparative Geographical Analysis. Cambridge, Mass.: Bal­linger Publishing Co.

Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. 1965. Metro­politan Social and Economic Disparities: Implications for Intergovernmental Relations in Central Cities and Suburbs. Washington, D.C.: A.C.I.R.

1973. City Financial Emergencies: The Intergovernmental Dimension. Washington, D.C.: A.C.I.R.

1977. Trends in Metropolitan America. Washington, D.C.: A.C.I.R.

Alcaly, R. and Mermelstein, D. eds. 1977. The Fiscal Crisis of American Cities. New York: Vintage Books.

Alonso, W. 1973. "Urban Zero Population Growth", Daedalus, Special Issue, "The No Growth Society", 102: 191-206.

Banfield, E.C. 1974. The Unheavenly City Revisited. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.

Barabba, V.P. 1975. "The National Setting: Regional Shifts, Metro­politan Decline and Urban Decay", in G. Sternlieb and J. Hughes, eds. Post-Industrial America. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University, 101-138.

Becker, G.S. 1971. The Economics of Discrimination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Berry, B.J.L. 1975. "The Decline of the Aging Metropolis: Cul­tural Bases and Social Process", in G. Sternlieb and J. Hughes, eds. Post-Industrial America: Metropolitan Decline and Inter­Regional Job Shifts. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University, 175-185.

Berry, B.J.L. and Kasarda, D. 1977. Contemporary Urban Ecology. Riverside, N.J.: MacMillan.

- 74 -

Birch, D.L. 1970. Economic Future of City and Suburb. New York: Committee for Economic Development.

Boddy, M.J. 1976. "The Structure of Mortgage Finance: Building Societies and the British Social Fonnation", Transactions, Institute of British Geographers, New Series, Vol. 1: 58-71.

Boulding, K. 1968. "The City as an Element in the International System", Daedalus, 97, 4: 1111-1123.

Bourne, L.S. 1976. ''Housing Supply and Housing Market Behaviour in Residential Development", in D. Herbert and R. Johnston, eds. Social Areas in Cities, Vol. 1. London: J. Wiley, U.K., 111-158.

Broadbent, T.A. 1977. Planning and Profit in the Urban Economy. London: Methuen.

Brooks, E., Herbert, D. and Peach, G.C.K. 1975. "Spatial and Social Constraints in the Inner City", Geographical Journal, 141: 355-387.

Bunge, W. and Bordessa, R. 1975. The Canadian Alternative. Sur­vival, Expeditions and Urban Change. Geographical Monographs No. 2, Downsview, Ontario: York University.

Carey, G.W. 1976. "Land Tenure, Speculation and the State of the Aging Metropolis", The Geographical Review, 66, 3: 253-265.

Castells, M. 1977. The Urban Question. London: E. Arnold.

Carter, R. 1976. "Changing Employment Structure, Incomes and Housing Markets in Inner Melbourne", Working Paper No. 1, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.

Chinitz, B. and Jacobs, S. 1977. "Urban Economic Development: An Overview", paper presented to the Annual Meetings of the Regional Science Association, Philadelphia, Nov. 13, 1977.

Chow, W.T. 1975. "Reviving the Inner City: The Lessons of Oakland's Chinatown", Public Affairs Report, 16, 4: 1-7.

Coates, B.E., et 1976. Geography and Inequality. London: Oxford University Press.

Deakin, N. and Ungerson, C. 1973. "Beyond the Ghetto: The Illusion of Choice", in D. Donnison and D. Eversley, eds., London: Urban Patterns, Problems and Policies. London: Heinemann.

- 75 -

Dear, M.J. 1976. "Abandoned Housing", Chap. 3 in J.S. Adams, ed. Urban Policy-Making and Metropolitan Dynamics: A Comparative Geographical Analysis. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger Publish­ing, 59-99.

Downs, A. 1976. Urban Problems and Prospects. 2nd ed. Chicago: Rand McNally.

Edel, M. 1972. "Development vs Dispersal: Approaches to Ghetto Poverty", in M. Edel and J. Rothenberg, eds. Readings in Urban Economics. New York: MacMillan, 307-325.

Engels, Friedrich. 1844. The Condition of the Working Classes in England. Moscow: (reprinted) Progress Publishers, 1973.

Ernst, R.T., al. 1971. "Competition and Conflict over Land Use Change in the Inner City: Institution vs Community", Antipode, 6: 70-97.

Eversley, D.E.C. 1972. "Rising Costs and Static Incomes: Some Economic Consequences of Regional Planning in Londonn, Urban Studies, 9, 3: 351-363.

Gale, S. and Moore, E., eds. 1975. The Manipulated City: Per­spectives on Spatial Structure and Social Issues in Urban America. Chicago: Maaroufa Press.

Gans, H. 1975. "Planning for Declining Cities", Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 41: 305-307.

Goldstein, B. and Davis, R. eds. 1977. Neighbourhoods in the Urban Economy: The Dynamics of Decline and Revitalization. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books.

Gordon, David. 1977. "Capitalism and the Roots of the Urban Crisis", in R. Alcaly and D. Mermelstein, eds. The Fiscal Crisis of American Cities. New York: Vintage Books, 82-131.

Gorham, W. and Glazer, N. eds. 1976. The Urban Predicament. Washington: The Urban Institute.

- 76 -

Grigsby, W., et al. 1973. "Housing and Poverty", report prepared for the Office of Economic Opportunity, Washington, D.C.

Gripaios, P. 1977. "Industrial Decline in London: An Examination of its Causes", Urban Studies, 14: 181-189.

Guest, A.M. 1977. "Residential Segregation in Urban Areas", Chap. 5 in K.P. Schwirian, ed. Contemporary Topics in Urban Sociology. Morristown, N.J.: General Learning Press, 268-336.

Hall, P. 1977. "The Inner Cities Dilemma", New Society, 39, 748: 223-225.

Hamnett, C. 1976. "Social Change and Social Segregation in Inner London, 1961-71", Urban Studies, 13: 261-271.

Harford, Ian. 1977. 11The Inner City: Whose Urban Crisis", Journal of the Royal Town Planning Institute, 63, 4: 99-101.

Harlee, M. ed. 1977. Captive Cities: Studies in the Political Economy of Cities and Regions. New York: J. Wiley & Sons.

Harries, K.D. 1974. The Geography of Crime and Justice. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Harrison, B. 1974. Urban Economic Development: Suburbanization, Minority Opportunity and the Condition of the Central City. Washington: The Urban Institute.

Hartshorn, T .A. 1971. "Inner City Residential Structure and De­cline", Annals, American Association of Geographers, 61: 72~96.

Harvey, D. 1972. 'Revolutionary and Counter Revolutionary Theory in Geography and the Problem of Ghetto Formation 11

, Antipode, 4, 2: 1-13.

1973. Social Justice and the City. London: E. Arnold.

1975. "The Political Economy of Urbanization in Advanced Capitalist Societies: The Case of the United States 11

, in G. Gappert and H. Rose, eds. The Social Economy of Cities, Sage Publications, Urban Affairs Annual Reviews, Vol. 9. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 119-163.

- 77 -

1977. "Government Policies, Financial Institutions and Neighbourhood Change in United States Cities", in M. Harloe, ed. Captive Cities. New York: J. Wiley, 123-139.

Henley, J.W. 1975. Housing, 36, 6:

"New Town in Town Downtown", Journal of 271-274.

Hill, R.C. 1974. "Separate and Unequal: Governmental Inequality in the Metropolis", American Political Science Review, 68: 1557-1568.

1976. "Fiscal Crisis and Political Struggle in the De­caying U.S. Central City", Kapitalistate, 4-5: 31-49.

Ikemma, W.N. 1977. "Revitalizing Inner-City Minority Communi­ties11, Urbanism Past and Present, 4: 11-18.

Inner City Working Group. 1977. Inner Area Studies: A Contri­bution to the Debate. Birmingham: Joint Centre for Regional, Urban and Local Government Studies, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, England.

James, F.J. 1977a. Back to the City: An Appraisal of Housing Investment and Population Change in Urban America. Working Paper 241-01, Urban Institute, Washington, D.C.

1977b. Back to the City. Case Studies of Private Neigh­borhood Revitalization in Eight Major Metropolitan Areas. Working Paper 241-02, Urban Institute, Washington, D.C.

1977c. "Private Reinvestment in Older Housing and Older Neighborhoods", Statement before the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs of the United States Senate, July 10, Washington, D.C.

Kasperson, R. and Breitbart, M. 1974. Participation, Decentraliza­tion and Advocacy Planning. A.A.G. Resource Paper No. 25. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Geographers.

Kennedy, D. and M. eds. 1974. The Inner City. New York: Halsted Press.

Kern, C.R. 1977. "High Income Neighborhoods in the City: Will the New Demography Guarantee Their Future?", paper presented to the Annual Meetings of the Regional Science Association, Philadelphia, November.

- 78 -

Kollias, K. 1977. Neighborhood Reinvestment. Washington, D.C.: National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs.

Korcelli, P. 1977. "Metropolitan Development Patterns and Policies in Poland and Implications for America", paper presented to Symposium on Alternative Strategies for the Mature Metropolis, St. Louis, Missouri, June.

Leven, C.L. and Mark, J.H. 1977. "Revealed Preferences for Neighborhood Characteristics", Urban Studies, 14: 147-159.

Leven, C.L., et al. 1977. Neighborhood Change: Lessons in the Dynamics of Urban Decay. London: Martin Robertson & Co.

Ley, D. 1974. The Black Inner City as Frontier Output: Images and Behavior of a Philadelphia Neighborhood. A.A.G., Mono­graph Series No. 7. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Geographers.

Lineberry, R.L. 1975. "Equity, Public Policy and Public Services: The Underclass Hypothesis and the Limits to Equality", Policy and Politics, 4, 2: 67-84.

Lipton, S.G. 1977. "Evidence of Central City Revival", Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 43, 2: 136-147.

Lomas, G. 1975. The Inner City. London: Council for Social Service.

London, Greater London Council. 1977. London, we're staying here. London: GLC. Rebirth of the Inner City.

MacRae, C.D. and Struyk, R. 1977. "The Federal Housing Administra­tion (FHA), Tenure Choice and Residential Land Use", Journal of Urban Economics, 4: 360-378.

Maher, C.A. 1978. "The Changing Residential Role of the Inner City: The Example of Melbourne", Australian Geographer, forth-coming.

Marando, V.L. 1974. Metropolitanism, Transportation and Employ­ment for the Central City Poor", Urban Affairs Quarterly, 10, 2: 158-169.

- 79

Massey, D. 1976. 11Restructuring and Regionalism: Implications of the Crisis in the U.K.", paper to the Annual Meetings of the Regional Science Toronto, November.

Some Spatial presented Association,

Masters, S.H. 1975. Black-White Income Differentials: Empirical Studies and Policy Implications. New York: Academic Press, 1975.

McLemore, R., Aass, C. and Keilhofer, P. 1975. Canadian Inner City. Urban Paper A.75.3. of State for Urban Affairs.

The Changing Ottawa: Ministry

Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works. 1977. Melbourne's Inner Area - A Position Statement. Melbourne: Board of Works.

Mercer, J. and Hultquist, J. 1976. "National Progress Toward Housing and Urban Renewal Goals", Chap. 4 in J.S. Adams, ed. Urban Policy-Making and Metropolitan Dynamics: A Comparative Geographical Analysis. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger Publish­ing, 101-162.

Morrison, P. 1975. "The Current Demographic Context of National Growth and Development", Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, mimeo.

Mountjoy, A.F. 1978. "Urbanization the Squatter and Development in the Third World", in L.S. Bourne and J.W. Simmons, ed. Systems of Cities: Readings on Structure, Growth and Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

Nathan, R.P. and Adams, C. 1976. "Understanding Central City Hardship", Political Science Quarterly, 91: 51-55.

Pack, H. and J .R. 1977. "Metropolitan Fragmentation and Suburban Homogeneity", Urban Studies, 14: 191-201.

Pahl, R. 1977. 11Managers, Technical Experts and the State: Forms of Mediation, Manipulation and Dominance in Urban and Regional Development", inM. Harloe, ed. Captive Cities. New York: Wiley, 49-60.

Plan Canada. 1973. "Inner City Housing", Plan Canada, 13, 2: 112-117.

- 80 -

Rand Corporation. 1977. The Urban Impacts of Federal Policies: Vol. 2. Economic Development. R-2028 KF/RC. Santa Monica: Rand Corporation.

Reid, C.E. 1977. "Measuring Residential Decentralization of Blacks and Whites", Urban Studies, 14: 353-357.

Reigeluth, G.A. 1977. "America's Older Cities: A Reflection of Europe's Urban Future", in Successes Abroad: What For­eign Cities can Teach American Cities, U.S. House of Re­presentatives, Washington, D.C., 511-578.

Rose, H.M. ed. 1972. and Alternatives.

Geography of the Ghetto Perceptions, Problems DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.

Rust, E. 1975. No Growth: Impacts on Metropolitan Areas. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books.

Shank, A. ed. 1976. Political Power and the Urban Crisis. Boston: Holbrook Press.

Stegman, M. 1973. Housing Investment in the Inner City. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press.

Sternlieb, G. and Burchell, R.W. 1975. Residential Abandonment: The Tenement Landlord Revisited. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University.

Sternlieb, G. and Hughes, J. eds. 1975. Post-Industrial America: Metropolitan Decline and Inter-Regional Job Shifts. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University.

Stones, A. 1977. "Liverpool Now: Inner City Wasteland", Built Environment, 3, 1: 47-50.

Struyk, R. 1976. Urban Homeownership. Lexington, Mass.: Lex­ington Books.

Tucker, C.J. 1976. "Changing Patterns of Migration between Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan Areas in the U.S.: Recent Evidence", Demography, 13: 435-444.

- 81 -

U.K. Department of the Environment. Liverpool, Birmingham, Lambeth.

1977. Inner Area Studies London: H.M.S.O.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 1973. Housing Research: A Compendium. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

Abandoned u .s.

U.S. House of Representatives. 1977. Successes Abroad: What Foreign Cities can Teach American Cities. Hearings before the Subcommittee on the City of the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, Ninty-fifth Congress. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Urban Institute. 1977. "Federal Tax Policy and Urban Development", Search, 7, 1, Spring. Washington, D.C.

Vance, J. Jr. 1977. This Scene of Man: The Role and Structure of the City in the Geography of Western Civilization. New York: Harper's College Press.

van Furstenberg, G., et al., eds. 1974. Patterns of Racial Dis­crimination. Volume 1. Housing. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books.

Weiss, S.F., et al. 1976. City Centers in Transition. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, Center for Urban and Regional Studies, 90 pp.

Williams, P. 1976. "The Role of Institutions in the Inner London Housing Market: The Case of Islington 11

, Transactions, Institute of British Geographers, New Series, Vol. 1: 72-81.

Wolpert, J., Mumphrey, A. and Seley, J. 1972. Metropolitan Neigh­borhoods: Participation and Conflict over Change. AAG Re­source Paper No. 16. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Geographers.

Zeigler, A. Jr. 1971. Historic Preservation in Inner City Areas. Pittsburgh: The Allegheny Press.