Where does blight collide?

The physical and economic decline of an urban area, in which buildings deteriorate, values fall, and investment withdraws. Mabel L. Walker's 1938 book Urban Blight and Slums gave the condition its first sustained economic and legal treatment, naming the forces that let city districts run down. G. E. Breger's 1967 article The Concept and Causes of Urban Blight later defined it as a gap between the private and the social value of land that discourages reinvestment. Here the referent is a district of a city and its property market, assessed by surveys of building condition and value, not a diseased plant or a finding entered in a courtroom.[1][2]

Unit

One urban area or parcel, rated by its physical and economic condition

Recovery means

Redevelopment or renewed private investment can reverse the decline of an area over a span of years

Measured by

Assessed by field surveys of building condition, vacancy, and property value, and by economic indicators for the area

A formal designation, applied by a public body, that an area has deteriorated enough to justify condemnation and redevelopment, including the taking of private property. In Berman v. Parker (1954) the United States Supreme Court upheld a redevelopment plan that took a working store inside a blighted district, holding that a legislature may treat blight as a public harm that eminent domain can address. Here the referent is a legal conclusion about an area that authorizes government action, fixed by statute and court, not a disease of a plant or the market condition of a neighborhood on its own.[3]

Unit

One official blight designation covering a defined area or property

Recovery means

The designation ends once the area is redeveloped, or when the finding is lifted or overturned

Measured by

Established by statutory criteria and administrative findings, and tested in court