Municipal disinvestment

Municipal disinvestment is a term in the United States which describes an urban planning process in which a city or town or other municipal entity decides to abandon or neglect an area. It can happen when a municipality is in a period of economic prosperity and sees that its poorest and most blighted communities are both the cheapest targets for revitalization as well as the areas with the greatest potential for improvement.[1] It is when a city is facing urban decay and chooses to allocate fewer resources to the poorest communities or communities with less political power,[2] and disenfranchised neighborhoods are slated for demolition, relocation, and eventual replacement. Disinvestment in urban and suburban communities tends to fall strongly along racial and class lines and may perpetuate the cycle of poverty exerted upon the space, since more affluent individuals with social mobility can more easily leave disenfranchised areas.[3]

  1. ^ Platt, Rutherford H. (2014). Reclaiming American Cities: the Struggle for People, Place, and Nature since 1900. USA: University of Massachusetts Press. pp. 79–171. ISBN 978-1-62534-050-4.
  2. ^ A Plague on Your Houses: How New York Was Burned Down and National Public Health Crumbled By Deborah Wallace, Rodrick Wallace. 2001. (Note: fire chief interviewed in the BBC-TV special "The Bronx is Burning," in 1976.) ISBN 1-85984-253-4
  3. ^ Body-Gendrot, Sophie (2000). the Social Control of Cities. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. p. 34. ISBN 0-631-20520-9.