Blighters
- Posted by ryan on February 26th, 2009 filed in Cities
Over at the Infrastructurist, Jebediah Reed has an interview with Julia Christensen, author of the book Big Box Reuse. The book discusses ways to turn a plague of empty big box retail spaces (the result of the recession and the intense nature of the housing crash in some exurban areas) into something useful. It’s an interesting read, and certainly it’s better for communities to have a cheap space for public services, like museums or libraries, than an empty building.
But I can’t help thinking of the fate of urban neighborhoods blighted by empty buildings during the era of white flight and depopulation. Then, vacant properties were either left vacant, to drag down the value of remaining homes and businesses, or were razed to make way for the suburban style development patterns cities felt they needed to build to compete with actual suburbs. If there is hope that these forlorn areas may eventually recover, perhaps it’s worth tearing down the buildings and using the land to provide a dense, walkable neighborhood hub. I’m sure there’s some demand for rental housing, given the number of households being foreclosed upon.
February 26th, 2009 at 11:20 am
You want to tear down an old big box and put in a dense retail/rental hub, just go ahead and try to get financing for it. No one can build anything right now because there’s no financing available. In New Orleans we even have GO Zone tax credits and it’s not enough. All the HOPE VI projects in town are delayed by financing. It’s killing us.
February 26th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Thanks, Ryan.
Agree with your point in theory, but the previous commenter is spot on. With our banks apparently headed down the Japan route of long-term walking-dead insolvency, it’s hard to imagine this kind of redevelopment being possible on any substantial scale for the next, oh, 15 years or so. Plus there’s the fact that relative few of these structures are located in places that would merit that level of investment.
What’s sobering is just how immensely overbuilt the US is in terms of retail space. And it’s a huge question: what the hell do we do with it all now? Definitely are worse options than bulldozing whole stripmalls and Power Shopping Plazas or whatever it is they’re called now.