Қалалардың құлдырауы: әлеуметтік-экономикалық процестер

Sociological process affecting cities

Urban decay (also known as urban rot, urban death or urban blight) is the sociological process by which a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude. There is no single process that leads to urban decay.

During the Industrial Revolution, many people moved from rural areas to cities for employment in the manufacturing industry, thus causing urban populations to boom. Subsequent economic change left many cities economically vulnerable. Studies such as the Urban Task Force (DETR 1999), the Urban White Paper (DETR 2000), and a study of Scottish cities (2003) hypothesize areas suffering from industrial decline, high unemployment, poverty, and a decaying physical environment (sometimes including contaminated land and obsolete infrastructure)—prove "highly resistant to improvement". Changes in transportation from public to private, (specifically the private motor car) eliminated some of the cities' public transport service advantages, e. g., fixed route buses and trains. In particular, at the end of World War II, many political decisions favored suburban development and encouraged suburbanization through financial incentives like government supported FHA loans and VA mortgage aid. This allowed many veterans of World War II and their families to afford comfortable single family housing in suburbs. The manufacturing industry has historically been a base for the prosperity of major cities. When these industries relocate to larger, less urban environments, some cities have experienced population loss with associated urban decay, and even riots. Cutbacks on police and fire services may result, while lobbying for government funded housing may increase. Increased city taxes encourage residents to move out. Libertarian economists argue that rent control contributes to urban blight by reducing new construction and investment in housing and discouraging maintenance.

Historically in the United States, the white middle class gradually left the cities for suburban areas due to African American migration north toward cities after World War I. American cities often declare blighted status once it is determined that urban renewal strategies are the most appropriate means to encourage the private investment for reversing deteriorating downtown conditions. Some historians differentiate between the first Great Migration (1910–1930), numbering about 1.6 million African American migrants who left mostly Southern rural areas to migrate to northern and Midwestern industrial cities, and, after a lull during the Great Depression, a Second Great Migration (1940–1970), in which 5 million or more African Americans moved, including many to California and various western cities. Between 1910 and 1970, African Americans moved from southern States, especially Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas to other regions of the United States, many of them townspeople with urban skills. From the 1930s until 1977, African Americans seeking borrowed capital for housing and businesses were discriminated against via the federal government–legislated discriminatory lending practices for the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) via redlining. In 1977, the US Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to help meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low and moderate income neighborhoods. Later urban centers were drained further through the advent of mass car ownership, the marketing of suburbia as a location to move to, and the building of the Interstate Highway System. In North America, this shift manifested itself in strip malls, suburban retail and employment centers, and low density housing estates. Large areas of many northern cities in the United States experienced population decreases and a degradation of urban areas. Inner city property values declined, and economically disadvantaged populations moved in. In the U. S., the new inner city poor were often African Americans that migrated from the South in the 1920s and 1930s. As they moved into traditional white neighborhoods, ethnic frictions served to accelerate flight to the suburbs.

Like many industrial nations before the Second World War, the United Kingdom carried out extensive slum clearances. These efforts continued after the war, however in many of these slums, depopulation became common, producing compounding decay. The UK is unlike much of Europe in having high overall population density, but low urban population density outside of London. In November 2005, the French suburbs were the scene of riots sparked by the accidental electrocution of two teenagers in the northern suburbs of Paris, and fueled in part by the substandard living conditions in these areas. Many deprived suburbs of French cities were the scenes of clashes between youth and the police, with violence and numerous car burnings resulting in media coverage. Today the situation remains generally unchanged; however, there is a level of disparity. Some areas are experiencing increased drug trafficking, while some northern suburbs of Paris and areas like Vaulx en Velin are undergoing refurbishment and re development. Some previously mono industrial towns in France are experiencing increasing crime, decay, and decreasing population. The issue remains a divisive issue in French public politics.

In Italy, a well known case of urban decay is represented by the Vele di Scampia, a large public housing estate built between 1962 and 1975 in the Scampia neighborhood of Naples. The idea behind the project was to provide an urban housing project, where hundreds of families could socialize and create a community. The design included a public transportation rail station, and a park area between the two buildings. The planners wanted to create a small city model with parks, playing fields, and other facilities. However, various events, starting with the 1980 earthquake in Irpinia, led to urban decay inside this project and in the surrounding areas. Many families left homeless by the earthquake squatted inside the Vele. The lack of police presence, led to a rise in Camorra drug trade, as well as other gang and illicit activity.

In South Africa, the most prominent urban decay case is Hillbrow, an inner city neighborhood of Johannesburg which was formerly affluent. At the end of apartheid in 1994, many middle class white residents moved out and were replaced by mainly low income workers and unemployed people, including many refugees and undocumented immigrants from neighboring countries. Many businesses that operated in the area followed their customers to the suburbs, and some apartment buildings were "hi jacked" by gangs who collected rentals from residents but failed to pay the utility bills, leading to termination of municipal services and a refusal by the legal owners to invest in maintenance or cleaning. Occupied today by low income residents and immigrants and being over crowded; the proliferation of crime, drugs, illegal businesses, and decay of properties have become prevalent.

Many east German towns such as Hoyerswerda face or are facing population loss and urban shrinkage since the reunification of Germany in 1990. Hoyerswerda's population has dropped about 40% since its peak and there is a significant lack of teenagers and twenty forty some year olds due to the declining birthrates during the uncertainty of reunification. Part of the blight in east Germany is due to the construction and preservation practices of the socialist government under the German Democratic Republic (GDR). To fill the housing needs, the GDR quickly built many prefabricated apartment buildings. In addition, historic preservation of pre war buildings varied; in some cases, the rubble of buildings destroyed by the war were simply left there while in other cases the debris was removed, and an empty lot remained. Other standing historical structures were left to decay in the early GDR as they did not represent the socialist ideals of the country.

The main responses to urban decay have been through positive public intervention and policy, through a plethora of initiatives, funding streams, and agencies, using the principles of New Urbanism (or through Urban Renaissance, its UK/European equivalent). Gentrification has also had a significant effect, and remains the primary means of a natural remedy.

In the United States, early government policies included "urban renewal" and building of large scale housing projects for the poor. Urban renewal demolished entire neighborhoods in many inner cities and it was as much a cause of urban decay as a remedy. These government efforts are now thought by many to have been misguided. For multiple reasons including increased demand for urban amenities, some cities have rebounded from these policy mistakes. Meanwhile, some of the inner suburbs built in the 1950s and 1960s are beginning the process of decay, as those who are living in the inner city are pushed out due to gentrification.

In Western Europe, where undeveloped land is scarce and urban areas are generally recognized as the drivers of the new information and service economies, urban renewal has become an industry in itself, with hundreds of agencies and charities set up to tackle the issue. European cities have the benefit of historical organic development patterns already concurrent to the New Urbanist model, and although derelict, most cities have attractive historical quarters and buildings ripe for redevelopment. In the inner city estates and suburban cities, the solution is often more drastic, with 1960s and 1970s state housing projects being demolished and rebuilt in a more traditional European urban style, with a mix of housing types, sizes, prices, and tenures, as well as a mix of other uses such as retail or commercial. One of the best examples of this is in Hulme, Manchester, which was cleared of 19th century housing in the 1950s to make way for a large estate of high rise flats. During the 1990s, it was cleared again to make way for new development built along new urbanist lines.