The Harsh Effects of Blight   

Blight is an issue that affects many cities and towns in the world. The areas that are highly affected areas sink lower and lower every day and are deteriorated by blight in many ways that most people don’t seem to see. These effects can range from higher crime to elevation in police brutality due to the police insinuation of gang activity. Blight can begin abandoned homes and businesses and span to infrastructure and littered streets. Although some people and organizations have tried to discredit blight as nonexistent, it is an issue that plagues cities and causes moral and systematic issues in communities on a day to day basis.

The effects of blight and its impact on individuals overtime can have harsh outcomes and for the individuals living in the area and the environment.

In my research I will determine whether blight is the cause of many of the issues in low income neighborhoods in America. These issues range in many, but some are more important than others.

One of my hypothesis would be if an individual resides in a blighted neighborhood they will begin to have health issues that stem from the environment. Another would be if an individual resides in a blighted area they would have a high rate of crime and police activity. Thirdly, if an individual lives in a blighted area they will experience more economic issues. Lastly, if a child or teenager is raised in blighted area it will cause them to receive a lower ranked with some chances of not going to college.

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My hypothesis will be supported my various sources such as the Census for New Orleans, Bronx, Baltimore and Detroit from the years of 1990 all the way through 2016. This research will show how the number of individuals living in the neighborhoods fluctuated and how this fluctuation helped to create blight.

From this research I will take information such as the gender, age, education and income to determine how individuals in blighted areas are categorized and how they how categorize themselves. I will also be using data from organizations that went to different cities to determine the number of abandoned or poorly maintained homes and how they affect the community. I have data on several cities from their blight forces or just from surveys they administered. The surveys illustrate the amount of funds the homes require to fix and how much money they take from the neighborhoods. The survey shows what’s vacant in the city such as lots and buildings, what street they are on and what neighborhood the area is in. This is helpful in getting an actual number to the property that causing issues in the city.

By defining blight then individuals can get a better understanding of how to handle and diminish it at its source. This is an issue that is, seen and affects thousands of people every day in this country. Although blight has gotten worse over time, it is an issue that has plagued the country for years by being called other names such as slums or the hood. (Dickerson 976) These areas are seemingly getting worse with time. This is highly evident in states with less funding. Stewart rewords blight as “urban shrinkage” that happens when a city or town expands in civilization and loses citizens at a rapid pace, whether by employment decreasing or the city being struck by a storm. (2) This definition, although precise, only sheds light on the aspect of blight coming from the small town areas that have the issue of abandoned homes or apartment buildings instead of looking at the other issues that plague bigger cities such as graffiti and abandoned cars.

The Florida Legislature passed a law in 2015 labeled as Florida Statute Section 163.340(8) which list Florida’s definition of what blight. This statute, although accurate sheds light on the difference between cities that have little blight and the hood. The state of Florida, in its statutes, clearly has slums and blighted areas as two different types of issues that plague the states. The statutes define blighted areas as a substantial number of deteriorated or deteriorating structures indicated by government-maintained statistics that lead to economic distress or endangered life or property. (Devries 3)

There are many negative effects of blight that range in category, but some of the most important effects are the issues it brings to the environment, crime rate and police activity, harsh effects blighted areas cause on the economy. Blight has been researched under a microscope and is proven to cause most of these issues that plague most of the cities and town today known as slums, hoods and gullies.

According to the Keep America Beautiful Organization environmental issues, such as litter and illegal dumping, are increasing in areas that are extremely blighted areas.(3) This is not hard to believe since research has gone to show that the small town of Paramore Florida has issues with ranging from graffiti and shopping carts to illegal use of fireworks. Environmental issues effect the wellbeing of families and in some cases determine how children will grow up in the community they reside in. This issue strikes the city of New York and New Orleans when one city was rocked with a financial crisis and the other was bombarded by the storm known as hurricane Katrina. Stewart mentions that in a survey give to 3,005 Americans more that 46% of the individuals stated that litter is a very serious problem in this country.(6)

In Baltimore Although litter is a big environmental issue other aspects of blight also affect the environment such as the abandoned homes and other issues. This is further explained when Stewart lists the issues that Hurricane Katrina brought to the city of New Orleans. Once the levies broke it brought a high amount of pollution, which included sewage leaking from waste systems, septic tanks, gas from the cars under the water, the chemicals from plants in the areas and decaying vegetation and organic rubble. Environmental blight issues also correlate with health issues that haunt many of the low income neighborhoods and any blighted towns. It has been shown in research that vacant properties have been linked to mosquito infestation which leads to more mosquito borne illnesses.(KAB 2016) The study researched how blighted homes in Baltimore and California are becoming breeding grounds for mosquitos to marinate in diseases such as Cure Tarsalis other known was West Nile.

Even though mosquitos and there are borne diseases are a risk another environmental health issue in blighted areas are issues that plague the inside of a home that someone with low income with rent or invest in. Most have issues such as poor indoor air quality, mold, lead and rodent and cockroach issues that could lead to health issues such as asthma or even cause worse issues such as phenomena or bronchitis. (Leon 2017) Lead is an issue that can also harm many children in lower income neighborhoods since they are maintained with cheaper products. Children in America have been sick with lead issues throughout, but recently they have gotten worse. This issue stems from the water issue and Flint, Michigan and can even be seen in Cleveland, Ohio, where 83% of elevated lead levels are in low-income neighborhoods.  (Bosco 2017) In Baltimore the lead levels are decreasing, but in some areas they seem to be rising back to dangerous numbers.

They tested the children to see where the lead levels in 2015-2016 and some cities were high such as Cedonia/Frankford with 336 and Brooklyn/Curtis Bay/Hawkins Point whose levels in children age 0-6 are 309. This lead isn’t just coming from the water, but also from the homes since most were built and decorated before lead paints were outlawed in the country. Both numbers are really high considering the issues that the media are portraying about the level of lead in water. Another harsh effect blight brings is the emotional issues some people feel when they live in a neighborhood that is underfunded and unsanitary. These conditions can also psychological issues that begin in the children and go on to the parents or adults that live in a lower income household. These issues could stem from living in substandard housing and some conditions a person would find in an underfunded neighborhood such as broken windows, litter and stray animals in the streets. (Leon & Schilling 2017) These issues are leading to lower life expectancy among many of color.

In some cities, such as Baltimore, cities such as Clifton-Berea and Howard Park/West Arlington have a low life expectancy of 66.9 and 76.1 while their counterparts, Morrell Park/Violetville and North Baltimore/Guilford/Homeland, have higher number such as 73 and 83.5 due to less blight and a cleaner environment. (Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance pg. 2) This just illustrates how an environment can drain someone and lead to dreadful issues in the home. Along with the environment they live with adults have to be mindful of the environment their children go into on a day to day basis in school. Blight can also have negative effects on the school systems in the area. The schools and the image of the schools shows how various cities are preparing the youth to join the world. In some cities that have limitless resources they send their children to schools that thrive in the neighborhood and perfectly functioning while others are not. In many cities the schools are run down and extremely blighted. In many cities, schools are closing due to students not attending school anymore. These issues are what haunt some of the lower income communities in America.

Although blight causes harm to the environment, another issue that makes blight a problem is the crime rate and police activity in the areas affected by the problem. The crimes could range from drug possession to murder in many cases and sometimes ends with no arrests. Large cities are struck by high crime rates the most. Many of its citizens attempt to place the blame on no jobs being the reason that Cleveland, Ohio has 83% of its crimes being homicides and being the violent crime hotspots for 65% of the crime that happens in the state. (Bosco 2017) This is hard to believe since the city has so many taxes supporting organizations such as a professional sports teams and lavish business and night life in most areas of the city. In cities such as Baltimore the numbers seem to be worse. The numbers range from violent crimes which increased in numbers to 17.6 per 1,000 people to the homicide rates that decreased to 342 reported in the year of 2015. (Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance pg. This is a high number with 86% of the deaths coming from victims being shot in the streets. (Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance pg. Although most crime in the lower income neighborhoods don’t always lead to major crimes, other issues small crimes bring is the Broken Window Theory.

This theory or issue is the reason behind heavy policing in blighted areas. BWT began in 1980 when the New York Police department began to crack down on small crimes so the arrests for major offenses would decrease. (Devries 2015) They worked but caused America to spiral into a country that feels getting people off the streets for minor offenses is more important than imprisoning someone for actually committing a violent crime. The BWT was also evident in the 1990’s when police used harsh environmental conditions and suspicion as a reason to stop, frisk and many cases arrest citizens in blighted neighborhoods. The police officers basically used the conditions as a source to focus on arrests so they could feel they were maintaining social and physical order. (KAB 2015) This is still an issue in neighborhoods today. This has led to a series of deaths of citizens due to police harassing an individual because they feel they broke a small law that’s not important in most states.

In Baltimore the death of Freddie Grey rocked the community when he died in police custody. What shocked the citizens the most is that when he was arrested the police were so forceful that the citizen was not able to walk on his own. This spiraled the city into an issue where the police inserted themselves because they felt they had to control the city but in actuality they were making the city worse. In 2016 the DOJ conducted an investigation that yielded information proving that the police administered more unlawful searches, arrests, unreasonable force, and racial targeting. (Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance pg.1)

Blight conditions are high in number but the last notable issue that hurts cities and towns the most is the economic and sometimes downfall that comes along with it. Although some people don’t realize it blight strips a lot of money from cities. That could be with the taxes that the person living in the abandoned house could be paying to fix the community or employees not being able to work in the neighborhood because the business or store front is closed or out of business. Most of the reasons blight is existence in this time is because of economy downfalls. Most of the country was rocked during the Great Depression the when the stock market crashed causing many citizens to lose everything they own.

This situation which brought about the New Deal and changed housing and community in America forever. The New Deal brought about programs, such as the housing programs and medical programs that elevated what people interpreted as hoods and stuck some people in living situations that were deplorable and degrading. The city of Evansville ran data to acquire information to see how much the city was losing every year in blight and worked together to find solutions on overturning their issue. This came to show the town that they were losing $8,637,875 in lost taxes and $10,720,302 in municipal services. (Evansville County 2015) That is a huge price to pay for abandoned houses and a bad environment that seemingly gets worse with time. Along with cities losing taxes from the taxes, blight also causes houses that are surrounded by blight make the value of the housing go down.

The Vacant Property Research analyzed data that show that houses surrounded by blight lose up $7,000 of value from the actual price. That is a huge loss for the neighborhood that could really use the taxes to make improvements to the scenery. (12) The city of Altoona created a blight force to ensure that they could improve and bring more funds into the neighborhoods by running programs that citizens could get involved in. The studies they ran showed that they had about 10.1% of the houses in the neighborhood as blighted, which is a huge number for such a small town. (Altoona Blight Task Force 2018) In many of the cases the people living in blighted homes are elderly who can’t get anyone to come do repairs on their home and need the city to come repair it for them. In many of these cases the city has to pay employees to go and fix the home issues only if the resident is up to good standing with the neighborhood.

In other cases the people living in these neighborhoods are experiencing economic issues due to a lack of education which forces them to live and provide for family in blighted areas. In many cities there are children that live in economically deprived cities. In Baltimore the number of employment opportunities, increased in 2015 from 344,588 to 350,797 which is amazing if some were available to the citizens who do not have high education. (Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance pg. 2) This issue is striking many of the citizens where it hurts the most and leading to more crime activity. In the same city there are 30.3% of the citizens that cannot find employment and are not active in the labor force with those living in neighborhoods such as Downtown/Seton Hill and South Baltimore .( Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance pg. 2) This issue is causing most to repeat the cycle of non-education of children and less numbers of college graduates. Another economic issue brought by blight is the amount of funds used on repairing or in some cases demolishing a blighted home would be a lot for low income neighborhoods to invest in. Most cities spend an average of $56 million on demolition. (Griswold Consulting Group pg. 8)

Blight is an issue that hits America at every angle and causes some communities to completely fail and shut down. Today, many cities are affected by blight that has built overtime and continued to get worse. Many cities such as Milwaukee, New Orleans and Flint are struck with issues that blight bring forth such as high crime rates, abandoned buildings, homes and store fronts and high health issues that lead to a higher death rate. Although blight is all over the country, it mainly implements black neighborhoods and low income neighborhoods. Many of the cities are hard at work to improve the blighted areas in their neighborhood so the city can become a better place for the children that have to grow up there and the families that want to be happy there.