Blight and the Urban Crisis

The term “blight” carries an inherently negative connotation.  Upon seeing the term, one associates it with a region that is poor, run-down, old, or abandoned, for example.  Blight can be a set of conditions that are found in slums, or extremely poor residential areas.  Although it is easy to adopt a general understanding of the term, it is one that is difficult to quantify, which becomes a problem when blight is taken into consideration in urban redevelopment programs.  Who is to judge which areas are considered “blighted” and therefore necessitate governmental assistance in redevelopment?  Unfortunately, in the same way that many other social inequalities arise, those in power have taken advantage of the systems to better their own, while leaving the most needy people and areas out of the realm of benefit.

Colin Gordon, in “City of Blight,” discusses the history of redevelopment programs and policies in the United States and the paradox of their detrimental effects on some of the most at-risk regions of our country.  Our government has allowed politics to get in the way of truly helping and bettering the poorest and most run-down areas of the nation.  In general, it seems that these policies, intended to alleviate the gap between the rich and the poor regions, have done exactly the opposite. 

In St. Louis, legislators have used the most blighted areas to justify redevelopment for areas that will profit from “needed” redevelopment.  Many have defined blight as concerning entire regions or areas rather than specific buildings, so zones have been specifically drawn to incorporate areas of true blight in order to allow the entire zone to be formally regarded blighted.  When a zone is termed blighted, this gives planners an excuse to be able to redevelop areas that are only marginally blighted in order to “prevent” blight in other areas of the zone.  In actuality, the motives behind this prevention are to create more desirable pieces of land for investors.  With this system, the most blighted areas are forgotten as other areas of land are bettered for the benefit of those in power. 

Colin Gordon "City of Blight."