Land Banks and Land Banking
Date Published: 07/05/2011
Author: Frank S. Alexander
In a follow-up to LISC publication--Land Bank Authorities: A Guide to the Creation and Operation of Local Land Banks--Professor Frank Alexander updates this guidebook for American cities attempting to rediscover the value of urban land. The guide presents new strategies, resources, and an examination of effective solutions to combat vacant and abandoned properties.
If America’s cities and towns are to realize their greatest potential as attractive and welcoming places—and as drivers of the new American economy they must be able to repurpose their vacant, abandoned and foreclosed properties. Those properties—whether the product of the current foreclosure crisis or the remnants of the old economy—diminish the sense of community among neighbors, erase the value of lifelong investment in a home, and make it nearly impossible for cities and towns to attract and keep the creative, innovative, entrepreneurial citizens who will build the next economy.
For decades, older cities have struggled with the problems posed by unoccupied, dilapidated houses, vacant buildings and open, empty lots. Those abandoned properties depress tax revenues, strain public services and demand constant and expensive attention from local governments. They are targets for arson and breeding grounds for crime, and they present a dangerous and sometimes deadly playground for neighborhood children. In my hometown of Flint, Michigan, for example, seven out of ten fires occur in abandoned houses. Ironically, the declining tax base and subsequent budget cuts resulting from those vacant properties have forced the city to close fire stations that would have responded to the infernos. Vacant and abandoned properties diminish the resources available to combat the contagious blight, crime, disease, and disinvestment associated with forgotten urban land. As many metropolitan areas continue to consume suburban and rural land much faster than their population grows, thousands of urban parcels sit idle, available but somehow out of reach.
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> Vacant Properties and Foreclosure Response
> Center for Community Progress
Topics: Economic Development & Safety, --Vacant Properties, Land Use & Planning, --Vacant Properties
Type: Guidebook