Vacant Properties: The True Costs to Communities
Date Published: 08/01/2005
Author: National Vacant Properties Campaign
Publisher: National Vacant Properties Campaign
By all accounts, vacant properties are a curse to communities and individuals who live near them. Data presented in Vacant Properties: The True Costs to Communities shows that vacant properties are an expense that local governments simply cannot afford. The report summarized the many and varied costs that vacant and abandoned properties impose upon communities. It compiles research from across the country quantifying a wide variety of costs, including city services (nuisance abatement, crime and fire prevention), decreased property values and tax revenues, as well as the costs born by homeowners and the issue of the spiral of blight. But it also includes some good news: communities are finding ways to recapture the value in vacant properties, bringing vitality back to once blighted neighborhoods.
Topics: Economic Development & Safety, Housing, --Vacant Properties, Land Use & Planning, --Vacant Properties
Type: Research paper, Topical report