Masters Theses

Date of Award

6-1983

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Planning

Major Professor

Jim Spencer

Abstract

During recent decades, inner-city neighborhoods' deterioration and decline has reached epidemic proportions and has seriously threatened the vitality of the building block of cities--urban neighborhoods. These neighborhoods may be a great resource of a city's housing stock and home ownership opportunities for the following generations, especially lower and middle-income families unable to afford new housing. For many years this country has tried to find viable solutions to this problem. Such programs as urban renewal and Model Cities have been attempted, but have met with limited success.

Neighborhood revitalization and conservation have attracted a growing amount of attention as a means of coping with such deterioration and decline. Such an approach demands a concerted effort by the government, financial institutions and neighborhood residents to maintain a neighborhood's vitality. The combination of both public and private resources and efforts are essential elements in overcoming the problems within the urban core.

The purpose of this thesis is to show that neighborhood revitalization and conservation is an alternative solution to tearing down and rebuilding unstable inner-city neighborhoods. Inner-city neighborhoods can be made functional and successful units of a community. Through the use of the case study approach, this document examines the economic benefits reaped by such efforts in its study of the Oregon Historic District in Dayton, Ohio. In this case, it was found that the assessed value of properties increased significantly following the initial years of the programs' institution. Reinvestment not only prevented assessed property values from declining, but also resulted in substantial increases. Tax revenues followed a similar trend and, for the first time, sales prices of properties were higher than the assessed values.

The framework developed by the case study, showing the evolution of the neighborhood, enables a better understanding of the context in which these economic benefits occurred and provides a sense of the impacts created. It must be realized, however, that it may not be possible to replicate the experiences of one area to another.

Although this thesis cannot, in and of itself, answer what economic impact revitalization and conservation efforts have had on the district and the city as a whole, it can present the reader with a concept of what has occurred in the Oregon District, without mathematically specific conclusions, as a basis for arriving at better informed judgments on the value of revitalization and conservation.

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