Explanation for all the decay?

[Bearinabox]

I think the real problem is that houses here have so little value. Where's the incentive to sink money into a worthless house in a declining neighborhood? Unless you have some sentimental attachment to the place, or have reason to believe that the low housing prices are temporary and the neighborhood will eventually rebound, there's probably a point at which it makes more rational sense to let the house go than to keep maintaining it. Detroit looks the way it does because more houses have reached that point here than in other places.

A well-built house will likely decay more slowly once abandoned, but that only matters if the housing market in the neighborhood improves at some point after it's abandoned. Otherwise, a house that wasn't economical to keep up in 1995 will be even less economical to rehab after 15 years of abandonment, even if it's still perfectly salvageable.

[DetroitDad]

I think the real problem is that houses here have so little value. Where's the incentive to sink money into a worthless house in a declining neighborhood? Unless you have some sentimental attachment to the place, or have reason to believe that the low housing prices are temporary and the neighborhood will eventually rebound, there's probably a point at which it makes more rational sense to let the house go than to keep maintaining it. Detroit looks the way it does because more houses have reached that point here than in other places.

A well-built house will likely decay more slowly once abandoned, but that only matters if the housing market in the neighborhood improves at some point after it's abandoned. Otherwise, a house that wasn't economical to keep up in 1995 will be even less economical to rehab after 15 years of abandonment, even if it's still perfectly salvageable.

This is a great point.

As I see it, the problems with Detroit had to do with the type of, and reason for development beyond the central city, once the auto industry began to take flight. Detroit faced several big challenges in the past. Some of those challenges that Detroit faced included;

• The attitudes held by enough of the people who inhabited them [[homes viewed as investments).
• Issues of human nature, and how fragile the veneer of society is.
• A lack of culture and heritage. Many new residents still felt connected with their old homes, at the time.
• The fact that opportunity is mobile.
• The cost of maintaining old grand structures; it was cheaper to build new than to renovate.
• Population erosion in the face of overcrowded and industrial urban environments plagued by related problems.

[Pingu]

I think the real problem is that houses here have so little value. Where's the incentive to sink money into a worthless house in a declining neighborhood? Unless you have some sentimental attachment to the place, or have reason to believe that the low housing prices are temporary and the neighborhood will eventually rebound, there's probably a point at which it makes more rational sense to let the house go than to keep maintaining it. Detroit looks the way it does because more houses have reached that point here than in other places.

A well-built house will likely decay more slowly once abandoned, but that only matters if the housing market in the neighborhood improves at some point after it's abandoned. Otherwise, a house that wasn't economical to keep up in 1995 will be even less economical to rehab after 15 years of abandonment, even if it's still perfectly salvageable.

Yes, it's not the house, it's stuff other than the house, jeeze I'd give my eye teeth to have my kids grow up in the same kind of house my parents did, and believe-you-me I'd find plenty of time and money to keep things up, not a problem.

But as a parent, you can only control so many things, and the rest you have to suck up. So I'll keep my house up, till the point where that just isn't enough anymore, then I'm bailin'

[iheartthed]

I think the real problem is that houses here have so little value. Where's the incentive to sink money into a worthless house in a declining neighborhood? Unless you have some sentimental attachment to the place, or have reason to believe that the low housing prices are temporary and the neighborhood will eventually rebound, there's probably a point at which it makes more rational sense to let the house go than to keep maintaining it. Detroit looks the way it does because more houses have reached that point here than in other places.

A well-built house will likely decay more slowly once abandoned, but that only matters if the housing market in the neighborhood improves at some point after it's abandoned. Otherwise, a house that wasn't economical to keep up in 1995 will be even less economical to rehab after 15 years of abandonment, even if it's still perfectly salvageable.

Yeah...

High homeownership rates are not indicative of a strong core city, nor can I find anything that suggests the two are positively related. However, there is some evidence that the two may be negatively related [[albeit probably loosely). If homeownership rates were indicative of a strong core, Detroit would be perhaps the greatest city in the country right now, since it has a very high homeownership rate among major cities.

According to the census bureau, these are the 2000 homeownership rates [[city only) for a few major cities that I selected semi-randomly [[median household income / median house value in parens):

New York - 30.2% [[$38,293 / $211,900)
Boston - 32.2% [[$38,625 / $132,400)
Miami* - 34.9% [[$23,483 / $120,100)
San Francisco - 35% [[$55,221 / $396,400)
Los Angeles - 38.6% [[$36,687 / $221,600)
Chicago - 43.8% [[$38,625 / $132,400)
Seattle - 48.4% [[$45,736 / $168,300)
Cleveland - 48.5% [[$25,928 / $72,100)
Pittsburgh - 52.1% [[$28,588 / $59,700)
Detroit - 54.9% [[$29,526 / $63,600)
Philadelphia - 59.3% [[$30,746 / $59,700)

Some points of note:

• Income varied far less than home price amongst these cities. The cheapest city price wise was 15% the most expensive city, yet the cheapest median income was 42% the highest income.
  
• Median income and median home price do appear to show a weak correlation, but the magnitude of change is much stronger among prices. For instance, NY and Boston both have similar median incomes and both are more expensive than Miami, but NY is over 40% more expensive than Miami while Boston is only 10% more expensive.
  
• High homeownership rates apparently correlate more with lower incomes. The four cities with the highest homeownership rates [[Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Philadelphia), were also among the cities with the lowest median incomes on this list.

[blackmath]

Goat I absolutely agree with you. I think [[now don't quote me on this) that on this side of the river the city has bylaws that dictate how a property should be kept up. I think it's just like it is in your scenario - if someone calls the city about a derelict property the owner of that property gets fined and ordered to straighten out the issue within 30 or 60 days depending on the severity and number of complaints, etc.

However, a lot of properties in certain parts of this town are still in pretty rough shape. I used to live in a cheapo apartment in an older section of town. My landlord did absolutely nothing to keep up the property, so I took it upon myself to go over to my parents house and borrow the lawnmower to go back to my apartment to cut the grass, pull the weeds and rake some leaves. No big deal to me. As soon as the neighbors saw me doing this they asked me if the landlord was giving me a break in the rent for all the work I was doing. She wasn't, and I never asked for it and never got it either. If I'm going to live somewhere, it's gotta look nice. It's just a rule I have I suppose...

But, my neighbors reaction to what I was doing was telling of the attitude of some of the renters out there. If I don't get paid to do some simple maintenance, then forget it I'll let the property go to crap. Luckily, people like that are in the minority and most people take pride in where they live.

[Hermod]

When I rented a single house, I always felt that lawn mowing and bush trimming was part of my responsibility. If something broke, I called the landlord and requested that he fix it. If I broke something, I had it fixed myself.