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Contradictions of the inner city revitalization: Urban ... · stein, 1983, R. Jakhel, 1979, I. Rogik, 1986, 1987). Probably it is also a phenomena that has engaged a large amount

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Page 1: Contradictions of the inner city revitalization: Urban ... · stein, 1983, R. Jakhel, 1979, I. Rogik, 1986, 1987). Probably it is also a phenomena that has engaged a large amount

Contradictions of the inner city revitalization:

Urban Renewal as a Consequence of the Social Control of

Economic Development

Barbara VerliC Dekleva

Most of the present analysis of renewal in Jugoslavia has been limited to the problems of the

inner city independent of what is happening in the city as a whole. As a result, controversial solu-

tions were proposed for the revitalization programs. The most incompatible solutions were those of

economic renewal and those proposed as solutions to the social problems.

Quite controversial interests have been present behind requests for modernization of the central

parts of the town and more efficient land use. The objective of securing the best return on capital

was essentially incompatible with the social goals of the inner city policy; besides that, economic

efficiency turned out to be a lost battle, since the ideological obstacles of local authorities greatly

hindered the entry of private investors, favourizing "social" organization even in cases where it did

not dispose over adequate programs or capital. Inhabitants wanted a quiet residential area with

good services, the local communities requested better infrastructure and enterprises asked for of-

fices, shopping centres and banks.

Although renewal planning started as a social issue, it tended to become more an economic and

ideological one. The plan revealed the "real" problems, but along the way of realization it tended to

become a mistiness of inadequate solutions, which had little connection with the original objects.

The prospective of a future image of the inner city along with its inhabitants and services led to a

mystification of the "real" issue.

It is not my understanding that social solutions proposed in the plans did not have good inten-

tions or were not important. Instead, I say the plans were unrealistic and realization was badly

prepared, since one did not take into consideration the real economic forces that "pushed" renewal

forward.

The plans could be defined as seeking to satisfy a high demand for central locatiom for the polit-

ical and economic management. The plans failed to accomplish their social goals in practice, not

their good intentions. Social movements (as a protest of alternative "reorganizers" of the actual

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renewal events) have been a response to local renewal policy. In a sense we have witnessed the

losing of a battle, but not the war.

T h e situation is quite similar to that of the logic of the War on Poverty in the USA decades ago,

from the Kennedy period, which relied on the proposition that the lack of financial resources of the

inner city caused the concentration of social problems and prevented it from finding adequate

solutions. Thus the government provided money to fd up the gap, without considering reallocation

of several city functions (Fainstein, 1983). Since economic and local policy interests had much in

common a large proportion of federal funds served to establish new business centers and conse-

quently did not significantly improve the social conditions of the inner city population (Friedland

1983).

Additional support for theses, that the lack of money is not the real or unique trouble in the

inner city problem is found in the case of Ljubljana (and many other cities in Jugoslavia as well),

where the funds for reconstruction have not been utilized completely, but the program of renewal

was cut off drastically. With similar needs for economic transformation as the motive, the funds

were reallocated into suburb investments. In most of the cases, this has served to support the con-

struction firms, which could hardly find new work elsewhere. Furthermore, local community leaders

offered many inner city houses to the big firms free of charge, without any project or plans for the

future use of the buildings.

What should be the future inner city function according to the different social or economic gro-

ups, thus remains an open question. The overriding problem of social versus economic priorities

lies at the heart of many policy dilemmas: analyses of the concept of urban growth of the city and

region and the nature of economic transformations which shape the urban setting; and human

needs, social network of relations, symbolic images, sociability, culture and tradition. The roots of

basic contradiction of different interests have to be revealed and demystification of the urban issue

has to be done in the first place - before planning.

How can we understand the phenomena of inner city decay, which starts a t the same time as the

city as a whole is growing, expanding in its population and production?

Decay has been treated as a problem of lack of resources. Enormous investments in infrastruc-

ture, housing and new production capacities were made in suburbs. On the other hand, the inner

city itself, including its historical part, have significant economic, social and cultural potentials for

the development of the city and for the benefit of the population. Redistribution of resources and

the politics of investments did not take these potentials into account.

Furthermore, the social decay concentrated in the inner city not only cakes conflicts, but asks by

its very presence for urgent solutions to unemployment, poverty, elderly persons' disability and

crime. For more than a decade renewal project have been discussed - in Jugoslavija and as in the

USA 20 years ago in USA - primarily as a form of social improvement, but the action never really

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started. Only when promoted by economic interests and political support, renewal plans started to

become an important issue in several different cities.

T h e more realization proceeded, the dominant concerns of inner city policy have shifted, from

social problems (urban deprivation cycles of poverty and immigrant adjustment) to economic and

physical problems (industrial decline, environmental decay, the small firm sector and promotion of

development)" (R. Home, 1982:16.) As in USA during the 1960's, and in England in the 1970's and

probably in many other countries as well, similarities of the whole process of urban transformation

are striking. Widely accepted concepts of economic growth, as a solution of human problems,

makes these similarities possible.

1 hypothesize that basically the same process of economic growth and metropolitan area form-

ation leads to the urban structure transformations, which have been the cause of inner city changes;

though there are significant differences in the process of distribution of resources, solidarity- based

funds and organization for common and social needs as well as decision making processes. Of cou-

rse, such differences offering potential for better solutions to be found and realized. Most of the

renewal cases in Slovenia are in the very phase of realization and the final results have yet to be

seen.

Significant differences can be noted among countries on the level of solutions (USA - Europe - socialist countries) in the contrast with similarities, which caused the urban changes (B. Verlik

dekleva, 1985). The attempts to adapt the urban centers to the need of control functions is contra-

sted by marginal social groups which found low cost housing in the central area (J. Jacobs, 1961, H.

Gans, 1968).

The problems of urban renewal implementation are resolved when a compromise between the

existing and new function is arranged by local government. How this compromise is realized and

how it is implemented depends upon the nature of dominant social relations, like interests of pri-

vate capitalism versus interests of state capitalism. However there is no common interpretation of

the renewal and revitalization plans among social scientists.

Some theoretical interpretations of urban issues

First "critical" explanation, which include most of the authors analyzing the social renewal design,

propounds that with better planning and more adequate renewal projects it would be possible to

minimize the social contradictions of the urban development (M. Anderson, 1964, J. Jacobs, 1961,

H. Gans, 1968, S. Butler, 1981, andmost of the urbanists in Slovenia).

Investments should enable the new economy to provide employment, especially small private enter-

prise (self-employment). Adequate availability of infrastructure should be activated for the inner-

city's population. Heterogeneity of social structure should increase possibility of resolving social

segregation relying on adequate policy for public service and better communications in the physical

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environment (A. Downs, 1973, H. Gans, 1961, J. Jacobs, 1961). Such opinions are common amongst

socialist urban designers and scientists as well.

Integration of new, diversified activities is proposed as an objective of economic revitalization.

Some other writers have proposed that the inner city could become a place of special functions,

places deprived of human or social dimensions (Webber in Bourne, 1971, which is in keeping with

some political opinion in socialist countries - the center of the city representing the state). Critique

of such development emphasizes the city center as a location of democratic processes (R. Dahl,

1976, Friedland, 1983).

The failure of (most) urban renewal was due to the misinterpretation of the relation between

physical change of urban structure and social problems like poverty, unemployment and ethnic

segregation (Alonso in Wilson ,1966, Friedland, 1983, Mollenkopf, 1983). This approach reveals a

criticism of the human ecology thesis about social and physical structures. Social problems thus

cannot be resolved with the change of urban environment (it can facilitate some relations), but

rather via social and political redistribution of resources in the social structure.

Still others claim urban decay and consequent need for renewal to be a result of the capitalist

crises, which can be thus handled within economic solutions. The role of the government is crucial,

since it tends to resolve the social contradictions with special funds or actions (Fainstein & Fain-

stein, 1983). Economic growth from 1949 - 1973 and unequal development as a result of capital

concentration have destroyed inner cities. Government interventions had mostly a function of social

control and of giving support to the private investments, which should increase land value, city

income and thus resolve other problems. As such, problems are seen those of redistribution, not

just of productivity (Friedland, 1983, Mollenkopf, 1983, Fainstein, 1983). Urban transformation has

been caused by regional metropolitan formation which changed the urban land use and caused the

decay.

According to this thesis, social problems were just concentrated in the area on the availability

base, but were not produced by the same forces as the urban decay. Physical transformation cannot

solve them, but can and did aggravate the situation. Thus other means are needed for social prob-

lems to be solved. Specific strategies of social and economic revitalization can be applied, but nev-

ertheless, only the changes in social structure itself could stop the production of marginal social

groups and their segregation.

Urban renewal as a consequence of sorial control of economic development

Urban renewal is a general phenomena that has been an important policy issue of local and nation-

al governments of capitalist and socialist countries (D. Kennedy, 1974, M. Anderson, 1964, Fain-

stein, 1983, R. Jakhel, 1979, I. Rogik, 1986, 1987). Probably it is also a phenomena that has engaged

a large amount of public resources.

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Urban renewal can be analyzed as a consequence (dependent factor) of the forces that condition

the transformation of industrial urban places into modem metropolitan regions (W. Alonso, 1966,

1978). This process has been specific in time but it is universal in its essence for most industrialized

countries and therefore urban renewal itself is also universal.

Between Western and Eastern Europe there is a time lag since industrial urbanization of East is

in time 20-30 years behind the same process in West or USA (I. Light, 1983). Differences have

been those of implementing the strategies of development and social regulation. The dynamic of

urban growth and industrialization has not been equal, neither has stimulation of productivity. It is

not by rewards, but rather by control of production, that socialist countries mostly regulate and

control the development. Constant lack of adequate goods in the market is an efficient social con;-

rol since people struggle for the very basic supply most of their time.

These differences, though, have no definite effects on better results of urban growth or city revital-

ization. In spite of declared social security and self-government. Tendencies towards gentrification

of the inner city, herunder economic monopoly and zoning, have been similar, as for can be analy-

zed (Petovar, 1989, VerliC Dekleva, 1987).

I do not support particularly the classical modernization theory (Rostow, 1961, The Stages of

Economic Growth), but the similarities of results makes at least urban renewal a quite universal

phenomenon; different interest groups and strategies of growth in different countries did not cha-

nge the essence of the phenomenon. Eventually, the state monopoly and private capital interests,

might have exchanged their roles. From these general points, some universal features of the pheno-

mena of inner city change can be revealed.

Urban renewal will more probabb occur in the process of metropolitan region fomzation, rather than

in the period of simple growth of the exirting economic activities (like manufacturing) in the cities.

Structural transformation of economy from secondary to prevailing tertiary and quarter sectors

of (bank, information) services, management and trade called for the reallocation of the urban

functions previously dominant in the centers. Moving the inhabitants and production to the suburbs

provoked an increasingly rigid zoning process. Restructuring the economy is not possible without

reallocation of the city functions. Renewal then is a necessity for economic transformation to be

realized in the process of regional metropolization.

Development of modern communications and production of new technologies allowed the spread of

compact urban places over large urbanized areas. Manufacturing moved to locations where higher

profits were achieved.

Nevertheless, the need for face-to-face interactions remains fundamental for all kinds of control

functions - political, public and corporate (Kennedy, 1974, Friedland, 1983, Rotar, 1984). It remains

as a criterion of choice, after the formal control. Complexity of relations needs to facilitate the

contracts, which makes the central urban location so attractive.

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Thus deconcentration of production on the one hand requires higher integration of management

on the other. The control functions of modern metropolitan regions include complex networks to

be located in the most adequate places - that of previously autonomous urban centers. That is the

main conditioning force at the outset of urban renewal (W. Alonso in Wilson, 1966).

Nevertheless, there have been some connections with the process of city growth and the decay

of the inner city (R. P. Appelbaum, 1978). City growth is characterized by expansion of existing

activities and increased population where most investments have been directed into suburbs or new

infrastructure for better communication network. Consequently inner city income (even housing

clearance funds) is invested elsewhere.

That has been the reason for the physical decay; the consequences were lower housing rents, the

split of capital investment and less comfort. Such locations and characteristics attract low income

groups, unemployed workers or immigrants, forming a ghetto or segregated area, where no econ-

omic or social integration in modern development is possible. Such processes lasted for years, so-

metimes decay and few renewal projects started (Dahl, 1961). Social and economic deprivation

problems are not new, so we can hardly explain such a great number of big renewal projects hap-

pening in very different countries by a sudden emergency to resolve them.

Local government imteacl, is greatly interested in urban growth and economic progress.

That is the case with metropolization of the region, which constitutes a process of accessible gro-

wth, but is signalled by structural transformation of economic activities; such transformation did not

intenslfy just zoning, but changed the land value and rebalanced the political power of local elite

(R. Dahl, 1961, J. Mollenkopf, 1983). It become the chance to regain the power in the whole reg-

ion, rather than the city.

New interests for inner city locations, a need to increase land value in centers and accumulation

of social problems, together constituted an unusual coalition of subjects which pushed renewal

forward. The last one being more an obstacle for the realization of the first two, rather than the

power, which could mobilize their (often non-existent) resources for revitalization.

The ground for conflicts is precisely the complex of compact interests vis r f vis different scales of

resources available to realize them

Even in the best of the cases, there still is a social price to be paid for the modernization. None-

theless, that does not mean, we should nor search for better solutions. The contradictions of econ-

omic interests, supported by local government and social or public orientation, should and did block

some renewal activities in severe conflicts (USA 1968, 1972, Europe, 1978). It will be very likely the

case in socialist countries as well. Only a compromise, between the possible better solutions will

open the floor for democratic debate about the future of our cities.

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References

Alonso, William 1966 The Historic and Structural Theories of Urban Forms: Their Implication for Urban renewal. h n d Economics. Vol.XL.No.2. P.227 - 231 Anderson, Martin 1964 The Federal Bulldozer. Cambridge, MIT Press Appelbaum, P.R. 1978 Size, Growth and US Cities. Peaeger Butler, M.S. 1981 Enterprize Zones: Greenling the Inner Cities. Universal Books, New York Caldard, 0. 1985 Urbana SociologUa. Novi svijet, Zagreb Dahl, R. 1967 The City in the Future of Democracy

1961 Who governs. Yale University Press Downs, A. 1973 Opening Up the Suburbs: An urban Strategy for America. Yale University Press Fainstein, S. and N. 1983 Restructuring the City. Longman, New York Friedland, R. 1983 Power and Crisis in the City. Macmillan, London Gans, J.H. 1968 People and Plans: Essays on Urban P~*oblems and Solutions. Basic Books Jakhel, R. 1979 Iluzija in resnifnost urban sredig. Misel in h s , Ljubljana Jacobs, J. 1961 The Death and the Life of Great American Cities. Vintage, New York Kennedy, D. and M. 1975 The Inner City. Wiley; New York Light, I. 1983 Cities in the World Perspective. Macmillan, New York Mollenkopf, J. 1983 The Contested City. Princeton Univ. Press, Boston Petovar, K. & Canak, M. 1989 Unapredenje stanovanja i stambenih sadriaja. Institut za arhitek- turu i urbanizam Srbije, Beograd Rogif, I. 1986 Sociologijska studija Dubrovnika. UrbanistiEki institut Hrvatske, Zagreb Vujovif, S. 1982 Grad i drustvo. IstrdivaEki - izdavatki centar Srbije, Beograd Verlif Dekleva, B. 1985 Razvoj mest in spremembe mestnega centra. InStitut za sociologijo, Ljub- ljana Webber, M. 1971 Internal Structure of the City. In: Larry S. Bourne The Post City Ape Oxford Univ. P., New York Wilson, J.O. 1966 Urban Renewal: The Record and the Controversy. Cambridge MIT Press