The global financial crisis and neighborhood decline

Abstract

Neighborhood decline is a complex and multidimensional process. National and regional variations in economic and political structures (including varieties in national welfare state arrangements), combined with differences in neighborhood history, development, and population composition, make it impossible to identify an ideal-type process of neighborhood decline over time. The recent global financial crisis and the subsequent economic recession affected many European and North American cities in terms of growing unemployment levels and rising poverty in concentrated areas. Investments in urban restructuring and neighborhood improvement programs have simultaneously decreased or come to a halt altogether. While many studies have investigated the effects of the financial crisis on national housing markets or on foreclosures in particular US metropolitan areas, only a few studies have focused on how the crisis affected neighborhood change. By proposing 10 hypotheses about the ways in which the economic crisis might influence processes of neighborhood decline, this article aims to advance the debate and calls for more contextualized, empirical research on neighborhood change.