Bringing Buildings Back
Bringing Buildings Back
From Abandoned Properties to Community Assets
Written by a distinguished urban planner and practitioner with three decades of experience, the original volume of Bringing Buildings Back provided both a detailed toolkit and a call to rethink the way America carries out urban redevelopment.
This second edition of Alan Mallach's now classic work contains new material that directly addresses the issues that have arisen as communities across the country try to stabilize their neighborhoods in the wake of the foreclosure crisis. It discusses both the fundamental "big picture" issues and the technical and practical questions that have emerged. Mallach explores the concept of neighborhood stability and explains how it relates to the economic forces affecting a community, city, or region. As in the prior volume, this updated edition of Bringing Buildings Back does not seek simply to provide technical guidance to practitioners; it also suggests creative ways of thinking about local policies, strategies, and actions. Ultimately, no plan for dealing with problem real estate is about just the properties themselves; it is about how to build stronger, healthier neighborhoods, towns, and cities.
PREFACE: USING THIS GUIDEBOOK
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1 Understanding Abandonment
PART 1 Preventing Abandonment
Introduction: Thinking Strategically
2 Property Information and early warning systems
3 Improving the economic viability of at-risk absentee-owned peoperties
4 Preventing abandonment of owner-occupied housing
5 Enforcement and intervention
6 Receivership
Resources for further information
PART 2 Taking Control of Abandoned Properties
Introduction
7 Making tax foreclosure work
8 Other property acquisition tools
9 Property disposition
10 Setting up an abandoned property management system
11 Designing and establishing land bank entities
12 Getting action on privately owned properties
13 Maintaining, securing, and removing abandoned properties
Resources for further information
PART 3 Fostering Sustainable Reuse of Abandoned Properties
14 Laying the groundwork for the city's future
15 Making markets for abandoned properties
16 Using incentives to further community investment
17 Building reuse strategies around neighborhood market dynamics
18 Neighborhood revitalization planning and abandoned property strategies
19 Principles for abandoned property reuse
20 Greening the urban environment: Open space as a reuse strategy
Resources for further information
APPENDIX Estimationg the number of abandoned properties in American cities
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
