Fellows Blog: Is the Solution to Fighting Blight Right Here in Louisiana?
By Elai Levinson, Louisiana State University student & Louisiana Progress College Fellow
Since coming to Louisiana State University from my hometown of San Francisco, I could not help but notice the large amount of blight all over Baton Rouge. Whether it’s north of campus along Highland Road or in the downtown area, dilapidated and vacant properties are everywhere, and all of that blight made me think about the impact it has on local communities. Aside from the obvious aesthetic downside, I also wondered whether blight impacts public safety. As it turns out, research indicates that blight remediation can reduce crime, making it a good public safety and financial investment for state and local governments.
Data suggests that leaving blighted properties unattended can cost state and local governments enormous amounts of money. The nonprofit organization, Center for Community Progress, analyzed the costs of blight in Atlanta by examining a report authored by Dr. Dan Immergluck, who at that time was a professor at Georgia Tech.
“While I assumed that the costs of vacant and distressed properties to the City were substantial, I didn’t have a good handle on how large they might be,” Immergluck said of his research. “Annual service costs at Police, Fire, and Code Enforcement agencies alone amounted to approximately $3 million per year. Lost property tax revenues due to decreased home values added another $2.7 million annually. Then, when we looked at overall losses in home values, the lost wealth was over $150 million.”
Other cities and municipalities have found similar results in their own studies. Philadelphia officials commissioned a study in 2010 to pinpoint the financial impacts of blighted properties. PlannersWeb consolidated the results of the report into three key findings.
The first of those findings estimated that blight led to $3.6 billion dollars in lost property values, an average of $8,000 per household. This was a result of a citywide reduction in values by 6.5% (up to 20% in certain neighborhoods), showing that blighted or vacant properties have negative effects on nearby properties. If we carry this methodology over to Louisiana, we could estimate roughly $1.2 billion in lost property values distributed among New Orleans’s 150,000 households alone.
The second key finding was that the city was spending $20 million dollars in maintenance costs, despite Philadelphia controlling “only a fraction of the vacant parcels within the city.”
The third key finding estimated that around 17,000 properties were tax delinquent, amounting to at least $2 million in taxes going uncollected each year. While lawmakers may be hesitant to fund blight reduction programs due to concerns over cost, these findings reveal that ignoring the problem could be more expensive in the long run.
Several studies over the years have shown a link between blight remediation and reductions in crime. The American Public Health Association conducted a study that concluded that blighted and vacant lots may contribute to violence, as illegal activity is sheltered. The study posits that blight removal programs can reduce firearm violence.
Another research journal sought to examine crime rates near remediated properties in New Orleans. And while differences in violent, property, and domestic crimes were found to be negligible, there was a significant decrease in drug crimes near remediated properties compared to the control properties. One of the conclusions of the research was that “vacant-lot and blight remediation may hold promise as methods to improve public health and prevent violence.”
In Baton Rouge, researchers were interested in finding a link between blighted properties and violent crime. A 2019 Scientific Journal article described the use of “risk terrain modeling,” or RTM, to assess an area’s proneness to violent crime. This technique determines which areas are ‘riskier’ based on certain risk factors. Eighteen of these risk factors were found to have an impact on violent crime in the city, and the concentration of blighted properties was the most influential of those factors. In other words, the likelihood of being a victim of violent crime increases substantially the closer one is to blighted property. The results of this report indicate that areas with high concentrations of blight or vacant lots likely face more risk of violent crime, meaning that identifying and measuring blight can be a useful predictor of homicide.
Given that blight has been linked to a lack of public safety, there have been efforts across the country to combat it. In Jackson, Mississippi, several strategies were listed as part of a program designed to eliminate blight in the future. In Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, applicants can request demolition of a property that meets the criteria for blight, as a part of their Blight Removal Program. According to the county’s website, anyone from municipalities to private directors are eligible applicants.
These programs have promise, but the lack of willingness to address blight on a national scale has slowed down momentum. With little-to-no movement from the federal government and a lack of national anti-blight organizations, there isn’t enough institutional support for tackling the issue of blight, leaving the issue to non-profit organizations like the Center for Community Progress.
In my search for blight remediation solutions, I discovered that one of the leaders in this movement exists right here in Louisiana. The City of New Orleans, which faced a blight crisis following Hurricane Katrina, implemented a blight removal program when Mitch Landrieu was mayor. Landrieu made an ambitious promise in September of 2010 to reduce blight by 10,000 properties by 2014. According to a survey conducted by then-University of New Orleans professor Dr. Peter Yaukey, blight was reduced by an estimated 10,000 units from September 2010 and April 2013, meaning Landrieu succeeded in his goal to reduce blight well ahead of schedule.
An article in the magazine Governing highlighted the strategies that contributed to the city’s success: “The new blight remediation process begins with property inspection. It then moves to a hearing in which the property owner is either found guilty or in compliance. If guilty, the owner must remediate the problem or the property is either demolished or goes to a sheriff's sale, which allows for a clean transfer of ownership.” The creation of a management and collaboration program called BlightSTAT allowed for representatives from several city agencies together to coordinate their blight removal strategies.
In spite of that, the city still faces many challenges. According to an article in The Advocate from 2015, tougher enforcement is needed, since penalties against code violators are weak. Many also felt that the results were not shared evenly by city residents, with concerns over certain neighborhoods receiving help over others.
The fight against blight has continued into the administration of Mayor LaToya Cantrell, as the problem reemerged in the wake of the Covid pandemic and following Hurricane Ida. In October 2022, the city council passed measures to hold property owners accountable for code violations. One example of the impact of those measures was a heavy fine that was imposed on the owner of the Plaza Tower in downtown New Orleans. In December 2022, $10 million dollars was allocated to the administration for demolition and landscaping vacant lots. Mayor Cantrell has also introduced an initiative known as Mow To Own, which encourages homeowners near vacant lots to cut the grass and keep the property clean in return for an $875 credit. Because of these initiatives, New Orleans has earned a reputation for being a national leader in fighting blight.
Blight removal is a major component of improving public safety. Its links to lower crime support this, and the economic benefits are convincing. In my time in Baton Rouge, I have encountered blight in my daily life. But when searching for solutions, and finding some in New Orleans, I became optimistic that blight removal was possible here. By taking the lessons learned from New Orleans, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Jackson, and many other cities, places like Baton Rouge and Shreveport could become revitalized. And Louisiana, which often ranks near the bottom in many categories, could become a national leader in the war on blight.
