France Large French cities are often surrounded by areas of urban decay. While city centers tend to be occupied mainly by
upper-class residents, cities are often surrounded by public housing developments, with many tenants being of North African origin (from
Morocco,
Algeria and
Tunisia), and recent
immigrants. From the 1950s to the 1970s, publicly funded housing projects resulted in large areas of mid- to high-rise buildings. These modern "grands ensembles" were welcomed at the time, as they replaced shanty towns and raised living standards, but these areas were heavily affected by economic depression in the 1980s. The banlieues of large cities like
Lyon, especially the northern Parisian banlieues, are criticized by the country's territorial spatial planning administration. They have been ostracized since the
Paris Commune government of 1871, considered as "lawless" or "outside the law", even "outside the Republic", as opposed to "deep France" or "authentic France", which is associated with the countryside. In November 2005, the French suburbs
were the scene of riots sparked by the accidental electrocution of two teenagers in the northern suburbs of Paris, and fueled in part by the substandard living conditions in these areas. Many deprived suburbs of French cities were the scenes of clashes between youth and the police, with violence and numerous car burnings resulting in media coverage. Today, the situation remains generally unchanged; however, there is a level of disparity. Some areas are experiencing increased drug trafficking, while some northern suburbs of Paris and areas like
Vaulx-en-Velin are undergoing refurbishment and redevelopment. Some previously
mono-industrial towns in France are experiencing increasing crime, decay, and decreasing population. The issue remains a divisive issue in French public politics.
Germany Many east German towns such as
Hoyerswerda face or are facing population loss and
urban shrinkage since the
reunification of Germany in 1990. Hoyerswerda's population has dropped about 40% since its peak and there is a significant lack of teenagers and twenty- to forty-some-year-olds due to the declining birthrates during the uncertainty of reunification. Part of the blight in east Germany is due to the construction and preservation practices of the socialist government under the
German Democratic Republic (GDR). To fill the housing needs, the GDR quickly built many prefabricated apartment buildings. In addition, historic preservation of pre-war buildings varied; in some cases, the rubble of buildings destroyed by the war were simply left there while in other cases the debris was removed, and an empty lot remained. Other standing historical structures were left to decay in the early GDR as they did not represent the socialist ideals of the country.
Italy In Italy, a well-known case of urban decay is represented by the
Vele di Scampia, a large public housing estate built between 1962 and 1975 in the
Scampia neighborhood of
Naples. The idea behind the project was to provide an urban housing project, where hundreds of families could socialize and create a community. The design included a public transportation rail station, and a park area between the two buildings. The planners wanted to create a small city model with parks, playing fields, and other facilities. However, various events, starting with the
1980 earthquake in
Irpinia, led to urban decay inside this project and in the surrounding areas. Many families left homeless by the earthquake squatted inside the
Vele. The lack of police presence led to a rise in
Camorra drug trade, as well as other gang and illicit activity.
South Africa In South Africa, the most prominent urban decay case is
Hillbrow, an inner-city neighborhood of
Johannesburg which was formerly affluent. At the end of
apartheid in 1994, many middle-class white residents moved out and were replaced by mainly low-income workers and unemployed people, including many refugees and undocumented immigrants from neighboring countries. Many businesses that operated in the area followed their customers to the suburbs, and some apartment buildings were "hijacked" by gangs who collected rentals from residents but failed to pay the utility bills, leading to termination of municipal services and a refusal by the legal owners to invest in maintenance or cleaning. Occupied today by low-income residents and immigrants and being overcrowded, the proliferation of crime, drugs, illegal businesses, and decay of properties have become prevalent.
United Kingdom Like many industrial nations before the Second World War, the
United Kingdom carried out extensive slum clearances. These efforts continued after the war; however, in many of these slums, depopulation became common, producing compounding decay. The UK is unlike much of Europe in having high overall population density but low urban population density outside of London. Some historians differentiate between the first Great Migration (1910–1930), numbering about 1.6 million African-American migrants who left mostly Southern rural areas to migrate to northern and Midwestern industrial cities, and, after a lull during the
Great Depression, a
Second Great Migration (1940–1970), in which 5 million or more African-Americans moved, including many to California and various western cities. Between 1910 and 1970, African-Americans moved from Southern states, especially
Alabama,
Louisiana,
Mississippi, and
Texas, to other regions of the
United States, many of them townspeople with urban skills. From the 1930s until 1977, African-Americans seeking borrowed capital for housing and businesses were discriminated against via the federal government–legislated
discriminatory lending practices for the
Federal Housing Administration (FHA) via
redlining. In 1977, the U.S. Congress passed the
Community Reinvestment Act, designed to encourage commercial banks and
savings associations to help meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. Later urban centers were drained further through the advent of mass car ownership, the marketing of suburbia as a location to move to, and the building of the
Interstate Highway System. In North America, this shift manifested itself in
strip malls, suburban retail and employment centers, and low-density housing estates. Large areas of many northern cities in the United States experienced population decreases and a degradation of urban areas. Inner-city property values declined, and economically disadvantaged populations moved in. In the U.S., the new inner-city poor were often African-Americans that migrated from the South in the 1920s and 1930s. As they moved into traditionally white neighborhoods, ethnic frictions served to accelerate flight to the suburbs. ==Policy responses ==