George Sternlieb

Residential abandonment : the tenement landlord revisited

THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK IS TO EXPLAIN RESIDENTIAL ABANDONMENT FROM BOTH SUPPLY AND DEMAND APPROACHES. NEWARK, NEW JERSEY IS USED AS THE SAMPLE SITE. THE STUDY COVERS A HISTORY OF THE CITY, DISCUSSION OF THE TENEMENT LANDLORD, THE PEOPLE WHO REMAIN, PUBLIC SAFETY, TAX DELINQUENCY, THE LOW-END REAL ESTATE SECTOR AND ABANDONMENT ITSELF. THE BOOK ALSO INCLUDES ALL THE DATA FROM THE ACTUAL RESEARCH.

Housing Abandonment in the Urban Core

Abstract The essential act of residential abandonment is the owners decision to play end game, to minimize expenditures in the expectation, conscious or otherwise, of ultimately giving up claim to his property. This may result from the immediacies of current cash flow or from negative expectations of future value, or both. The detailed analysis of this phenomenon attempts to explore existing theory on abandonment and to document the resulting hypotheses empirically. The problems are approached in two directions: (1) environmental—using gross patterns of residential abandonment to examine the relationships of neighborhoods and abandonment, and (2) behavior—examining the abandonment decisions of a sample of Newark landlords. It was found that abandonment appears to be more a function of owner-tenant interplay, and neighborhood change than of the physical characteristics of the building itself. Analysis of abandonments precursors indicates that the phenomenon will grow in national importance.

The Future of Retailing in the Downtown Core

Abstract George Sternlieb, presently Associate Professor at Rutgers—The State University, is a graduate of the Harvard Business Schools doctoral program. Formerly a department store executive, he has been involved in research on the changing economic role of the downtown.

Regional Market Variations: The Northeast Versus The South

The notion of the “rise of the Sunbelt” and the “decline of the Northeast” has raised the spectre of relentless economic disintegration of the northeastern states and the lure of boundless affluence across the southern and southwestern rim. What is myth and what is reality in these emerging perceptions? This paper reviews the trends of the past fifteen years, and speculates on the possibility of unsettled economic weather in the Sunbelt and valid investment potentials in the Northeast. Alternative future scenarios are suggested in the light of the marked acceleration of the thrusts of change of the last five years.

Revitalizing the Northeast: Prelude to an Agenda

The dilemma of regional decline suddenly has come front and center to public consciousness. Increasingly the phenomena of the central city is understood to be most strongly conditioned by the realities of growth and non-growth within specific regions of the country. The Northeast, in its transition from a virtual hegemony of income, wealth, business control function and cultural dominance to the unsteady state of an imperiled region, presents the most dramatic example of this decline. As the White House and Congress begin to grapple with the problems of national urban policy and balanced national growth, the dilemma of the Northeast becomes even more striking. Diseases caught in their infancy are much more easily cured than those that are fully mature. What is the disease that has debilitated this most vital organ of our nation? And, most important, what is to be done about it? To obtain at least a reliable diagnosis, the editors at the Center for Urban Policy Research have sought the opinions of leading figures in the field of urban studies. The topics to which they have chosen to address themselves are such stimulating and diverse ones as: Industrial Obsolescence; Federal Expenditure Patterns;Political Dilemmas; Intellectual Ambience; Tax Incentives; Unionization and Labor Force; Energy Matrix; Capital Supply; Planned Shrinkage; Intra-Governmental Policy; International Perspectives

New Tools for Economic Development: The Enterprise Zone, Development Bank, and RFC.

This important work brings together the new tools necessary for the prime urban development initiative of the 1980s. The Enterprise Zone, the most important new concept in job vitalization, was formulated in England, ad-vocated by Reagan, and has the sup-port of both parties. This, as well as the National Development Bank, a new Reconstruction Finance Corpora-tion, and the estimation of municipal costs and revenues from job develop-ment are discussed in detail.

HUD—A Study in Power and Piety

Abstract The formation of HUD was painful, its infant years disrupted by the siren call of the urban riots and Great Society promises. The department is now twenty years old—and has yet to find a solid place in the Washington firmament. To secure the latter requires power as well as piety.

Multifamily Housing Demand: 1980–2000

Using Annual Housing Survey data on multifamily structure occupancy by household type for 1975, together with number of household projections from the Department of Agriculture, a gross level of multifamily housing demand is projected. Allowance is made for a 2 percent replacement rate of the total stock as well as a 5 percent vacancy figure for new household demand. Assuming that: (1) there is no massive shift away from one-family ownership to multifamily units, and (2) the present level of conversions from one-family units to multiple occupancy continues to offset the trend of conversion from rental multifamily units to condominium status, then total future demand for multifamily rental units is well within current construction levels. We are presently building one and one-half times the demand of 416,000 units per year projected for 1975-80. The demand from 1980 to 1990 decreases to 367,000 new units annually. This is further reduced to 335,000 units annually for the period 1990-2000. The major determinants of future demand will focus on the scrap-page rate of extant facilities and the regional shifts of population.The future supply of multifamily structures depends on an abatement of construction costs and interest rates, and/or massive levels of Government subsidy.There is evidence that operating cost rises are challenging the financial integrity of multifamily structures. This is manifested by the HUD and private market mortgage delinquency and foreclosure rates.Policy focus for the future should emphasize the minimization of both construction and operating costs rather than augmented delivery rates. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

Death of the American dream house

The private house in America is the focal point of the myth/dream/reality of the good life for its middle classes as well as the aspirants to those anointed ranks. The automobile has lost much of its glamour: the boat, the trailer, the vacation to Europe are separately and together becoming powerful symbols, but their use-and excursions involving their use-begins with the house. To current blue-collar workers, moreover, the private house is what the 01d postal savings system or employe r automatic wage deductions for the purchase of Liberty Bonds or Savings Bonds or War Bonds were to previous generations-a form of relatively painless savings. For all but the more affluent in our society, a house is not only a home, it is typically a major repository of capital investment and stored equity. As any imaginative architect will testify, houses are purchased to be sold, not to be lived in. Their ultimate sale represents the edge which makes Social Security and Old Age pensions endurable. Possession of a house makes a man a full citizen of the work group. In this last generation, workingmen of America have moved from being renters to owners. The ramifications of this past shift are far from fully explored, but more important to understand now are the present facts and future realities of the housing stock for American workers. Who builds it? For whom? How? Why? And where?