Defining Blight
As people try to make sense of the world around them they constantly
make an evaluation of their immediate environment based on what they
see, and how it makes them feel. People look, evaluate, judge and make
decisions on what they see and sense in a community. The term "Urban
Blight" is used to describe those negative images that can instill fear
and create stress in residents and visitors. The evaluative image of a
place impacts whether a visitor stops and shops or keeps on driving.
A blighted commercial corridor will impact its businesses by driving
away potential customers.
Urban blight, refers to the downward spiraling malady afflicting many
of our city and inner suburban neighborhoods. Marked by trash strewn
lots, graffiti-covered buildings, barricaded storefronts, abandoned
buildings, overflowing dumpsters, treeless corridors and a proliferation
of ugly signage, including billboards, broken sidewalks and poor
lighting--urban blight chokes the life out of a neighborhood as surely
as a blighted or diseased plant can spread and destroy an entire crop.
Urban Blight drives out active residents and tax-paying businesses
because most people want to live and work in a pleasing visual
environment if they can.
Those who stay often feel powerless to change the forces that have made
their world ugly. That is where SCRUB comes in--we work with citizens
and neighborhood groups to improve the visual environment and quality of
life of a neighborhood. We work to get quality of life laws enforced and
help city agencies to do a better job.
