Progress Points: The Cost of Systemic Vacancy

Author(s): Center for Community Progress

What Is Systemic Vacancy?

Every community has a few vacant properties. But when vacant properties become so widespread that they completely change how a neighborhood looks and feels, that neighborhood becomes trapped in the harmful cycle of systemic vacancy.

Because of a legacy of unjust policies and racist systems, empty structures and lots remain in certain communities for years, deteriorating in condition, weakening the housing market, driving residents out of the neighborhood, and fueling more vacancy. These vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties, sometimes called “blighted” properties, become so widespread that doing anything about them at scale feels extremely difficult.

Historically inequitable land ownership policies, lending practices, and legal systems lead to neighborhoods where vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties are common. Systemic vacancy takes root over years, but global crises (like the pandemic and the Great Recession) and natural disasters (like hurricanes) hit communities experiencing these equity challenges harder, creating more vacant properties.

As vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties spread, the quality of life worsens in neighborhoods, impacting the local economy, property values, and quality of housing stock. Shifts in the market such as demand changes, market declines, and decreases in consumer and investor confidence fuel the negative cycle.

High levels of vacancy and abandonment hurt the physical and mental health of the community, reduce individual wealth, and strain local government finances. This triggers more abandonment, more disinvestment, and deepens the equity gap.

Defining “Vacant, Abandoned, and Deteriorated” Properties

Vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated (VAD) properties are residential, commercial, and industrial buildings or vacant lots that pose harm to residents and their community. (Vacant property is inclusive of vacant buildings and vacant lots. A vacant lot is a parcel without a structure, which could include a previously developed lot or an unbuildable lot.) Their owners or managers have not kept up the property, walked away, neglected paying taxes or utilities, or defaulted on mortgages. Often these are referred to collectively as “blighted” properties or “problem properties.”

Deteriorated properties are structures in poor condition with damage or visible signs of deferred maintenance. They may be occupied or vacant.

Blight is a shorthand term many use to refer to properties they perceive as problematic in some way: appearing unsafe, visually unpleasant, or a threat to neighborhood property values. While a pervasive word in community revitalization, urban planning, and housing policy, Community Progress discourages using the term. It has historically been used to justify stripping low-income people and people of color of their homes in the name of “blight eradication.”

Read more about the costs of vacant and abandoned properties to public health and safety, individual wealth, and municipal finances here.