Declining suburbs: Disinvestment in the inner suburbs of Camden County, New Jersey

by Caris, Paul David, Ph.D., Rutgers The State University of New Jersey - New Brunswick, 1996, 250 pages; AAT 9711025

Abstract (Summary)



Many aging inner-ring suburbs in the United States show signs of economic decline and deterioration. In addition to problems such as traffic congestion, high crime rates, and the physical aging and deterioration of buildings and infrastructure, certain older suburbs are experiencing declining housing markets and deteriorating neighborhoods. The major theoretical foundation of this research is that economic decline and deterioration in older suburban communities is primarily the result of disinvestment.



More broadly, suburban decline should be understood in light of the more general process of urban restructuring and redevelopment underway in North American cities. This process of economic decline is a reflection of investment in the built environment in response to changing conditions of profitability. This study examines disinvestment as a spatiotemporal process, which results from a variety of investment decisions in response to changing conditions in profitability of investment at different locations in the urban environment.



The processes of investment, disinvestment, and reinvestment have shaped the development of the American metropolis historically, and have resulted in the development, deterioration, and redevelopment of urban as well as suburban neighborhoods. A theory of suburban disinvestment is developed, which treats suburban disinvestment as similar to earlier urban disinvestment. Smith's (1979) rent gap theory is taken as a starting point for understanding disinvestment in the context of urban and suburban land and housing markets.



The major hypothesis of this research is that an identifiable disinvestment process appeared in certain inner and older suburbs as early as the mid 1970s, and has continued. The study focuses on the housing market as one segment of the urban investment environment. Specifically, selected historical trends in the housing market of Camden County, New Jersey are analyzed to identify areas where the disinvestment process is taking place. Variables examined include (1) median home sale price, (2) the availability of conventional home mortgage credit, and (3) real estate tax delinquency. This analysis suggests that signs of disinvestment did indeed appear in certain inner and older suburbs of Camden County as early as the mid-1970s.