Deconstruction in Rochester: Housing inequality and racial segregation

 A blighted house on Lyell Ave. Rochester Taken 4/23/2021

It's no secret that the city of Rochester has lost population, and continues to lose population. In the second half of the 20th century Rochester lost over 1/3 of its population shrinking from a city of 330,000 in 1950 to just over 200,000 today. It's also no secret that the city of Rochester is grappling with a stark history of segregation, white flight, and underinvestment in poor and minority communities.

Consider the City of Rochester Demolition Tracker which shows the demolition of blighted property across the city since the start of 2017. Over 400 houses have been demolished in the past 4 years, an aggressive rate of nearly 100/year, and 49 are currently planned.

 

 An incredible pattern emerges showing demolition concentrated in neighborhoods in the west and north of the Center City. These properties needed to be demolished considering the state they were in. They were simply not safe to live in, and dragged down the rest of the surrounding properties by creating a sense of unsafe neighborhoods. But why weren't these properties maintained while south-east Rochester largely was?

In 2019 Rochester adopted its 2034 Comprehensive Plan, which included an analysis of the residential housing market of the city. In much of the north and west of the city poverty rates have increased by over 30%

 

This overlays perfectly with the housing market analysis of places with higher demand. According to the study 33% of the city's population lives in the dark blue shaded areas below. Over 80% of the people living in these areas are Black or Hispanic, where-as roughly 80% of the people living in the pink shaded ares are white or another non-Black, non-Hispanic minority.


According to the housing plan laid out by the city, in the weakest housing market the city is to aggressively demolish blighted structures and hold the vacant land for future community redevelopment. The racial inequalities of the City of Rochester run deep. It is frankly unacceptable that things have been allowed to get this bad. There are many community investment programs underway in Rocehster, including ROC the Riverway and a study into the removal of the Northern Spur of the inner loop. Some of these projects I hope to follow on this blog.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

South Ave Reconstruction

Image
 Back to regular order on this blog, covering some construction projects that I see around the city. Right around South Ave, near College Town and the South Wedge there's a good amount of heavy machinery tearing up the pavement and diverting traffic.       According to the project page the scope of this project is " ... Full depth pavement reconstruction.  Additional improvements will also include new sidewalk, curb, curb ramps, driveway aprons, drainage basins, water main, water services, hydrants, lighting, signals, signing, pavement markings, tree plantings, pedestrian crossing improvements, and bicycle accommodations " Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this project is the new bicycle infrastructure. The cycle path from the University of Rochester to College Town is being extended further along Elmwood where it will meet with the multi-use path.   Intersection of Elmwood and South, from this presentation  The project is also adding separated bicycle lanes on Sout
Read more

Attending a Local Meeting

Image
Last night I attended my first ever public planning meeting, this was for Rochester ZAP changes for the southeast quadrant, which I've covered extensively in my previous post . I already had a pretty good idea about the material that was being presented, but it was also neat to hear from other people in the community. So this is a pro-city blog. I like cities, and I think it was a mistake for Americans to turn away from cities in the 20th century. And of course not everyone agrees with me on that. The start of the presentation felt like a reassurance that "no, we're not getting rid of your single family zoning". There was one older lady who talked about how she fought really hard to keep a strip of street zoned residential a few decades ago, and if it was rezoned now she threatened to move out of the city. Another lady was complaining about the planned project at the former Colgate campus, which is a pretty cool site and project, and I'll make sure to make a futu
Read more

An LVT for Rochester

Image
Among mid-sized cities, Rochester may be #1 in our hearts, but it's #2 in an important metric. According to Roofstock , Rochester, NY has the second highest property tax rate among mid-sized cities (Population 150k-350k) in the United States, only behind Aurora, IL. On top of this tax, Rochesterians also pay an 8% sales tax (4% county on top of 4% state), and state income tax, the 7th highest in the nation. The tax bill for living here is painful to be sure. Chief Justice John Marshall once wrote "The power to tax is the power to destroy", and while it often doesn't go as far as that, it isn't hard to see taxes make people go out of their way to do something. For example, the tax rate in Monroe County is 8%, while in the bordering Ontario County the tax rate is 3.5%. Eastview Mall sits in the town of Victor, just across the county border from Monroe. Almost all of the customers for Eastview originate in Monroe county, yet because of how a line was drawn on a map s
Read more