Equity Through the Built Environment; Who Bears the Cost of Decay
By Bahram AzabDaftari, ImaginationTree.org
Walk through almost any older neighborhood in Scranton, or across much of Northeast Pennsylvania, and you will see it immediately. Sagging porches, boarded windows, vacant storefronts, cracked sidewalks, and buildings that look tired long before the people who live beside them are.
Decay is often treated as a neutral condition, a sad but inevitable outcome of time, market forces, or population loss. But decay is not neutral, and it is never evenly distributed.
The real question we should be asking is not why buildings deteriorate, but who is forced to live with the consequences when they do.
Because when the built environment fails, someone always pays the price.
The Built Environment Is Not Just Physical, It Is Political
Housing, streets, commercial corridors, utilities, and public spaces do not happen by accident. They are the result of decades of decisions involving zoning codes, capital budgets, lending practices, tax policy, and political priorities.
When these systems work, neighborhoods gain stability, opportunity, and dignity. When they do not, deterioration sets in, and the burden falls disproportionately on low-income residents, renters, seniors, and communities that have already experienced long histories of disinvestment.
A leaking roof is not just a maintenance issue. A vacant building is not just an eyesore. A crumbling sidewalk is not just inconvenient.
These conditions are structural failures that shape health outcomes, educational attainment, safety, and long-term economic mobility.
Decay Is a Cost, but It Is Shifted Downward
In theory, the cost of maintaining buildings and infrastructure should be borne by those who own assets and benefit from them. In practice, that cost is often shifted onto people with the least power to avoid it.
When a landlord defers maintenance, tenants pay through unsafe living conditions, higher utility bills, and declining quality of life. When a city lacks the resources or political will to reinvest in older neighborhoods, residents pay through reduced services, falling property values, and diminished opportunity. When commercial corridors hollow out, nearby communities pay through lost jobs, reduced walkability, and fewer places to access everyday goods and services.
Decay becomes a hidden tax, paid not in dollars, but in health, time, stress, and lost potential.
Preservation Is an Equity Strategy, Not a Luxury
In Scranton, much of our affordable housing stock already exists. It is older, imperfect, and essential.
Yet preservation rarely receives the same attention or funding as new development. Too often, we wait until buildings are beyond saving and then frame demolition or displacement as the only viable path forward.
That approach is neither equitable nor efficient.
Preserving existing housing and commercial buildings keeps rents more stable by avoiding the high costs of full replacement. It helps maintain community ties and social networks that support families and seniors. It reduces displacement and housing insecurity, and it almost always costs less than rebuilding from scratch.
Preservation is not about nostalgia. It is about recognizing that stability is the foundation on which opportunity is built.
Vacant Buildings Do Not Stay Neutral for Long
An empty structure is not frozen in time. It actively pulls value out of its surroundings.
Vacant buildings depress nearby property values, increase public safety and fire risks, strain municipal resources, and signal abandonment even when residents remain invested in their blocks. Over time, vacancy becomes contagious. One neglected property leads to another, and soon an entire street or corridor is labeled blighted rather than underserved.
At that point, reinvestment becomes harder, more expensive, and more disruptive. The longer we wait, the higher the human cost.
Who Gets Choice, and Who Gets Stuck
Equity in the built environment ultimately comes down to choice.
Higher-income households can move away from decay. They can choose newer housing, safer streets, and better-resourced neighborhoods. Low-income residents often cannot.
They stay not because they lack pride or care, but because the systems around them have failed to reinvest, repair, and respond. When we tolerate deteriorating housing and infrastructure in some neighborhoods but not others, we are making a moral decision, even if we pretend it is simply economic reality.
A Different Way Forward, Community-Centered Development
At The Imagination Tree, we believe that reducing poverty and strengthening communities requires starting with place.
That means stabilizing housing before crisis sets in, reusing existing buildings instead of abandoning them, aligning zoning, code enforcement, and capital investment with real community needs, and partnering with residents rather than planning around them.
Equitable development does not mean grand projects or sweeping displacement. It means incremental, intentional investment that treats neighborhoods as assets, not problems to be solved.
Decay Is a Policy Outcome, So Is Renewal
The condition of our buildings reflects our values.
If we accept decay in certain neighborhoods, we are accepting inequality by design. If we invest in preservation, adaptive reuse, and community-driven revitalization, we create platforms for opportunity instead of pipelines into poverty.
The built environment can either trap people or lift them.
The question is not whether we can afford to address decay. It is whether we can afford to keep asking the same communities to bear its cost.
Author’s Note:
This essay reflects the author’s professional experience in housing and community development, informed by a broad body of scholarship and practice in urban planning, preservation, and equitable development. Influential works include those by Jane Jacobs, Matthew Desmond, Alan Mallach, and research from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.