Ruination and Rejuvenation: Rethinking Growth and Decline through an Inverted Telescope

• Published in: International journal of urban and regional research Vol. 45; no. 2; pp. 348 - 362
• Main Author: Murray, Martin J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.03.2021; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Built environment; Capital; Capital investments; Cities; city building; constructed mistakes; Entrepreneurs; Fulfilment; growth machines and decline machines; Investments; Real estate; theories of urban growth and decline; Transformation; Underachievement; Urban areas; Urban decline; Urban deterioration; Urban development; Urban environments; Urban growth; Urban regeneration; Urban sprawl
• ISSN: 0309-1317; 1468-2427
• DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.13013

City building is a future‐oriented process that rests on the assumption that urban growth and transformation through capital investment and market competition is both expected and natural. Yet the fulfilment of this promise goes hand‐in‐hand with underachievement and failure. While much is known about the dynamics of urban growth and regeneration, very little is understood about the dynamics of urban decline and ruin. Decline is not simply the absence of growth. Theorizing the production of decline requires that we focus attention on how abandonment and neglect introduce ample opportunities for profit‐making whereby predatory entrepreneurs find ways to extract value from the dead and dying remains of the built environment. Just as city building is the result of profit‐yielding investment choices under the rule of real estate capital, city unbuilding is the outcome of extractive economies of plunder and pillage.