Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = RULIB)
ETD
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TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = local)
rucore19991600001
Note (type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Alan Drew Cander
PhysicalDescription
Form (authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
x, 461 p. : ill., maps
Abstract (type = abstract)
Urban redevelopment involves the renovation of deteriorating city areas through the rehabilitation or replacement of dilapidated buildings and underutilized parcels with new land uses to meet specific economic goals. Municipalities may invoke eminent domain to facilitate land acquisition for redevelopment. However, eminent domain is only one land assembly tool among other processes and strategies - including blight investigation and designation - that municipalities use to assemble land for redevelopment. This dissertation addresses large scale processes and broader issues that impact how municipalities make land available for redevelopment through formal and informal land assembly processes. It is based on larger questions centering on what land assembly and blight determination strategies municipalities use in their redevelopment efforts, how eminent domain factors into such processes, and how regulations and case law influence municipal redevelopment processes. Using a three-pronged qualitative methodology based on semi-structured interviews, archival analysis, and site visits, I conducted case studies of four urban redevelopment projects (two in one neighborhood) in Newark, New Jersey spanning a fifty-year period and revealing several overarching themes. I found that land assembly processes and strategies have been aimed at maintaining municipal control over the redevelopment process. City officials have considered Newark a city for sale in which land is a transferrable, deliverable commodity. The need to chase funding streams has heavily influenced redevelopment efforts. Private sector involvement in Newark’s earlier urban renewal efforts challenges the conventional view that privatization did not emerge in redevelopment until the neoliberalism of the 1970s. After devolution, as private sector initiatives became increasingly important to Newark’s redevelopment efforts, the focus of blight designation shifted from deteriorated outlying neighborhoods to potentially blighted areas downtown where private investment was less risky. Site targeting and land delivery have often preceded blight designation by many months: blight declaration has tended to be a formality. Grass roots opposition has profoundly impacted redevelopment efforts. Finally, much Newark’s land assembly process has centered on formal and informal meetings and agreements between public and private actors who target specific sites, suggesting that the public and the media have overemphasized the role of eminent domain in redevelopment efforts.
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
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Author Agreement License
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I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.