Representing Urban Decline

Abstract

Throughout the postwar period, urban theorists and popular commentators in the United States developed a perspective on older industrial cities that emphasized their decline. Almost any student of U.S. urbanization now can easily recount the historical events that explain why these cities became less and less desirable to households and businesses. Such explanations, though, frequently lack a consideration of the instability of the language of urban decline and the narratives through which interpretations of decline are conveyed. The purpose of this article is to illustrate the disorderly nature of the concept of urban decline through a presentation and analysis of various narrative frameworks in which it is commonly presented.