A blight area may be defined as one that is declining and characterised by serious destructive economic forces, such as encroaching inharmonious uses, infiltration of poorer social classes and rapidly depreciating buildings. This definition draws attention to the three related aspects of blight: economic, social and physical. The origin of blight are usually economic with the falling income of an area leading to lower values, the emigration of existing occupiers and uses and immigration of inferior social classes and uses. Although it can happen that an area is blighted by an initial lowering of social status, perhaps by unwise lettings or the permission of uses which destroy amenities, it is far more common for economic necessity to give rise to social changes in a neighbourhood. The physical deterioration of an area normally arises when there is insufficient inducement to invest in modernisation and improvements and eventually, even in essential repairs to keep the fabric well maintained.
Blight affects real estate management in a number of ways:
- When obsolescence becomes a major factor, it usually affects a neighbourhood rather than an isolated property. This is because adjoining buildings are often of the same age and character and because the decline of one property is bound to have a deeper effect on its neighbour.
- Large estates comprising the whole or a substantial part of a neighbourhood can themselves represent a blighted area. A common example is the estate subject to long leases which toward their expiration are often subject to neglect by tenants having only short interests.
- The remedies against blight can only be effective if undertaken on a neighbourhood basis; unit remedies or improvements are not enough to turn the tide of decline in an area and the result of such attempts is far too often, that the new is dragged down by the old.
- Blight is such a problem in many towns that it is generally judged to be beyond the ability of private owners to cure. Rehabilitation or renewal must spring from positive action directed and aided by a public authority. Blight is chiefly related to property which is socially obsolescent; that is, accommodation undesirable from the community’s point of view at the same time retains an economic value. Blight and social obsolescence may be at two levels; the lower relates ‘slum areas’ and the higher to what are generally called ‘twilight areas’
