Subtitle: From Abandoned Properties to Community Assets
Author: Alan Mallach/National Housing Institute
Subject: Urban Studies/Architecture/Planning
Paper ISBN 978-0-8135-4986-6
Pages: 344 pp.
Publication Date: October 2010

"In countless towns and cities, reusing abandoned houses and vacant lots is tortuously complicated and time-consuming. Alan Mallach's groundbreaking book is an exceptional 'how-to' guide to help communities transform these dangerous eyesores into safe and productive homes, work places, parks and gardens."-DON CHEN, Program Officer, Metropolitan Opportunity Unit, Ford Foundation

Description:

Combining practical suggestions with a thoughtful exploration of policy, Bringing Buildings Back provides insights from law, economics, planning, and design to address all sides of the abandoned and vacant property problem, from how abandonment can be prevented to how best to bring these properties back into productive reuse. Bringing Buildings Back provides policymakers and practitioners with the first in-depth guide to understanding and dealing with the many ramifications that this issue holds for the future of our older cities. The book is replete with examples of how cities, community development corporations, and others have devised creative, effective solutions.

Written by a distinguished urban planner and practitioner with three decades of experience, Bringing Buildings Back is both a detailed toolkit and a call to rethink the way America carries out urban redevelopment. It is a book that should be on the desk of every mayor, city planner, community developer, or neighborhood activist, and that can be used in every course on urban redevelopment or neighborhood revitalization.

ALAN MALLACH, FAICP, is a senior research fellow of the National Housing Institute and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has written widely on planning, housing, and community development, while working in business, government, and academe.