Land Banks and Alleviating the Negative Effects of Blight

Abstract

Land banks can strategically remove blight by working in partnership with local organizations who wish to invest, develop, and promote the wellbeing of the community (Alexander 2011; Dewar 2006). Land banks can indirectly improve the health of residents living in these communities by improving the environment of community members, to mitigate depression (Pitner and Yu 2012), low self-esteem issues, and stress (Prohaska 2014). Community involvement has been shown to empower and prepare residents for the redevelopment of the neighborhood (Walker 2015). Measuring the success for land banks, as they stand today, can be quite difficult even when leaving out community redevelopment and looking exclusively at economic outcomes (Dewar 2015; Whitaker and Fitzpatrick 2015).