City of Knoxville Neighborhood Coordinator David Massey talks about the impact of blight on a community as he reviews Bringing buildings back: from abandoned properties to community assets: a guidebook for policymakers and practitioners by Alan Mallach. 

“Mallach is a principal in the Center for Community Progress, a nationally acclaimed team of experts who have assisted the City of Knoxville and other Tennessee cities in efforts to adopt a more proactive approach to abandoned, blighted and vacant properties,” Massey says. “His work is exhaustive in its detailed explanation of the tools and best practices used across the country, including Knoxville, to combat blight.” 

In Bringing Buildings Back, Mallach pulls together insights from law, economics, planning, and design to address all sides of the problem, from how abandonment can be prevented to how best to bring these properties back into productive reuse. (Recorded April 18, 2012)