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('uinprdicmi�c N:ighbuurhuud SluJics: Chamctcriiing Dcclinc Nearly 25 per cent of Butchers Hill's households are on public assistance, compared with 16.4 per cent for the city. 59 per cent of Butchers Hill's residents over 65 years old are living in poverty compared with 19.3 per cent of the city's elderly and 11.6 per cent of the MSA's as a whole. At the time of the 1990 census 15.2 per cent of housing units were vacant, compared with 9.0 per cent in the ciry and 6.3 per cent in the MSA. Only 36 per cent of occupied units are owner-occupied, compared with 48.6 per cent for the city and 63.7 per cent for the MSA. Median rent as a percentage oY household income is 25 per cent in Butchers Hill, lower than the city rate of 27.3 per cent. 2.2.5. Milwaukee: The Geographic Spread of Decline Jargowsky (1997), in his study of neighbourhood poverty in U.S. metropolitan areas, also contends that American inner cites have decayed rapidly between 1970 and 1990. He refers to the city of Milwaukee that experienced one of the greatest increases in neighbourhood poverty rates in this period: • In the ]970s Milwaukee had less than 12 high-poverty census tracts in the central city with poverty rates of at least 40%. During Ihe 1980s the number of high poverty census tracts grew to 19 then to 59 in the 1990s. • As the number of high poverty census tracts grew the new areas encircled or were adjacent to older high-poverty neighbourhoods. • In the 1970s residents of high-poverty census tracts comprised 1.2% of the total metropolitan population; 8.4% of the rotal black popula[ion; and 16% of the black poor populaeon. By the 1990s these figures had increased [o 10%, 50%, and 66% respectively. According to Jargowsky, in the 1970-1980 decade, people who were not poor, especially non-Hispanic whites, moved out of these neighbourhoods, causing poverty rates to increase. During the 1980s, neighbourhoods turned into high-poverty areas as people with incomes above the poverty line continued to leave borderline neighbourhoods. Residents of these communities also became poorer as a result of a general downturn in the me[ropolitan economy that affected [he region's labour mazket. The number of blacks and Hispanics living in these neighbourhoods increased over the 20 years. The number of white residents living in high-poverty areas dropped from 1,767 per neighbourhood in 1970 ro 613 in 1990. This selective outmigration combined with regional economic downturns had a devastating effect on distressed areas (ibid.). 2.2.6. Houston and Seattle: The Effects of Highway Improvements Lindley Higgins (2001) examines the effects of community development efforts on revitalisation of distressed neighbourhoods in Houston, Kalamazoo, Seattle, and Washington DC. The nature of the inner-city decline documented in some of these case studies is of interest to our research. Judkins Park is a ncighbourhood locatcd ncar Scattlds ccntral busincss district. Interstate 90, built through the Central Area of Seattle had a devastating effect on the -�.