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| | Research Project 23 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-17) |
 | | Abandoned buildings can also have an insidious effect on the social fabric of a community, by encouraging "social atomization" a process which isolates the individual (or individual family) within a community, weakening ties to others and, hence, the sense of collectivity which is the hallmark of any thriving community. |
 | | Abandoned buildings cause property values in surrounding areas to decline, and represent a waste of resources that is cruelly ironic in areas plagued by homelessness and a lack of affordable housing. |
 | | Finally, abandoned buildings have a tendency to cluster in certain neighborhoods, a phenomena which is, itself, partly a symptom of the tendency of abandonment to encourage further abandonment in a self-reinforcing, vicious circle of urban blight and decline. |
| www.trincoll.edu /depts/tcn/Research_Reports/resrch23.htm (8549 words) |
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