Windy Ridge: A neighborhood built to fail

Abstract

This paper presents lessons learned from the development process of Windy Ridge, a subdivision in Charlotte, North Carolina, that drew national media attention as a community destined to be “The Next Slum” (Atlantic Monthly 2008). The development was aided by a city as growth machine environment that failed this and other neighborhoods through the lapse of proper planning oversight. Rather than laying the blame of high foreclosures at the feet of financial institutions that engaged in high-risk and predatory lending practices, or homeowners who bought more home than they could afford, this paper looks deeper to address both the social and physical decay of the neighborhood. Using a mixed-methods research approach, we uncovered a variety of contributing and enabling factors that led to high foreclosure rates, rapid neighborhood decline, and disparate impacts on low-income populations. We examine public policy, civic culture, development and land-use regulations, and homeownership patterns through Windy Ridge's political, spatial and economic geography. Because homes in Windy Ridge were marketed to investors and in package deals, the neighborhood was highly vulnerable to financial collapse as the Great Recession of the 2000s set in. This case study provides important implications for planning and land development policy.