Mostly, the success of urban revitalization at the city and neighborhood scales comes from the addition of population through multiunit housing

The iconic fountain at the intersection of Washington Street and Hyer Ave. Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel

I am doing "processing" of massive quantities of unfiled articles (dumping a lot), and among other things, came across this column by Paul Krugman ("Inequality and the City," New York Times") and an article ("Washington Street chronicles Orlando's urban renewal," Orlando Sentinel) about the revitalization of an Orlando neighborhood, which caught my eye because of this attractive fountain "in the middle of Washington Street."  Both are from 2015.

And this dovetailed with a conversation I had with a DC resident over the weekend.  She lives in Deanwood ("Deanwood is a DC neighborhood that's 'in transition' to hot market," Washington Post") and we were talking about whether or not the kind of revitalization that is happening elsewhere in the city (Columbia Heights, H Street, Petworth, etc.) would happen in places like Deanwood, or just over the border of DC in Mount Rainier, Maryland ("When the one over neighborhood is in the county next door, and housing prices have been in the tank: Mount Rainer, Maryland").

-- "Revitalization in stages: Anacostia," 2011

The point I've made for years is that it is the neighborhoods (1) close to the core and (2) served by transit that are "being revitalized."

While it's not an exact formula, the elements listed in "The eight components of housing value" help to identify houses and places that are more likely to retain their value in the long run. The first four components cover the value of a house/site and the last four components address the value of place. Ultimately, it is the value of place that drives revitalization. From the piece:

5.  Neighborhood place value: neighborhood characteristics including public safety, schools, civic assets, access to a neighborhood commercial district, the overall charm and quality of the built environment, neighborhood organization and community building, etc.  This also includes negative characteristics such as proximity to freeways, industrial areas, vacant property, etc.

6.  Neighborhood location value: proximity to key activity centers and other assets, proximity to Downtown, etc.

Graphic from Walk Score.  My sense is that many of the neighborhoods reported as having persistently low property values in stories about Greater Atlanta and Greater Washington have poor Walk Scores, which serves as a proxy measure for neighborhood place and location value and certain elements of spatial organization.

7.  Neighborhood mobility value: access to and presence of transportation infrastructure including walking, biking, transit, parking, the road network, car sharing vehicles, etc.  This can be measured, such as with the Walk Score, Bike Score, and Transit Score methods.

In a Canadian study, they have a measure called "location efficiency," which you could argue combines items 5 and 6 and 7 into one measure.  See the 2015 blog entry, "Canadians are different than "Americans" when it comes to weighing choices about where to live."

I think there are subtle differences in the components of each, hence my separate measures.

8.  Community place value: the overall characteristics of a city/town/suburb including quality of governance, overall quality of schools, public safety, town centers, cultural and civic assets, community involvement, etc.  This is a measure of the same types of amenities in item 4, but at the community scale.  This measurement also includes negative characteristics.

A nearby and thriving commercial district is van element of neighborhood place value.

People who want to live in walkable neighborhoods move to walkable places.  People who prefer automobility choose places that are highly accommodating to motor vehicles.

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These apartments were built on unused land formerly owned by the transit system and added hundreds of units and residents to the Petworth neighborhood.

But a key element of the renewed success of many neighborhoods in DC has been the addition of fair amounts of new multiunit housing, which has added thousands of new residents to those communities.

The addition of housing units is key because with the onset of online commerce, you need to draw on larger populations in order to make community-based retail work.

This site, one block up from the apartment building shown above, had been a single story grocery store fronted by a parking lot.  It has added hundreds of apartments and residents to the neighborhood, along with a much improved grocery store.

And it is this addition of population, along with the higher incomes new residents tend to have, which has propelled community improvement, especially of neighborhood commercial districts, providing more customers for grocery stores, restaurants and other retail.