Urban renewal: the scarlet letter of economic development

Urban Renewal started in 1933 with the first of six different phases that lasted until 1974. FDR cleared slums and built “limited-dividend†public housing, and followed up with direct federal slum clearance and housing construction in 1935. The call went out from Roosevelt that states and locals should form housing redevelopment agencies, and by 1938 almost all had. In short order, public houser community developers got their “act†together—the 1937 Housing Act which continued through 1942, when housing redevelopment agencies were pivoted to war production housing, privately built and on empty areas often in periphery and adjoining newly constructed factories. Slum clearance and publicly supported housing had varied purposes over the 12 years covered by this chapter; but such projects increasingly confronted a second, majority African-American, slum—now termed ghetto. But slum clearance showed promise to CBD-focused business groups that had discovered the “business slum blight†in rundown neighborhoods adjacent to downtown. Not missing a beat, New York City from the early forties led the way to both housing and CBD slum clearance and urban renewal—thanks to Robert Moses. He was not alone: David Lawrence and a banked named Mellon started the first pure CBD urban renewal in Pittsburgh—with mostly private money. Baltimore took another tack entirely, focusing on a pure community development neighborhood housing-focused revitalization. Urban renewal by 1947 meant many different things. One “thing†was clear though: community development and mainstream classic economic development were at war in Washington, each attempting to shape federal legislation (Housing Acts of 1949 and 1954) to favor their own goals and projects.