Urban Renewal

What Is Urban Renewal?

Urban renewal was a federal program that helped cities acquire, clear and redevelop neighborhoods officially labeled as slums or “blighted.” It began with Title I of the Housing Act of 1949 and ran until the mid-1970s. Cleared land went to new housing, civic and commercial projects, and university expansions.

The term is now shorthand for one of the most criticized eras in American housing policy.

How Urban Renewal Worked

A local agency designated an area as blighted, used federal funds and the power of eminent domain (the government’s authority to take private property for public use, with compensation) to acquire it, relocated the residents, demolished the buildings and made the land available to developers. States first had to pass laws giving cities that power.

The rules changed over time:

• 1949: The program emphasized clearance and new construction over rehabilitation. On paper, cities had to show plans to rehouse displaced residents in safe, sanitary housing at rents they could afford. The act also required that displaced families get priority for public housing, according to the Congressional Research Service.
• 1954: The Housing Act of 1954 let cities use some cleared land for commercial and industrial purposes and opened funding to rehabilitation and conservation projects.
• 1959: An amendment made projects near colleges and universities eligible, letting institutions buy cleared land for far less than it would have cost with buildings on it.
• 1974: The Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 barred new Title I grants or loans after January 1, 1975, except for projects already funded. The flexible Community Development Block Grant took its place.

Urban Renewal vs. Gentrification

Both can push out lower-income residents, but they work differently. Urban renewal was a government program that took and demolished property directly. Gentrification is usually market-driven: rising demand and prices gradually change who can afford a neighborhood. Displacement can result from either.

Criticisms and Limitations

The University of Richmond’s Renewing Inequality project maps federally recorded family displacements from 1950 to 1966: more than 300,000 families in more than 600 cities and towns. Among its findings:

• By the late 1950s, tens of thousands of families were being displaced each year.
• In cities such as Cincinnati, Norfolk, Cleveland, St. Louis, Philadelphia and Detroit, people of color were 20% to 30% of the population but two-thirds or more of the families displaced. The writer James Baldwin called urban renewal “Negro removal.”
• Promised compensation, relocation help and public housing placements were often too meager, too late or never delivered. Single adults were not eligible for relocation assistance and are not counted in the federal figures.

The project notes that its counts exclude 1967 to 1974, when the federal government did not publish the figures, and displacement from highway and public housing construction. These lessons still shape debates over later redevelopment programs such as HOPE VI.