Housing Inequality in AmericaMain MenuThe Generational Illusion: An EssayAn Essay by Collin AndrewsEnvironmental Racism: How Residential Segregation Shapes Environmental InequalityHistoric Preservation Coast to CoastTitle PageNative American Housing: How Poor Housing Harms Indigenous HealthHow Poor Housing Harms Indigenous HealthPets & Housing: It's "Ruff" by Katie ClineHow NIMBYism Exacerbates Housing InequalityWhere's the Wealth!How Housing Discrimination has led to racial wealth inequality in the United StatesImmigrant Housing Inequality in AmericaIswat JinadSurveillance InequalityAn investigation into how poor communities are oversurveilled creating a cycle of more targeted and aggressive forms of surveillance for them and those around them.Post-WWII Urban Flight and the Birth of the SuburbsHousing Discrimination in Suburban AmericaRace, Repressive State Apparatus, and Homelessness: From Colonialism to COVID-19Tina NandiHousing Inequality and Access to Quality EducationMQ: Title PageVisualizing racial housing discriminationSplash page for path that includes interactive resources regarding racial housing discriminationProject information and creditsAndy Schocket278555063cc66428c8eadf42f48d412091c5aaf9Melissa Laddab8653014603439710b65435181f2130cee53400Andrew Bartelc9a57442f34fea7858b734ce98f4ec79bd5565b0Collin Andrewsf69afa6ae7fb0f33058b9e0cb476f7451a667cefTina Nandi6e38643c2c1510534cce4e954f0eeb8108bce699Iswat Jinad196dd805bf51f7a46fbf2d94ab069e97fc004d75Marcus Harris7e23857364c2363b25872718aea81323bdd37773James Cousinoe9398a1542d344c824ddaaf967819ae589cd2b61Katie Cline512add1943f75cbd770d4788dcdea90b706922c4Trisha A Bonham7fa13b399c9331700d719225b96f3bf9e54c4570Rene Oswald Ayalac01cc7385c24c3926f2f03a40860f6a4f703f410Kristine Ketel826fdfc33a24cff2c1e0ab79396dd2ae2bae3ed9Morgan Quinleyc8a47798c223cced64347bc9a7d80f6a64402e45
Urban Renewal...Means Negro Removal. ~ James Baldwin (1963)
12022-12-04T06:02:46-08:00Andy Schocket278555063cc66428c8eadf42f48d412091c5aaf9412371"The Federal Government is an Accomplice to this Fact." James Baldwin interviewed by Kenneth Clark. The interview took place in ...plain2022-12-04T06:02:49-08:00YouTube2015-06-03T23:43:49ZT8Abhj17kYUVince GrahamAndy Schocket278555063cc66428c8eadf42f48d412091c5aaf9
This page is referenced by:
12022-12-01T08:40:13-08:00AS: Urban renewal, or negro removal?20Provides interactive resources concerning the "urban renewal" movement that disproportionately affected communities of colorplain2022-12-06T17:10:24-08:00From the 1950s to the 1980s, American policymakers transformed the nation’s cities. Sometimes, they did so to build highways so as to make commuting by car more convenient. Sometimes, they did so to revitalize declining industrial areas, to create new shopping districts, or to make way for stadiums and arenas.
Regardless of what they built afterwards, these projects often obliterated vibrant communities of color, displacing their residents and businesses with minimal compensation. Communities of color were targeted at a much higher rate than white communities, and Black people knew it, as James Baldwin told us.
At the Renewing Inequality project developed at the University of Richmond, below, you can see the consequences of urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s.
For a particularly well-documented example of the racialized effects of urban renewal, See LaToya S. Gray's Planned Destruction, about Richmond.
As the NPR interview below explains, highway projects sometimes did intentionally target communities of color.
Today, many communities continue to bear the imprint of these projects. Elliot Rivera and Reginauld Williams' Highway to Segregation shows how the three largest New England cities still suffer from its effects.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Segregation by Design, a labor of love by architect Adam Paul Susaneck, is priceless. Susaneck has compiled then-and-now ground-level and aerial photographs to show how urban planners have decimated neighborhoods in cities across the country.