Urban Renewal

With a legacy of controversy dating back to the urban renewal schemes of the 1950s and 60s, arriving at a plan to develop a six-acre parcel on Manhattan's Lower East Side was no easy task. But after a collaborative process a vision has emerged.

September 18, 2013 - The New York Times

The $500 million Renaissance Center, a 2.9-mile People Mover, and new downtown sports stadiums are just some of the grand schemes that were supposed to help arrest Detroit's decades-long decline.

August 11, 2013 - The Washington Post

Echoing the pioneering preservationists that saved and restored historic neighborhoods "left behind by suburban development" in the 1960s, a group of visionary entrepreneurs is battling to defend the historic soul of St. Joseph, Mo.

July 9, 2013 - Citiwire

When Civic Arena was built in the late 1950's, it severed Pittsburgh's historic Hill District from Downtown, displacing thousands of African American families and businesses. A redevelopment being proposed for the site aims to re-establish the link.

July 8, 2013 - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In its history, Los Angeles has made four fateful planning decisions, in the opinion of real estate consultant and developer Michael P. Russell, but much can be learned from these mistakes.

July 6, 2013 - UrbDeZine.com

The Boston Redevelopment Authority wields supreme power over the city's land use decisions, a position unique in American cities. Is it time to disband this relic of planning and development from a different era?

May 30, 2013 - Boston Magazine

A Victorian house in the Western Addition neighborhood of San Francisco may be the Zelig of the city's social history. From middle class professionals, to working class earthquake refugees, to Japanese entrepreneurs, to jazz mecca; it's seen it all.

May 15, 2013 - The San Francisco Chronicle

Since it was so much fun when it occurred half a century ago, artist Flavio Trevisan has decided to create a way for you to play Moses (Robert, that is) with the fate of Toronto’s Regent Park neighborhood, in the comfort of your home.

August 16, 2012 - Architizer

A target of 1950s urban renewal, New Haven is looking to rewrite renewal's wrongs by re-connecting the Hill neighborhood with downtown via a highway cap project. Critics complain the project doesn't go far enough to heal the area's historic wounds.

July 24, 2012 - The New York Times

The 10th anniversary and updating of Richard Florida's "Rise of the Creative Class" has brought about a re-evaluation of "creative class" urbanism. Will Doig surveys a series of popular essays that question Florida's highly influential arguments.

July 20, 2012 - Salon

Officials and developers in the Turkish capital have set their sights on a poor but centrally-located neighborhood for an urban renewal project, leaving longtime residents worried they may not be around much longer, Jessica Bourque reports.

July 5, 2012 - The New York Times

An urban renewal development reaches a violent climax as a clash breaks out between construction workers and protesters.

June 26, 2012 - Taipei Times

One family in Taipei has rallied support for "victims of urban renewal" after the city demolished their home to make way for high-rise apartments, Loa Lok-Sin reports.

June 12, 2012 - Taipei Times

Fortune has re-published a provocative essay by Jane Jacobs, originally published in the magazine in 1958, as large scale urban renewal projects were taking off in cities across the country.

March 10, 2012 - CNN/Money

Low-income residents of the Upper 9th Ward in New Orleans have lived alongside a potentially lethal legacy of federal policy decisions -- and on top of a 95-acre municipal dump.

January 5, 2012 - City Limits

The formula for Detroit's current status is complicated -- a mix of local, regional and national socioeconomic forces. But while many hands have shaped the good and bad of today's Detroit, the impact of current federal policy is easy to spot.

January 4, 2012 - City Limits

Filmmaker Jim Epstein read "The Power Broker", the biography of Robert Moses, and set out to document one of the communities destroyed by Moses' urban renewal of the 1950s.

October 19, 2011 - MetroFocus

'Urban renewal' got a bad name for overusing eminent domain and ignoring the will of the people. Officials in Erie, on the other hand, see "a powerful economic development tool."

October 11, 2011 - The Daily Camera

As the Chicago Housing Authority begins demolishing the now-vacant urban renewal project, artist Jan Tichy is preparing an art installation to on commemorate the site reflecting on the themes of home, housing, and community.

March 27, 2011 - The Chicago Reader

The Western Australian city has an urban renewal plan by the waterfront estimated to cost $440 million AU.

February 22, 2011 - PerthNow