Urban renewal resulted in the demolition of hundreds of thousands of units of low-cost housing that were deemed obsolete and not worthy of keeping around. It resulted in massive displacement of people of color in in central cities across the United States. James Baldwin memorably called it the Negro removal program, so you saw it being deployed in neighborhoods primarily inhabited by very low-income people but people of color as well.
Featuring Edward Goetz on his book New Deal Ruins: Race, Economic Justice, and Public Housing Policy. Goetz tells the story of American public housing and then its destruction and dismantling, which took off in the 1980s and accelerated during the 90s under the Clinton Administration’s Hope VI program.
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Check out Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire haymarketbooks.org/books/1861-light-in-gaza