Urban Renewal

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.

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.

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.

'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."

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.

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

In the 1960s and 70s, Chinatowns were threatened by highway development in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. None of the proposed highways was built, thanks to concerted efforts by the Chinese communities.

Braddock has become the poster child for a sort of bootstrap revitalization - an attitude that Levi's wants to rub off on their jeans. In exchange for using Braddock as a brand enhancer, the company built Braddock a community center.

So says APA President Mitchell Silver, AICP, in a recent interview. "...but planners were the agents, they had to implement it."

A waterfront redevelopment project in Port Harcourt is drawing fire from human rights advocates.

Portland has five "eco-district" pilot projects in the works. The first two are expected to begin implementation over the next year, and organizers are hoping they lead to more sustainability efforts throughout the city.

Mary Newsom reviews a new book on New York City by Roberta Brandez Gratz, and finds lessons that cross borders even into her very different city of Charlotte.

The latest planning exhibition at the Center for Architecture has a "certain 1970s openness, a live-and-let-live philosophy, a crunchy impression enhanced by the bicycles hanging in the Center’s double-height display window," says Alexandra Lange.

Neal Peirce describes how Baltimore's first mixed income neighborhood since WWII is taking shape on the east side just north of the Johns Hopkins campus.

To ensure its longevity, developers of London's Olympic Park have made integration of its facilities into a larger urban renewal plan a priority.

Residents of Birmingham, Alabama are rallying against a drive-through Chick-fil-A going up in their neighborhood, showing a growing awareness of the effect of development on the character of their community.

Witold Rybczynski says that people have lost their faith in city-driven urban planning, and that the private marketplace is driving the changes we need today.

An extensive redevelopment program is planned for East London, in an area one commenter calls "the land that God forgot."

That's what a consultant told Robert L. Hubbard, city director of planning and community development of Gardner, Massachussetts, about the city's infrastructure. Gardner intends to build on those bones with an urban renewal plan.

Barry Johnson of The Oregonian looks back at Portland's urban renewal program, what was lost in the demolition of neighborhoods and what was gained.