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I'm not sure if this would count, but Urban Renewal in Chicago's Loop has been quite succesfull. The city was absolutely beautiful in the 1950's, but I would say it looks even better now :O.
Urban Renewal for the rest of the city (meaning the South Side) consist of tearing buildings down and letting nature take over. Some blocks on the Green Line have beautiful old homes that stand on half empty blocks.
I'm not sure if this would count, but Urban Renewal in Chicago's Loop has been quite succesfull. The city was absolutely beautiful in the 1950's, but I would say it looks even better now :O.
Urban Renewal for the rest of the city (meaning the South Side) consist of tearing buildings down and letting nature take over. Some blocks on the Green Line have beautiful old homes that stand on half empty blocks.
There are still plenty of extremely beautiful old buildings remaining in the loop, luckily. And some of the old South Side projects were due for demolition, in my opinion. Overall, its an awesome city.
We don;t really have any where i live. but the funds spent i a near by city have made little or no difference really. Its still the area that is going downhill;with alot fo wasted money on things people do not use.
Some may argue that it is better today. But, IMO, it looks like a suburban office park, compared to what was there.
Sad to see what is now gone in Y'town. Those blocks had character! If you want to see more of that area, check out an episode of the Route 66 TV show. It was filmed on site in Y'town in about 1961-62, and much of the action occurs in the streets of the city. You can rent it on Netflix, that's where I got it.
The term "urban renewal" has a negative connotation in Baltimore and conjures up memories of land grabs, highways through neighorhoods, etc. Most of our urban renewal projects ended up half done, like our famous "highway to nowhere."
The "urban renewal" effort of that era was so hamhanded that people have such a negative view of any large-scale project, today. When planning was underway for our still-unbuilt, sorely needed east-west light rail line, the planners had to sign a coveneant that promised that no house would be taken via eminent domain.
IMHO - the issue is divided into historical / economic / political epochs.
Before the parallel rise of progressive / socialism, petroleum, and concentration of power, the cities were compact, providing optimization for the swift creation and trade of usable goods and services.
The period between 1890 - 1920 was the peak of the electric traction rail system in the USA. And development followed along the rail corridors (streetcar suburbs).
Post 1920, GM began to conspire to destroy the urban rail system so to increase demand for automobiles (which were in a sales slump). Combined with that, the booming petroleum industry, which offered cheap and plentiful oil to the nation - which not only helped to kill off electric rail - but affected the infant solar hot water heater business in Florida and California.
By 1950, urban development was shifted toward serving the needs of the automobile - a most wasteful transportation system - requiring vast expanses of surface area. The expansion of automobile ownership, in part because of economics and conspiracy, cities were faced with the impossible task of expanding space for the automobile - or lose to the shopping malls, and suburban sprawl.
But in the 1970s, America reached peak production of oil, and have decreased ever since. Instead of beginning to transition away from the automobile, subsidies and politics colluded to keep Americans consuming more and more petroleum. In fact, at the time of the Arab Oil Embargo, imports accounted for 25% of consumption.
And with great wisdom and foresight, the public servants got busy! Now we only import 75% of our consumption.
And their response is to ask us to pony up more money to fix the infrastructure that they mismanaged, and let decay. Or worse, subsidize a wasteful form of transportation - the automobile - instead of a national initiative to restore electric traction rail.
Of course, the conspirators were quite thorough in their destruction of their hated rival - the electric streetcar. The rights of way were torn up or paved over. So now, in perfectly insane logic, public funds were used to bail out GM, a company that was directly responsible for putting us in this fix.
Frankly, we got the government we deserve.
A collection of shrewd liars, corrupt scoundrels and incompetent stooges, who could not make it in the "working world".
That might explain the complete ruination of America, past, present, and to come.
When you are 50 miles from the nearest hospital of size, you need a car. There is no rural train outside your door at 1am when you need an emergency room. There will most likely always be a need for cars - somewhere in the US. I imagine the mountains are another example. If you don't have a car. and you don't trap in the winter you don't eat very well.
Back on topic for a few, anyway.
My city is very old. The European settlers came in 1691. Many of our beautiful old buildings that survived are over 100 years old, and the industrial age for us is long gone. It did leave abondend buildings and 80-90 y/o frame houses that were not worth saving. Over the years this particular area degenerated into drugs, girls. stripclubs and trouble. The city cleaned it up as part of the Millenium Project that ended this year.
The housing and streets that were worth saving were updated. Low income families were able to get money to improve their homes. The slums were replaced with a community park and the owners got the bill. The bus depot that was constantly plagued with vagrants was moved to the airport. A medical school replaced it, and it is surrounded by a grassy knoll. The worst housing was razed. It was replaced with a mix of small business and homes, libary expanison, new shopping center, sports complex, two new motels greens space. and a gated community of medium priced homes. It is a mile square area or larger and it took 20 years to clean it up. The next project was to clean up the sketchy areas downtown on the waterfront and around the hospitals. We have a beautiful riverfront park and warehouse district that showcases 3 or 4 of the oldest renovated buildings plus our "green" warehouses that were converted to business and living space. Our 2010 Gold Medal Winner park district is 10,000 acres; it is the oldest park district in the state. We love green! And we love our history. The sketchy areas are now part of our 21 Historic Buildings Districts. The building that could not be saved were converted into green spaces. It is ongoing project. This year $200M is decicated to renovation and upgrades that are expected to thrive into the next century. Our historic treasures are not being replaced. They are green and renovated. Old housing prokjects were completely renovated too. Problem tenants were removed. I would guess the next square mile is due for renovoation too, but it will be 20 years before it is finished.
I think our city is proof that sound urban planning and seletive urban renewal can and do work if correctly implemented. .
Urban renewal in the 1930s-1970s was a huge project to improve the living conditions of the urban poor. And it worked, somewhat. "Blighted' neighborhoods in Houston prior to replacement by housing projects had dirt streets, no electricity, no running water, no sewage. They were just a collection of shotgun shacks. At the time the housing project was a big improvement.
I think automobile-haters, myself included sometimes, forget that a large reason behind the development of America's road system was to improve the living conditions of the rural poor. Those were also people living without electricity and running water. In the 1930s they had the living standards of the 1830s with no accessibility to employment centers, and no way to get their farm products to market. So the government paved the roads, created agencies like the Tennessee Valley Authority and other rural electric cooperatives, and subsidized phone service. That infrastructure also spurred development of suburbs and exurbs.
People forget how far we've come. I don't think there are many people that live in the US today without electricity and running water, traveling on dirt roads. I don't think there are many rural folks without cars anymore. For a sense of what life was like in the 1930s, I suggest reading and looking at the photos in any state's edition of the American Guide Series. Many, many stories of the backwards people, their poor living conditions (immigrant, black and white) and their mythology in both the cities and rural areas.
People forget how far we've come. I don't think there are many people that live in the US today without electricity and running water, traveling on dirt roads.
That is really true and a very good point.
I am 62 but my childhood home was on a dirt road that became impassable with about any rain. We had electricity and therefore inside running water from a well but I was 14 before we had telephone service. And my father's childhood home was barely a shack with no amenities. Things are better as it is 20 minutes from that place to a town now whereas in his childhood it was an all day trip if even possible.
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