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I don't think it is the case that all those houses would have been torn down regardless. They look like much of the same housing stock that still exists in neighborhoods like Old Fourth Ward, Sweet Auburn, and Cabbagetown.
The bigger picture is that "Urban Renewal" / leveling these neighborhoods did not make things better for these people. It only saved white / wealthier folks from having to look at it and gave politicians an excuse to take the land they wanted for their pet projects.
The neighborhood in part of what is now Candler Park was leveled and bought for a park simply to get "them" out of the area.
Summerhill in the early 20th century had many large and glorious Victorian mansions. It DID have a large Jewish population at one time and included one of Atlanta's first synagogues. A matter of fact, Morris Rich and his brothers (of Rich's Department Store fame "M. Rich and Bros.") all lived in the neighborhood at one time among the other German/ Hungarian Jews on Washington Street and would walk to their original stores on Whitehall Street (now lower Peachtree Street south of Five Points). Former mayor Sam Mansell, also a Jew also grew up in the Summerhill community.
On a person note, my grandmother, who lived to be 105, remembers as a young girl taking the "inter urban" street car from Fairburn to Downtown Atlanta to shop at High's and Rich's. She often told me about the many beautiful "gingerbread" houses that she passed along Washington Street.
That is not a road. That is not even an alley. There is no sign of even a curb is sight. They are standing in people's backyard for effect / to get their photo op.
This is what the streets in Buttermilk Bottom looked like:
Nice try. You picked about the only image you could find of a nice street in Buttermilk Bottom...here are a few others of Buttermilk and similar slums in Atlanta to refresh your mind:
Very few nicely paved roads with curbs and sidewalks there. You can also look up historical aerial imagery and see that few of the streets in Buttermilk Bottom were paved with curbs or anything. They were dirt alleyways at best. Buttermilk was not some desirable neighborhood with cute streets and nice houses. Not even a little bit.
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But regardless of how much it offends you to look at it, bulldozing their homes is not the way to help these people.
Well, it seems like they were attempting to help them buy offering them brand new homes with proper utilities. But there were plenty of other racial issues holding things back. Leaving people in those conditions certainly wasn't helping anyone.
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Originally Posted by jsvh
I don't think it is the case that all those houses would have been torn down regardless. They look like much of the same housing stock that still exists in neighborhoods like Old Fourth Ward, Sweet Auburn, and Cabbagetown.
There are still houses that look like the ones in the pictures above? Imma need a few addresses.
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The bigger picture is that "Urban Renewal" / leveling these neighborhoods did not make things better for these people. It only saved white / wealthier folks from having to look at it and gave politicians an excuse to take the land they wanted for their pet projects.
So, is it your contention that simply leaving them in those conditions and not offering brand new homes with all the proper utilities was actually the best thing to do? I mean, if you say so.
Nice try. You picked about the only image you could find of a nice street in Buttermilk Bottom...here are a few others of Buttermilk and similar slums in Atlanta to refresh your mind:
Care to share which "similar slums" these are pictures from / what your source is? Because if your criteria is paved streets then most every street in Atlanta fit that criteria if you go back 100 years.
Unpaved Peachtree Street:
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Originally Posted by samiwas1
There are still houses that look like the ones in the pictures above? Imma need a few addresses.
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Originally Posted by samiwas1
So, is it your contention that simply leaving them in those conditions and not offering brand new homes with all the proper utilities was actually the best thing to do? I mean, if you say so.
I am having trouble deciphering what words you are trying to put in my mouth, so my statement is this: Leveling neighborhoods because you don't like the way they look or thing poor people live there is wrong.
Bulldozing their existing homes / neighborhoods is independent of other things you might do to help people. It is not like leveling their homes somehow funded new homes for these people.
You seem solely focused on outside appearances literally and figuratively.
Let's start with: What is your concern about these conditions? Is it things like health, crime, education, and upward mobility? Because demolishing the neighborhood and sending people to housing projects did not help that and many stats show it made it much worse.
So please, clarify: Do you support the destruction / demolition of neighborhoods of Buttermilk Bottoms and Summerhill? If so, detail what criteria you think should be used to determine if a neighborhood should be outright leveled that you feel these neighborhoods fell under.
I am having trouble deciphering what words you are trying to put in my mouth, so my statement is this: Leveling neighborhoods because you don't like the way they look or thing poor people live there is wrong.
Yes, you clearly are, because no one here has said otherwise. Nor is that the reason those neighborhoods fell to the wrecking ball.
What is wrong is allowing people to languish in such unsanitary and deplorable conditions as they were in Buttermilk Bottoms. The 1930's Urban Renewal Movement was the wrong approach, as history bore out, but the photos clearly show that restoring the existing structures would have been prohibitive if not impossible. Many of the houses lacked plumbing and electricity. Disease was rampant; infant mortality touched about every family living there. While throwing around vast amounts of Depression-Era government money in order to return existing structures to pristine condition is a lovely HGTV-style pipe dream, it was clearly not feasible. They were too far gone.
Because if your criteria is paved streets then most every street in Atlanta fit that criteria if you go back 100 years.
This might get me in trouble, but I honestly can't tell if you are trolling or if you actually have real issues comprehending words. You are the one who claimed that the original image was not a road based solely on the fact that it didn't have curbs, then posted an image purporting to be what Buttermilk Bottom actually looked like. I simply mentioned that not all roads in these neighborhoods had curbs or pavement, and that's no way to delineate what constitutes a road.
This is a road:
It has no pavement. It has no curbs. It has no sidewalks. It has no separated bike lanes. Still a road. And it's not a slum.
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Your dropbox links don't work.
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I am having trouble deciphering what words you are trying to put in my mouth, so my statement is this: Leveling neighborhoods because you don't like the way they look or thing poor people live there is wrong.
Bulldozing their existing homes / neighborhoods is independent of other things you might do to help people. It is not like leveling their homes somehow funded new homes for these people.
An area that is rampant with disease and has homes that are falling apart is of no benefit to the city or anyone else. Providing them a new, safe, clean, habitable place to live is absolutely a better thing.
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You seem solely focused on outside appearances literally and figuratively.
No. And I have specifically stated otherwise several times. I cannot help that you are unable to figure that out.
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Let's start with: What is your concern about these conditions? Is it things like health, crime, education, and upward mobility? Because demolishing the neighborhood and sending people to housing projects did not help that and many stats show it made it much worse.
That's essentially like saying that we shouldn't give lottery winners their money because so many blow it and end up worse off. That is the fault of the person receiving the money, not the idea of giving someone more money.
These people were removed from dilapidated, unsafe, and unhealthy living conditions and often provided with new places. Now, due to many other factors, many of those people turned to crime afterwards. That is not because they were provided a new place to live.
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So please, clarify: Do you support the destruction / demolition of neighborhoods of Buttermilk Bottoms and Summerhill? If so, detail what criteria you think should be used to determine if a neighborhood should be outright leveled that you feel these neighborhoods fell under.
If the neighborhood is filled with unsafe living conditions, unhealthy living conditions, or if crime is rampant, and the housing stock is beyond reasonable repair, then I see no reason to continue to keep it around. If they need subsidized housing, that is an option.
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Urban Renewal was a failure.
Providing people new places to live is not a failure. All the other economic realities of the time was what caused the actual failure. You are conflating two issues into one. It's almost sounds like the crazy-ass guys who said things like "...I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom." Or "far more of the African-American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by policies of slavery."
Yes, you clearly are, because no one here has said otherwise. Nor is that the reason those neighborhoods fell to the wrecking ball.
What is wrong is allowing people to languish in such unsanitary and deplorable conditions as they were in Buttermilk Bottoms. The 1930's Urban Renewal Movement was the wrong approach, as history bore out, but the photos clearly show that restoring the existing structures would have been prohibitive if not impossible. Many of the houses lacked plumbing and electricity. Disease was rampant; infant mortality touched about every family living there. While throwing around vast amounts of Depression-Era government money in order to return existing structures to pristine condition is a lovely HGTV-style pipe dream, it was clearly not feasible. They were too far gone.
We are in agreement.
I am not languishing the loss of the structures, I am regretting the loss of the neighborhood. I am certainly not saying we should keep people in poverty, but I am am regretting that people were forced from their homes often against their will and often into destinations like public housing projects that were worse off in terms of health and safety stats.
So yes, the 1930s-1980s Urban Renewal was the wrong approach.
If the neighborhood is filled with unsafe living conditions, unhealthy living conditions, or if crime is rampant, and the housing stock is beyond reasonable repair, then I see no reason to continue to keep it around. If they need subsidized housing, that is an option.
Wow. So you think the government should be going in and leveling entire neighborhoods against the will of many residents and owners?
Can you be more specific on what criteria meet the threshold of "beyond repair", "unsafe", and "unhealthy" in your mind to warrant destruction? Keep in mind many of those people removed from these "slums" ended up statistically less safe and less healthy in public housing.
What neighborhoods today do you want wiped off the map?
Wow. So you think the government should be going in and leveling entire neighborhoods against the will of many residents and owners?
Can you be more specific on what criteria meet the threshold of "beyond repair", "unsafe", and "unhealthy" in your mind to warrant destruction? Keep in mind many of those people removed from these "slums" ended up statistically less safe and less healthy in public housing.
What neighborhoods today do you want wiped off the map?
No, I will not be specific. I'm not going to engage you. It's always pointless.
I'll answer one question for you: I do not see any neighborhoods nowadays that are even remotely similar to what Buttermilk Bottom was then.
But, suffice to ask, if someone is given something good, and they turn it into something bad, then was giving them something good a mistake?
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