Federal Housing Act of 1949 — Bunk History

Tearing Down Black America

Policing is not the only kind of state violence. City governments have demolished hundreds of Black neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal.

by Brent Cebul via Boston Review on July 22, 2020

Capturing Black Bottom, a Detroit Neighborhood Lost to Urban Renewal

A new exhibit at the Detroit Public Library, displays old images of the historic African American neighborhood in its final days.

by Amy Crawford via CityLab on February 15, 2019

151 Years of America’s Housing History

From the first tenement regulation to work requirements for public-housing residents, these are key moments in housing policy.

via The Nation on May 24, 2018

Even the Dead Could Not Stay

An illustrated history of urban renewal in Roanoke, Virginia.

by Martha Park via CityLab on January 19, 2018

Renewing Inequality

An interactive set of maps documenting the more than 300,000 families displaced by urban renewal projects between 1955 and 1966.

by Robert K. Nelson, Brent Cebul, Justin Madron, Nathaniel Ayers via American Panorama on December 13, 2017

The Racial Segregation of American Cities Was Anything But Accidental

A housing policy expert explains how federal government policies created the suburbs and the inner city.

by Richard Rothstein, Katie Nodjimbadem via Smithsonian on May 30, 2017

Aerial view of the suburbs.

How Racist Policies Destroyed Public Housing and Created the American Suburbs

The systematic post-war displacement of communities of color.

by Tracy Rosenthal, Leonardo Vilchis via Literary Hub on September 25, 2024

Aerial view of big buildings, wide roads, open parking lots, and affordable housing from "Project One" in Newport, Virginia.

Urban Renewal in Virginia

Urban landscapes and communities all across the state of Virginia still bear the scars of urban renewal.

via Encyclopedia Virginia on September 19, 2024

Lincoln Center on the opening night of the Met Opera, 1966.

Curtains for Lincoln Center

On the falsification of Lincoln Center’s history.

by James Panero via The New Criterion on April 17, 2024

A collage shows a white hand segregating Black Americans.

No Breakthrough in Sight

More than fifty years after the Fair Housing Act, inequality and segregation persists. What went wrong?

by Kaila Philo via The Baffler on May 9, 2023

People talking about a neighborhood map, from the cover of Claire Dunning's book "Nonprofit Neighborhoods."

Grantmaking as Governance

A new book examines how the US government funded the growth of — and delegated governance to — the nonprofit sector.

by Benjamin Soskis via Stanford Social Innovation Review on May 26, 2022

Futuristic representation of housing in Oakland

Untimely Futures

In Oakland, California, when it comes to Black homelessness and dispossession, dystopia is already here.

by Brandi T. Summers via Places Journal on November 1, 2021

Jane Jacobs vs. The Power Brokers

How the patron saint of progressive urban planning’s ideas and ideals were implemented – and corrupted.

by Sarah Mirk via The Nib on December 6, 2019

Children looking at an architectural model of a city.

Imagining a Past Future: Photographs from the Oakland Redevelopment Agency

City planner John B. Williams — and the photographic archive he commissioned — give us the opportunity to complicate received stories of failed urban renewal.

by Moriah Ulinskas via Places Journal on January 22, 2019

Who Segregated America?

For all of its strengths, Richard Rothstein’s new book does not account for the central role capitalism played in segregating America's cities.

by Destin Jenkins via Public Books on December 21, 2017

The Henry Rutgers Houses, a public housing development built and maintained by the New York City Housing Authority.

The False Promise of Homeownership

Instead of boosting the American Dream, policies encouraging homeownership exacerbate inequality.

by Marisa Chappell via Made By History on July 20, 2017

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