Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Speaking of blight and clearance

In support of my general belief that the dominant governmental development paradigm is still one of big projects, clearance, and urban renewal like schemes, check out this article from yesterday's New York Times, "History vs. Homogeneity in New Orleans Housing Fight."

From the article:

In this hard-pressed city a proposal by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to demolish four public housing complexes has touched a raw nerve. The demolition, which would affect more than 4,500 housing units, represents for some the plight of a poor, black underclass displaced by Hurricane Katrina and struggling to return. It also represents the problems that faced the city even before the hurricane: poverty, crime and racial divisions.

The bluntness of HUD’s solution reflects a degree of historical amnesia that this wounded city cannot afford. In its rush to demolish the apartment complexes — and replace them with the kind of generic mixed-income suburban community so favored by Washington bureaucrats — the agency demonstrates great insensitivity to both the displaced tenants and the urban fabric of this city.
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