Urban Renewal: 1945-2013 – Rachel Brahinsky
A key era in California’s development history is over. First called urban renewal, and later re-named by critics as negro removal, the government-managed remaking of cities was known by its more-technocratic redevelopment moniker until it was eliminated in 2012 by California Governor Jerry Brown. In the decades since the 1978 passage of Proposition 13 localities have seen ever-shrinking budgets. At the same time, federal and state funds for urban development have continued to dwindle, leaving cities to rely on profit-driven change. With the further hollowing of local budgets that took place through the recent years of deep recession, and with the gutting of communities themselves that has taken place through years of foreclosure, it is indeed an essential moment to ask the central question of this project: What is to be sustained? If we are to sustain communities and people, we need to think beyond the dream of “smart-growth” to a vision of development that brings communities along, rather than bulldozing them and leaving them in the wake of new condos and cafes.
