In Chapter 4 of Root Shock, Fullilove depicts two opposing views on urban renewal: Wick Anderson’s positive view due to the belief that eliminating “blight” creates better quality neighborhoods and cities and Mary Bishop’s negative view that urban renewal destroys communities. Fullilove fully convinced me to side with Bishop. After all, what would you pick, a low-quality, yet comfortable house that you’re used to living in, or a beautifully designed house that you cannot call home?

But communities are more than just a comfort zone. They are networks in which you could easily interact with others, hence what Fullilove describes as kindness in close-knit communities. Urban renewal destroyed the community of kindness, since the black people who moved into white neighborhoods were usually not able to share their kindness and housing projects provided a different, grimmer experience.

Such a loss in a sense of community occurs within the black and Latino community in New York City. From elementary school to high school, I noticed that some of my peers and their families moved out of New York City and to places in New Jersey, the South, and the Midwest. Even some who live in New York City long for a place that has more social capital. New York City is going through innovative plans of reform, but however, the social cohesion within communities are fading away. The urban renewal that occurred in Roanoke, Newark and Pittsburgh was worse in the sense that the people in the communities had completely no choice when it came to the fate of their cities. Such a thought to me seems absolutely horrifying.