During the first half of the 20th century, African Americans who were confined to ghettos developed their own communities. Often this was due to the fact that they could not afford to live in other places. Also, many immigrants from Caribbean countries were moving to the United States during this time, and they all settled near one another. They brought their families over when they could, which also contributed to the strong sense of community in these neighborhoods. However, during the latter half of the century, these ghettos were destroyed as part of an urban renewal strategy. Urban renewal began as a strategy for planed shrinkage, which caused massive displacement of African Americans. It also caused tensions with new people moving into the area. Even though the areas were newly renovated, the middle-class people moving in still felt out of place at first. The tensions between the displaced people and the middle-class people did not stop more urban renewal from occurring. Urban renewal did not begin with maleficent intent.It started as a program to clear large “slum” areas for modern development in order to attract middle income residents. However good the intention of this was, in practice it did much harm. While it did bring higher income families to the area, it displaced many people and destroyed neighborhoods. Communities were disbanded, and the neighborhoods that took their place were shadows of what they were when lower income people lived there. While it may be necessary to renew neighborhoods, more consideration for the people already living in the neighborhoods should be considered. Otherwise, more harm than good will come out of replacing pre-existing communities in an attempt to renew the neighborhood.

Discussion Question: Why did urban renewal continue to occur even after the negative effects were observed?