Urban renewal

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Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States^[1]) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities.^[2] Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighted areas in inner cities to clear out slums and create opportunities for higher class housing, businesses, and other developments. In the United States the term technically refers only to a federal program in the middle-to-late 20th Century, but colloquially is sometimes used to refer to any large-scale change in urban development.

A primary purpose of urban renewal is to restore economic viability to a given area by attracting external private and public investment and by encouraging business start-ups and survival.^[3] It is controversial for its frequent use of slum clearance.

Historical origins

Modern attempts at renewal began in the late 19th century in developed nations, and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s under the rubric of reconstruction. The process has had a major impact on many urban landscapes and has played an important role in the history and demographics of cities around the world.

Urban renewal is a process where privately owned properties within a designated renewal area are purchased or taken by eminent domain by a municipal redevelopment authority, razed and then reconveyed to selected developers who devote them to other uses.

The concept of urban renewal as a method for social reform emerged in

In the late 20th century and now in the 21st century, the practice of urban renewal is dressed up as urban regeneration that pursues one or more of three goals: economic renewal, social/cultural renewal, or environmental renewal.^[4] Many cities link the revitalization of the central business district and gentrification of residential neighborhoods to earlier urban renewal programs.^{[citation needed]}

The redevelopment of urban land has been orchestrated by so called culturepreneurs, who develop and manage experiences that span traditional professions and artistic media, such as city beaches. Culturepreneur agencies mediate between the users of urban spaces, local government authorities, and owners of vacant urban land.^[5]

Goals of urban renewal

The goal of urban renewal evolved into a policy based less on destruction and more on renovation and investment, and today is an integral part of many local governments, often combined with small business and big business incentives. The aims of which is:

• Tackling barriers to economic growth
• Decreasing the level of unemployment
• Increasing the level of attractiveness for both local residents and investors
• Increasing residents satisfaction in where they live
• Creating opportunities for deprived communities
• Unlocking potential in deprived areas^[4]

Village renewal

The process of urban regeneration is often carried out in rural areas, referred to as village renewal, though it may not be exactly the same in practice.^[6]

Urban sprawl

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In some cases, urban renewal may result in urban sprawl when city infrastructure begins to include freeways and expressways.^[7]

Urban renewal triggers urban sprawl to transpire, as a network of highways and interstates becomes the connection between many different cities. Ultimately, this has resulted in the disbursement of majority-Black communities across the country.^{[citation needed]} A model established to improve the growth and urbanization of American cities instead harmed the welfare of many communities.^[8] Urban sprawl and urban renewal coexist within each just approach redevelopment differently.^[vague] While urban sprawl is an unrestricted way of expanding the limits of a city, urban renewal clears out undeveloped areas within city limits. Nevertheless, both methods harm the environment and communities to push out the old and bring in the new.^[vague]

Urban Sprawl's Impact on the Built Environment

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While urban sprawl attempts to create more available land to increase urbanization, it produces vacant areas and "abandoned industrial sites."^[9]

Urban renewal in different countries and regions

Argentina

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, Puerto Madero is a known example of an urban renewal project. In the 1990s, the Argentine government decided to build a new residential and commercial district to replace city's old port and docks. More than 50 skyscrapers have been built in the last 20 years. Puerto Madero is now Buenos Aires' most expensive and exclusive neighborhood.^{[citation needed]}

Brazil

In

Hong Kong

Tackling land shortage in Hong Kong has always been a top priority on the government's agenda, with numerous strategies deployed to increase land supply. One of the current initiatives, noted in the Chief Executive's 2022 Policy Address, is to consolidate property interests and expedite urban renewal.^[10]

Iran

Iranian Urban Renewal corporation is in charge of the program. Tehran and Isfahan and Khorasan and Khuzestan have some of the highest statistics of housing developments.^[11][12] Seventh program offers support to Ministry of Road and Urban and Development for gentrification and development in lesser devoped zones. Funding will also support money going to mass housing developers.^[13][14]

Israel

Israel has been undergoing extensive urban renewal projects due to the large number of concrete tenement buildings in its cities which do not meet modern Israeli safety standards and have what is widely considered to be an impoverished and unattractive appearance. Israel built large numbers of these tenement buildings, known in Israel as "train buildings" (בנייני רכבת, binyanei rakevet), in the first decades of independence to house masses of Jewish refugees coming from Europe and the Muslim world. Since then, Israeli architectural styles have changed. In addition, these buildings do not meet modern safety regulations: Israeli law has required all new buildings to be built in an earthquake-resistant manner since 1980 and to be built with bomb shelters since 1991. There are two main urban renewal programs: the evacuate and build program and TAMA 38. The evacuate and build program, launched in 1998, allows developers to tear down older building complexes and replace them with larger and more modern buildings, while TAMA 38, launched in 2005, enables developers to extensively remodel buildings, strengthening them against earthquakes, adding safety rooms, remodeling the building's appearance, and adding new apartments. In both projects, the tenants are temporarily evacuated for the duration of the work and the developer pays for their alternative accommodation. In both programs, the developers add more apartments so as to sell them to additional tenants and make a profit.^[15][16][17]

Italy

In Italy, the concept of urban renewal had been having the classical meaning of "recovery", "re-use", and also "redevelopment" for many years. It has not been long time that this meaning has changed, or has begun to change, towards the Anglo-Saxon model taking in account the idea of an action that "determines an increase of economic, cultural, social values in an existing urban or territorial context."^[18]

For instance, we can mention the regional law of 29 July 2008, nr. 21, of the Puglia Region, "Norms for urban regeneration", which states: «By this law, the Puglia Region promotes the regeneration of parts of cities and urban systems in coherence with municipal and inter-municipal strategies in order to improve urban, socio-economics, environmental and cultural conditions of human settlements "LEGGE REGIONALE 29 luglio 2008, n. 21: "Norme per la rigenerazione urbana".

A similar concept was carried out by Lombardy Region by mean of its Regional Law of 26 November 2019 - n. 18 "Simplification and incentive measures for urban and territorial regeneration, as well as for the recovery of existing building heritage. Changes and addendums to the regional law 11 March 2005, n. 12 (Law for the Government of the Territory) and other regional laws "Legge Regione Lombardia 18/2019.

This law defines the urban regeneration as "the coordinated set of urban-building interventions and social initiatives that can include replacement, re-use, redevelopment of the built environment and reorganization of the urban landscape by mean of recovery of degraded, underused or abandoned areas, as well as through the creation and management of infrastructure, green spaces and services […] with a horizon towards sustainability and environmental and social resilience, technological innovation and increasing biodiversity" (Art 2. L.R.18/2019).

The same law introduces some rewards reserved to whom builds for social purposes. Moreover, these rewards are also reserved for those who carry on some particular implementation models. For instance, you can increase the volume of your building whenever "integrated safety systems and construction site risk management processes are applied; methods that are based on traceability and control activities, with particular reference to soil movement and waste traceability, based on advanced technologies", the increase in the building index is recognized in the art. 3 and these rewards are also given when technologies as geolocation, video surveillance and perimeter protection are implemented in order to prevent the "risk of crime during all phases of construction sites" La legalità per la rigenerazione urbana: a law analysis.

Morocco

In the French colonial period, the entire city of Marrakesh - the city inside the defensive walls - was razed and redeveloped, except for the preservation of mosques, madrassas, and funerary memorials. The preserved madrassas include buildings erected as caravanserai.^[19]

Russia

In 2017, Moscow launched a large-scale program to renovate dilapidated Soviet-built housing, known as Khrushchevki. The program provided for the demolition of 5,171 apartment buildings and the resettlement of 1.6 million city residents by 2032.^[20] The program was later extended to a number of other Russian cities.^[21]

Singapore

The history of Singapore's urban renewal goes back to the time period surrounding the

In the establishment of urban renewal programmes, some difficulties were experienced by the PAP government. The obstacles came from the resistance of people who used to live in the slums and squatters. It was reported by Singapore newspapers that those people were reluctant to be replaced. This became the major problems of 1960s redevelopment schemes.^[24] Affordable land value also became one of its reasons. Another problem was that the government had to purchase the private land owned by the middle and upper society to make the land vacant and be used for redevelopment.^[22]

South Korea

Mainland China

China experienced the fastest urbanization and has one of the greatest urban sprawl scale in the world from 1990. Massive real estate development and reconstruction brought economic revitalization. However, when cleaning the urban decay area, traditional and historic buildings were destroyed to different levels. In the industry, researchers and practitioners used “old town reconstruction” and “urban regeneration” to describe the changes made to the urban decay area. After having more research about urban renewal in terms of international trends and domestic development, the practitioners in the industry built consensus to use “urban renewal” to describe all the changes made to the old town area. With the rapid development pace of urbanization in China, the urbanization rate reached the inflection point of the Northam curve. The city development was not about urban sprawl and real estate development on a large scale. China improved its urban development strategy by using inventory planning other than incremental planning. Chinese promoted urbanization aggressively as national policy. But due to the change from the concept of urban renewal in terms of its presentation from the physical dimension, China now promotes small-scale “repairs” to improve the urban environment in a more sustainable and reasonable way. At the 15th China Central City Work Conference, the policy, "urban repair and ecological restoration," was put forward. Immediately thereafter, new urban renewal models such as Guangzhou's micro-renovation and Shanghai's micro-renewal appeared to lead the trend of a new era of urban renewal programs in China.

“Planning is inherently political”, however, the urban development in China for the past decade is strikingly similar to the situation in many Western countries. In terms of the similarity sharing with U.S. urban renewal programs, both countries viewed older neighborhoods as outdated and blighted, encouraged local governments to cooperate with local development interests for downtown redevelopment, failed to provide enough support and concern for residents of cleared areas, who often were the low-income residents, and building plenty of highways to reach large scale urban sprawl.^[25]

Taiwan

In 1882, the Peabody Trust built the Abbey Orchard Estate on former marshland at the corner of Old Pye Street and Abbey Orchard Street. Like many of the social housing estates, the Abbey Orchard Estate was built following the square plan concept. Blocks of flats were built around a courtyard, creating a semi-private space within the estate functioning as recreation area. The courtyards were meant to create a community atmosphere and the blocks of flats were designed to allow sunlight into the courtyards. The blocks of flats were built using high-quality brickwork and included architectural features such as lettering, glazing, fixtures and fittings. The estates built in the area at the time were considered model dwellings and included shared laundry and sanitary facilities, innovative at the time, and fireplaces in some bedrooms. The design was subsequently repeated in numerous other housing estates in London.^[27]

State intervention was first achieved with the passage of the Public Health Act of 1875 through Parliament. The Act focused on combating filthy urban living conditions that were the cause of disease outbreaks. It required all new residential construction to include running water and an internal drainage system and also prohibited the construction of shoddy housing by building contractors.

The

With the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, increased house building and government expenditure was used to pull the country out of recession. The Housing Act of 1930 gave local councils wide-ranging powers to demolish properties unfit for human habitation or that posed a danger to health, and obligated them to rehouse those people who were relocated due to the large scale slum clearance programs. Cities with a large proportion of Victorian terraced housing – housing that was no longer deemed of sufficient standard for modern living requirements – underwent the greatest changes. Over 5,000 homes (25,000 residents) in the city of Bristol were designated as redevelopment areas in 1933 and slated for demolition. Although efforts were made to house the victims of the demolitions in the same area as before, in practice this was too difficult to fully implement and many people were rehoused in other areas, even different cities. In an effort to rehouse the poorest people affected by redevelopment, the rent for housing was set at an artificially low level, although this policy also only achieved mixed success.^[35]

The

Other programs, such as that in Castleford in the United Kingdom and known as The Castleford Project^[36] seek to establish a process of urban renewal which enables local citizens to have greater control and ownership of the direction of their community and the way in which it overcomes market failure. This supports important themes in urban renewal today, such as participation, sustainability and trust – and government acting as advocate and 'enabler', rather than an instrument of command and control.

During the 1990s the concept of culture-led regeneration gained ground. Examples most often cited as successes include Temple Bar in Dublin where tourism was attracted to a bohemian 'cultural quarter', Barcelona where the 1992 Olympics provided a catalyst for infrastructure improvements and the redevelopment of the water front area, and Bilbao where the building of a new art museum was the focus for a new business district around the city's derelict dock area. The approach has become very popular in the UK due to the availability of lottery funding for capital projects and the vibrancy of the cultural and creative sectors. However, the arrival of Tate Modern in the London borough of Southwark may be heralded as a catalyst to economic revival in its surrounding neighborhood.

In post-apartheid South Africa major grassroots social movements such as the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign and Abahlali baseMjondolo emerged to contest 'urban renewal' programs that forcibly relocated the poor out of the cities.

The politics of urban renewal which frequently relies on the state's dominance in the discourse of removing the character and infrastructure of older city cores, with that which is required by existing market based constituents has to be examined further. Professor Kenneth Paul Tan of the National University of Singapore has this to say "Singapore's self-image of having achieved success against all odds puts tremendous pressure on its government and people to maintain and exceed this success. The push for progress and development destroys many things in its path, often indiscriminately, sometimes unwittingly. To cope psychically with such losses, Singapore's culture of comfort and affluence has been attained through the self-mastery of repressive techniques. Desiring economic progress, upward mobility, affluent and convenient lifestyles and a ‘world-class’ city."

"Singaporeans have had to repress the loss of their sense of place and community, family ties, passion and compassion, Asian customs and values, openness to the rest of the world and even the discipline, hard work and thrift associated with earlier capitalist–industrial attitudes. But no repressive efforts can be complete, consistent and fully successful, even in dominant hegemony. Therefore, the ‘now’ is always a complex and fractured world of disjunctive values, attitudes and ideals. The supernatural intrusions featured in these five films should tell us something about the impossibility of a coherent world of ideology and experience."^[37]

United States

1900 to 1950s

Prior to the Urban Renewal policies of the 1950s, cities in the United States revitalized with large scale projects like the design and construction of

Other cities across the US began to create redevelopment programs in the late 1930s and 1940s. These early projects were generally focused on slum clearance and were implemented by local public housing authorities, which were responsible both for clearing slums and for building new affordable housing. The City Planning and Housing Council (CHPC) founded in 1937 had a large hand in the reconstruction of urban slums, with their primary mission being the elimination of poor housing conditions, creating less crowded and cleaner public housing.^[38]

In 1944, the

The Housing Act of 1949, also known as the Taft-Ellender-Wagner Act, provided federal loans to cities to acquire and clear slum areas to be sold to private developers to redevelop in accordance with a plan prepared by the city (normally with new housing), and grants to cover two-thirds of the portion of the city's costs in excess of the sale prices received from the developers, as well as provide millions of dollars to create public housing throughout the country.^[38] The phrase used at the time was "urban redevelopment". "Urban renewal" was a phrase popularized with the passage of the Housing Act of 1954, which made these projects more enticing to developers by, among other things, providing mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).

The term "urban renewal" was not introduced in the USA until the Housing Act was again amended in 1954. That was also the year in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the general validity of urban redevelopment statutes in the landmark case, Berman v. Parker.^[39]

Under the powerful influence of multimillionaire

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark law to prohibit discrimination based on race, gender, religion, sex, national origin, and later sexual orientation and gender identity through legal means. At this time, racial deed restrictions on housing were legally removed and banned, which was an important step for Desegregation in the United States. However, redlining still existed to present the unequal real estate transaction for many ethnic minorities. Even though segregation was explicitly illegal, discrimination under urban planning context has been deep-rooted.

From 1965 to 1967, riots swept many cities across the States—most drastically in

Some of the policies around urban renewal began to change under President

Until 1970, the displaced owners and tenants received only the constitutionally-mandated "just compensation" specified in the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This measure of compensation covered only the fair market value of the taken property, and omitted compensation for a variety of incidental losses like, for example, moving expenses, loss of favorable financing and notably, business losses, such as loss of business goodwill. In the 1970s the federal government and state governments enacted the Uniform Relocation Assistance Act which provides for limited compensation of some of these losses. However the Act denies the displaced land owners the right to sue to enforce its provisions, so it is deemed an act of legislative grace rather than a constitutional right. Historically, urban redevelopment has been controversial because of such practices as taking private property by eminent domain for "public use" and then turning it over to redevelopers free of charge or for less than the acquisition cost (known as "land write-down"). Thus, in the controversial Connecticut case of Kelo v. City of New London (2005) the plan called for a redeveloper to lease the subject 90-acre waterfront property for $1 per year.

Currently, a mix of renovation, selective demolition, commercial development, and tax incentives is most often used to revitalize urban neighborhoods. An example of an entire eradication of a community is

Niagara Falls, New York

An example of urban renewal gone wrong in the United States is in downtown Niagara Falls, New York. Most of the original downtown was demolished in the 1960s, and many replacement projects including the Rainbow Centre Factory Outlet, Niagara Falls Convention and Civic Center, the Native American Cultural Center, the Hooker Chemical (later the Occidental Petroleum) Headquarters building, the Wintergarden, the Fallsville Splash Park, a large parking ramp, an enclosed pedestrian walkway, the Falls Street Faire & Falls Street Station entertainment complexes, and the Mayor E. Dent Lackey Plaza closed within twenty to thirty years of their construction.^[50] In addition, the

Ultimately, the former tourist district of the city along Falls Street was destroyed. It went against the principles of several urban philosophers, such as Jane Jacobs, who claimed that mixed-use districts were needed (which the new downtown was not) and arteries needed to be kept open. Smaller buildings also should be built or kept. In Niagara Falls, however, the convention center blocked traffic into the city, located in the center of Falls Street (the main artery), and the Wintergarden also blocked traffic from the convention center to the Niagara Falls. The Rainbow Centre interrupted the street grid, taking up three blocks, and parking ramps isolated the city from the core, leading to the degradation of nearby neighborhoods. Tourists were forced to walk around the Rainbow Center, the Wintergarden, and the Quality Inn (all of which were adjacent), in total five blocks, discouraging small business in the city.^[50] These issues have spawned ongoing efforts to address them.^[51]

Controversy

Urban renewal is a widely discussed and controversial program. Urban renewal sometimes lives up to the hopes of its original proponents – it has been assessed by politicians, urban planners, civic leaders, and residents – it has played an important but controversial role. But at other times urban redevelopment projects have failed in several American cities, having wasted large amounts of public funds to no purpose.^{[citation needed]}

It has been seen by proponents as an economic engine and a reform mechanism, and by critics as a mechanism for control.^[52]

Eminent domain

The controversy often involves the use of eminent domain, demolition of historic structures and direct displacement brought by slum clearance. Poorly conceived designs can lead to the destruction of functional neighborhoods and the creation of new ones which are less desirable. Areas are often cleared in order to construct highways, which bring pollution and heavy vehicle traffic to surrounding neighborhoods, or replaced with experimental new development patterns which prove undesirable or not economically sustainable.

In terms of utilizing the eminent domain as a legal method to take private property for city-initiated development, Kelo case is the real-life example of the resistance against eminent use. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the taking by a 5 to 4 vote, but nothing was built on the taken property. In many US cities, especially those in the Rust Belt, huge areas of productive buildings were demolished to enable speculative future development which never materialized. Syracuse, Cincinnati, and Niagara Falls, among many others, cleared entire neighborhoods under urban renewal plans only to have the cleared areas end up as surface parking lots, sparse industrial uses, and vacant land.^[53][49]

Positive impacts

Replenished housing stock might be an improvement in quality; it may increase density and reduce sprawl; it might have economic benefits and improve the global economic competitiveness of a city's centre.^{[citation needed]} It may, in some instances, improve cultural and social amenity, and it may also improve opportunities for safety and surveillance.^{[citation needed]} Developments such as London Docklands increased tax revenues for government.^{[citation needed]}

In late 1964, the British commentator Neil Wates expressed the opinion that urban renewal in the United States had 'demonstrated the tremendous advantages which flow from an urban renewal programme,' such as remedying the 'personal problems' of the poor, creation or renovation of housing stock, educational and cultural 'opportunities'.^[54]

Displacement of low-income residents

In the United States, urban redevelopment projects have often resulted in the displacement of low-income city inhabitants when their dwellings were taken and demolished. Eventually, urban redevelopment became an engine of construction of shopping malls, automobile factories and dealerships, "large box" department stores (like Target, Costco and Best Buy). Thus, in Washington, DC, the famous (or notorious) Southwest Washington renewal project (see Berman v. Parker) displaced thousands of largely African-American families, but provided them with no replacement housing because at the time (1954) the law did not provide for any. Also, the version of the project that was approved by the U.S. Supreme Court in Berman, provided for low-cost replacement housing, one-third of which was to rent for $17/room/month, but after the court's decision, that provision in the local law was repealed.

Replacement housing – particularly in the form of high-rise housing for low-income tenants – has not been successful. Hostile architectural designs, together with low-quality construction and maintenance have often led to rapid deterioration and abandonment of these projects. Public housing projects like

Moreover, as an important method of urban renewal project, slum clearance seemed very effective in cleaning the city environment but failed in solving the real social problems that causes slums. Low-income residents were forced to move out of their communities, an example of direct displacement. Moreover, urban renewal is highly like to open the door for gentrification, which leads to the outcome that the high middle-class residents take place of the urban renewal area by making the rising housing price no longer affordable by low-income residents. It's an outcome of indirect displacement. The threatened groups also sometimes suffer from social inequalities due to discrimination on racial identity.

In 2000, the Portland, Oregon city leaders' promised to make amends for its treatment of local African-Americans, whose communities had decimated through the local urban renewal program. The promise said money spent in North and Northeast Portland would benefit the poor, the elderly and ethnic minorities, but after 16 years, the city leaders failed in fulfilling the promise. In these years, European developers leveraged city cash into multimillion-dollar apartment projects, the increasing prices force the African-American and other low-income residents out of the market.^[55]

See also

References