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Give BRA a chance at urban renewal

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The West End shopping plaza on December 22, 1966.

The urban renewal legislation that enabled Boston to demolish the West End in the late 1950s expires in April. Despite the painful memories for many, the Boston City Council should renew the law.

The urban renewal effort can be traced to the Housing Act of 1954, which provided grants and loans for the revitalization of blighted urban neighborhoods. The bill was inspired by neighborhood fix-up efforts, such as the 1951 Baltimore Plan, which featured enforcement of building codes, housing rehabilitation, and incentives for affordable housing to further stabilize communities. Unfortunately, as history shows, the legislation lost its focus.

Even after six decades, the very name, "urban renewal" evokes resentment in Boston. My family was a victim of urban renewal in the 1950s. We were one of 800 families forced from our now-forgotten "New York Streets" neighborhood in the South End, Boston's first urban renewal project, which preceded the notorious West End "slum clearance" project by several years. The city used the powers of eminent domain to bulldoze the neighborhood to clear the way for industrial development that included a new Boston Herald printing plant.

While the disastrous history of this legislation must not be forgotten, it is valuable to recall the law's initial purpose and apply its original intent to current circumstances. With renewed focus, the BRA can use the urban renewal law to revitalize communities for the benefit of current residents rather than pursue policies that lead to displacement and further gentrification. The current BRA director, Brian Golden, has shown that he understands the opportunity the law presents for a new model of community redevelopment like the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative.

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In 1988 the residents of the Dudley Street neighborhood in Roxbury began to shift the target of urban renewal efforts from demolition to rehabilitation. This low-income neighborhood, located between Dudley Square and Uphams Corner, endured decades of arson, demolition, and illegal dumping. Over 170 acres of vacant land and decrepit housing, much of it abandoned by absentee owners, blighted the neighborhood. An alliance of neighbors, local social service agencies, community development corporations, churches, and other faith-based groups formed the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative to take control of their community.

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The BRA agreed to help. Through a provision in the legislation, the BRA was able to designate DSNI as an "urban redevelopment corporation," which gave it the power of eminent domain to reclaim abandoned property. Reclaiming hundreds of scattered tax-delinquent lots through foreclosure would have been an arduous, time-consuming process that would impede development. Since its designation, the initiative has built new homes, renovated historic buildings, playgrounds, and gardens, transforming the neighborhood into a vibrant "urban village."

While urban renewal district legislation should be extended, the districts themselves should, at the same time, be re-drawn to reflect changed conditions. The South End, for example, clearly needs adjustment. Not all of the South End should be in an urban renewal district. The South End Urban Renewal District, however, still has one of the highest concentrations of low-income families in the city. The BRA should consider re-drawing boundaries to only those areas in need of revitalization. Since the 1990s, the BRA has built more than 500 units of affordable housing in the South End. Only through land disposition agreements can the agency ensure that the South End resists gentrification pressures and that new housing will remain affordable to low- and moderate-income families. Without an extension of urban renewal authority, the BRA will lose its power to enforce those land disposition agreements. As a practical matter, it will take the BRA at least seven or eight years to wind down the 60-year urban renewal program and figure out new ways to enforce these crucial agreements.

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There's still work to do in Boston. Last year, BRA director Golden formally apologized to former residents for the demolition of their West End community, signaling a new day for the city. For the first time in six decades, a BRA director acknowledged the scars that still remain after the destruction of the West End and vowed never to repeat this reckless use of urban renewal. It would be counter-productive to constrain the BRA when it is striving to be a more transparent, community-oriented agency.


James G. Kostaras is a senior fellow at the Institute for International Urban Development in Cambridge.