Cities: August 2014 Archives
Brighton Allston Historical Society: The Urban Renewal of Barry's Corner
In the early 1960s, a 9.3 acre, 71-family Irish and Italian neighborhood on the northeast corner of N. Harvard St. and Western Ave. was declared blighted by the City of Boston to make room for a more expensive development. The residents lost, the neighborhood was demolished, the luxury complex was never built -- a vintage 1969 townhouse complex was built instead -- but the neighborhood's protests had an impact.
I used to pass this corner on the way from home to Harvard Yard. Harvard's business school and stadium are nearby, and there are plans for future campus expansion, including the redevelopment of the now abandoned Charlesview Apartments that replaced Barry's Corner neighborhood.
"The BRA's plan called for the demolition of the existing 52 structures, and the construction on the cleared acreage (by well-connected developers), of a $4.5 million ten-story, 372 unit luxury apartment building, to be paid for largely with federal money. The BRA contended that the Barry's Corner structures were blighted, a charge the residents hotly disputed. The authority also noted that the existing neighborhood was yielding the city relatively little tax revenue. The proposed luxury complex would pay $150,000 as compared to the $15,000 the Barry's Corner properties were contributing. The BRA assured the public that 'every effort is being made to assure that the residents now living in the area are provided with suitable new homes.'
"Barry's Corner residents were understandably outraged. The BRA was proposing to obliterate an entire neighborhood, to seize and demolish private homes, so that luxury housing could be constructed, and to pay for this questionable project with public revenues."
MORE about the history of Barry's Corner in the Harvard Crimson.
Daily chart: Urban ideologies | The Economist
Of 67 American cities with a population of more than a quarter-million people, Tulsa and Oklahoma are two of the 13 ranked right-of-center. In order:
Mesa, AZ
Oklahoma City, OK
Virginia Beach, VA
Colorado Springs, CO
Jacksonville, FL
Arlington, TX
Anaheim, CA
Omaha, NE
Tulsa, OK
Aurora, CO
Anchorage, AK
Fort Worth, TX
The ten most liberal: San Francisco, Washington DC, Seattle, Oakland, Boston, Minneapolis, Detroit, New York, Buffalo, Baltimore.
The graphic is an extract from a March 2014 study of studies called Representation in Municipal Government by Chris Tausanovitch of UCLA and Christopher Warshaw of MIT, examining "whether city policies are actually responsive to the views of their citizens" by moving in the direction of the views of their citizens. The analysis is of cities, not metropolitan areas; thus Arlington, Texas, Mesa, Arizona, and Anaheim, California, are considered separately from DFW, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.
"However, unlike at the state and national level, we find scant evidence that differences in municipal political institutions affect representation. Neither the choice of mayor versus city council government, partisan or non-partisan elections, the availability of ballot measures, whether or not elected officials face term limits, or whether there are at-large or districted elections seem to affect the strength of the relationship between public policy preferences and city policies."
San Francisco Residential Security Map, 1937
1937 street map of San Francisco (which also shows streetcar and trolley bus lines at the time) was color coded by the Federal Government's Home Owners' Loan Corporation to indicate various levels of perceived risk to property value. These maps, drawn up for cities across the country, are associated with the practice of redlining -- denying home loans to certain neighborhoods, particularly those dominated by disfavored ethnic groups.
MORE:
San Francisco LocalWiki "editathon" on the topic of gentrification
Hoodline: A History of Redlining in San Francisco Neighborhoods
Residential Security Maps for Ohio cities
Home Owners' Loan Corporation: A brochure explaining the purpose and scope of the HOLC. The brochure estimates the total home mortgage debt as $20 billion. HOLC was given $200 million in cash to finance $2 billion in bonds to assist owners of homes worth less than $20,000. Oklahoma had HOLC offices in Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
Slate: Where to find historical redlining maps of your city
High-res scans of HOLC Residential Security Maps from the late '30s: Also a good source for pre-urban renewal street locations.
