Urban renewal comprised federal, state, and local housing policies and practices dating to the Great Depression and unfolding across much of the twentieth century that set the stage for the widespread destruction of lower-income Black neighborhoods in the name of redevelopment. Urban renewal had a major impact on communities across Virginia, including Richmond, Northern Virginia, Charlottesville, Norfolk, and Roanoke. The Housing Law of 1937 provided federal funding to local housing authorities for the construction of public housing for lower-income families and individuals. However, the way the law was designed and enacted set the stage for the displacement of many majority Black communities across the country. The Housing Act of 1949 expanded federal funding for local housing authorities to acquire land perceived as blighted. Cities were allowed to tear down these homes and resell the property to private developers. In the following decades, city officials worked with influential urban planners to remake cityscapes across the United States, often along racial lines. While the construction of new affordable housing was the ostensible goal of both federal housing laws, ultimately residential units were built on less than a fifth of all cleared land. Much of the land was instead repurposed for the nation’s growing highway system, while the rest was transformed into parking lots, parks, institutions such as universities and hospitals, high-end residential buildings, and cultural amenities. Where housing was constructed, it almost always took the form of cheaply built public housing concentrated in Black communities. Black communities organized against the displacement that urban renewal brought, scoring notable victories in Alexandria. However, landscapes across the commonwealth still bear the scars of urban renewal.
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