Richmond carried out several large-scale urban renewal projects between 1941 and the 1970s propelled by the federal Housing Law of 1937 and the Housing Act of 1949, which provided authority and funding for cities to clear largely Black neighborhoods designated as “slums.” Richmond hired the influential city planner Harland Bartholomew to draft a master plan for the redevelopment of the city in 1946. This plan focused on demolishing Black neighborhoods that were deteriorating as a result of decades of disinvestment and discrimination and repurposing the land for housing and amenities for white residents, as well as for highways. Displaced Black residents were housed in a series of public housing projects that came to define the failure of urban renewal. Among the neighborhoods most profoundly affected was Jackson Ward, a historic Black neighborhood once known as the “Wall Street of the South,” which was bisected by the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike. Construction of the turnpike displaced approximately 10 percent of the city’s Black residents. Today Richmond is working to reconnect the Jackson Ward neighborhood and redevelop its largest public housing projects in an attempt to reverse some of the legacies of urban renewal.
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