Melvin L . Mitchell is the author of African American Architects : Embracing Culture and Building Urban Communities , published this year , and The Crisis of the African American Architect : Conflicting Cultures of Architecture and ( Black ) Power , published in 2002 . He has been a practicing architect in Washington , D . C ., for 45 years . He is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects , a past president of the Washington , D . C ., Board of Architecture , and former director at the Institute ( now School ) of Architecture + Planning at Morgan State University in Baltimore ( 1997 – 2002 ). He was a professor at the University of the District of Columbia ( 1986 – 94 , 2003 – 14 ) and James E . Silcott Endowed Chair at Howard University ( 2016 – 18 ). His architecture degrees are from Howard University and the Harvard Graduate School of Design .
Bolster Black America Build Millions of New Affordable Housing
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Today , an aerial view of Columbia ’ s Town Center and city beyond looks largely identical to the 1968 architectural model of the proposed city . Today ’ s Columbia is a city of 100,000 whose population is roughly 50 percent white and 50 percent nonwhite , with African Americans making up half of the nonwhite population .
For Soul City , McKissick scraped together a few million federal dollars for initial infrastructure costs , but he was unable to overcome huge obstacles , including the 1973 oil crisis and the racial politics of archconservative North Carolina senator Jesse Helms . With no private investment capital commensurate with the money available to Rouse for Columbia , Soul City ’ s population never exceeded 200 . Today , nearly 50 years after McKissick was forced to fold on his dream of building a successful new city in North Carolina , there are tools , conditions , attitudes , new wealth sources , and political power in place that together scream out “ somebody needs to try this again !”
New Towns in Town : Fort Lincoln , Washington , D . C .
A 1960s vision of a “ New Town in Town ” in Washington , D . C ., was implemented by Theodore Hagans Jr ., a graduate of Howard University ’ s engineering school . Hagans gained control of a nearly 360-acre parcel of vacant land on the border of Prince George ’ s County , Maryland , just several miles from downtown D . C . in an area now known as Fort Lincoln . The project ’ s master plan called for thousands of new homes and apartment units , with a sizable shopping mall , two public schools , ample open space , and recreational facilities .
By the mid-1970s , Hagans had become the largest Black developer in D . C . He became the sole owner of all rights to redevelop Fort Lincoln New Town . Fort Lincoln ’ s population today is majority African American with a growing number of white and other families and individuals .
The project is now being completed under the ownership and executive leadership of Hagans ’ s daughter Michele Hagans , also a Howard engineering school graduate . Conditions and circumstances today are ripe in many American cities and inner suburbs for the replication of the Hagans family ’ s vision .
Melvin L . Mitchell is the author of African American Architects : Embracing Culture and Building Urban Communities , published this year , and The Crisis of the African American Architect : Conflicting Cultures of Architecture and ( Black ) Power , published in 2002 . He has been a practicing architect in Washington , D . C ., for 45 years . He is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects , a past president of the Washington , D . C ., Board of Architecture , and former director at the Institute ( now School ) of Architecture + Planning at Morgan State University in Baltimore ( 1997 – 2002 ). He was a professor at the University of the District of Columbia ( 1986 – 94 , 2003 – 14 ) and James E . Silcott Endowed Chair at Howard University ( 2016 – 18 ). His architecture degrees are from Howard University and the Harvard Graduate School of Design .