Program Success 3 November 2021
These changes offer tremendous opportunities . A new Black affordable housing industry must emulate the disrupters and take advantage of all new legislative tools .
Development in Black America ’ s Urban Space 1960s – 2020
Since the 1960s , the country has seen hundreds of billions — probably trillions — of public and private sector dollars expended in programs that together amounted to a sort of failed Marshall Plan for Black America : the War on Poverty , the Great Society , the Equal Employment Opportunity Act , the Model Cities Program , affirmative action , Black capitalism , the Community Reinvestment Act , the Housing and Community Development Act , and so on , ad nauseam .
By the early 1980s , these urban rebuilding activities coincided with the rise of New Urbanism . That movement never carried a hint of racism or hostility toward African Americans , but for a host of reasons New Urbanism — like architecture — was mainly an allwhite-people affair , and hundreds of new community redevelopment projects sprung up across the nation , most in big cities , and many on the sites of large public housing projects with predominantly Black and brown populations . New Urbanism was embraced by the HUD initiative known as HOPE VI ( Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere ).
This program , which began in 1992 , saw nearly $ 6 billion in public funds leveraging even greater amounts of private funds to totally remake “ the projects .” The nation ’ s largest , most troubled public housing sites ( which were almost always occupied totally by Black or brown people ) became prime objects for demolition and were rebuilt at doubled , tripled , or sometimes greater densities as mostly upscale and expensive housing units on the same plot of ground . In this sense , the HOPE VI program was a reincarnation of the 1960s Urban Renewal leveling of communities , neighborhoods , and homes occupied by large swaths of Black America that came to be known as “ Negro Removal .” HOPE VI and affordable housing developers ( and their architects and contractors ) are virtually never Black or from other underrepresented minorities . Over the past decade , I have been witnessing the same affordable housing destruction and HOPE VI redevelopment script being played out across urban America , including in my old neighborhood , the Jordan Downs public housing project in Watts , Los Angeles , and in my adopted hometown of Washington , D . C . Future redevelopment endeavors must prioritize Black wealth creation , and to understand what this could look like , there are examples that we can turn to . Interior of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington , D . C . ( ItzaVU / Via Shutterstock . com _
Revisiting Three Big Black Wealth Creation Initiatives Since 1966 New Cities : Soul City , North Carolina
In 1968 , Floyd McKissick stepped down from leading the Congress of Racial Equality to pursue his vision of building a new freestanding city in Warren County , North Carolina . Soul City was envisioned by McKissick as having a full build-out population of 55,000 people on a 5,000-acre tract of land . McKissick insisted that Soul City would be open to all races . He was equally adamant that African Americans would be the dominant planners , designers , builders , and owners of most of Soul City ’ s land and business enterprises .
McKissick and his planners had what they considered to be the perfect model in the planned new town of Columbia , Maryland . Columbia ’ s visionary founder , James Rouse , envisioned a town of 100,000 people of all races living in social harmony in a 14,000-acre development . Columbia met and surpassed those goals .
see Bolster Black America page 28