national register nomination for boulevard park historic

horizontally expanding city. 23 As geographic and economic shifts drew development
away from downtowns, the Great Depression struck, and the automobile and public roads
accelerated the horizontal dispersion of cities started by public transit. In the era
following World War II, downtowns were in desperate shape, eager to find any way to
attract the well-to-do back to the central city. Downtown business interests felt the only
way to bring back the wealthy was to drive out the poor who still lived in the central
city. 24
Early attempts at replacing or relocating low-income housing grew from social
reformers’ efforts to alleviate the plight of the poor. Unsanitary and dangerous housing
was a significant problem in many American cities, and efforts to relieve those problems
occurred through much of the early 20 th century in the form of building codes, mandated
safety features, and model tenements (early examples of public housing projects, inspired
by European examples.) Some of these projects helped aid the living conditions of the
poor, but they were seldom profitable enough to attract developers to produce much
replacement housing. American ideology about private property discouraged large-scale
public housing efforts comparable to European examples, and attempts at nonprofit
25
housing produced tepid results.
Federal redevelopment laws, including the Housing Act of 1949, marked a
dramatic transition. By providing significant federal support for land acquisition and
clearance, cities could buy adjacent land, evict its residents, and provide incentives for
23 Fogelson, Downtown, p. 183
24 Fogelson, Downtown, p. 319
25 Fogelson, Downtown, Chapter 7, “Inventing Blight”
19