Deliverables: I will be constructing a report/summary (Presentation Material) of the information from my research of the demographics, politics, and urban renewal of the 1920s thru the 1960s (Scope), which may be presented as a PowerPoint/Prezi Presentation, and/or documentation report, and/or project, and/or technological media on a consolidated platform such as OpenLab, CartoDb, SketchUp, Wikipedia, YouTube, etc. I will be able to determine the most appropriate platform once my project is in the final stages. I will also coordinate my research with a classmate since we are focusing on similar aspects of my research project. His consolidation platform would be my main consideration towards my research contribution.
Report/Summary Construction Process: I will be using and consolidating the information from the resources from my research, such as libraries (books), web searches (“dot-gov” and articles), archives (historical maps/documents). The main consolidation of information will be taken from my previous reports and bibliography. I will combine and focus information regarding demographics, politics, and urban renewal to produce a final project geared towards a sociological (social sciences) approach.
Research Gaps: Although there is information regarding the demographics, politics, and urban renewal of the 1920s thru the 1960s, there has been limited information about the causes for the landscape cutoff point at Hudson Avenue and York Street.
Evolution of My Project: My project has changed/morphed from a focus of the cause of a physical aspect (landscape) of a street (Hudson Avenue) into a more sociological focus of the demographics and politics involved in the urban renewal of the 1920s thru the 1960s.
Think you need to think more strategically about what exactly you want to produce for this project to direct your focus for the next couple of weeks. As we discussed last week, you might also focus on filling in any research gaps that need to be addressed and consult secondary sources that document social / demographic impact of urban renewal developments.
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Hello Prof. Almeida,
I am focusing on the sociological aspects concerning the urban renewal, and one of the article that I read provides meaningful information concerning one of the major questions for my final report: What were the driving forces behind the urban renewal project(s)? I composed an annotated bibliography of the article to record the information from the article. It is included below:
Annotated Bibliography
Moore, E. E. (1939, June 10). Much ado about housing. The Saturday Evening Post, pp. 25, 114-118.
Mayor La Guardia claims to want to build new and better homes for the people, but they have doubts about that. They are afraid that they will be forced to worse living conditions outside of the new development. People are justly skeptical and they refer to unaffordable Governmental “low-income housing” that no family from the slums could afford. The United States Housing Authority (USHA) is an outgrowth of the Housing Division of the Public Works Administration (PWA). The aim of the PWA was towards reemployment with a byproduct of housing, and the aim of the USHA as the opposite, which are significant factors towards the housing problem with the USHA. The PWA predates the Wagner-Steagall Law and it received government subsidies/grants that do not support rent regulated housing developments. “For various reasons,” PWA development projects were more expensive. Although the USHA receives government subsidiary for rent affordability, more considerations with economic construction, site-planning, etc. result in higher rental housing without a means for the previous slum residents to support it through better paying jobs. Moore (1939) of the Slum Clearance Committee of the NYC Housing Authority described the poor and outdated conditions of the old, “decrepit” residences. The “drive” or “push” towards urban renewal was to replace the decrepit and squalor living conditions. I’ve learned that a focus on better paying jobs is beneficial to local residents in planning housing developments, so this should be an important consideration by developers. Only competition with commercial/private slums developments. The tax on the new property to be exempt or equal to the previous slum amount. Hence, only gains in healthy living conditions. There are higher costs to control diseases and crime when compared with other localities, and there are lower economic funds provided by slums and the other localities support the deficiencies. Replace aesthetically displeasing with aesthetically pleasing developments. Moore (1939) claimed that the cost to the Federal Budget wasn’t as high as it seemed, but instead an “infinitesimal fraction” payment made on behalf of health concerns for the lower-income residents. He views the rehousing of slum residents as a government responsibility.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/about/nycha70_name.shtml