The Federal Government And Urban Renewal In America During 1950s-1970s

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the U.S. federal government paid highly attention to urban problems, which became the beginning of the federal government involved in urban affairs and created a series of urban policy of resolving the urban problems. After World War II, the United States launched a large-scale urban renewal movement. The relevant policies carrying out by the federal government played an important role in American urban renewal movement.This paper started from the concept of urban renewal and the progress of American urban renewal, combining the background of the times with the laws, the effects and influence of urban policy from the 1950s to the 1970s, analyzing the development vein and the traits of the federal government policy in American urban renewal movement and systematically studied the federal government policy in American urban renewal, which showed clearly the role of the federal government policy in American urban renewal postwar and the resuscitation of urban central district, in order to give us some experiences and lessons and offered us reference and enlightenment to urban development in China.The thesis is divided into six parts.The introduction introduced the significance of the topics, the research trends of the topic in our country and abroad and the perspective of the thesis.The first chapter is an overview of American urban renewal. Firstly, the paper defines of urban renewal, points out that Urban renewal is replanning the urban decline areas, changing the geographical distribution of industries and population in the cities by reconstructing, repairing and protecting in order to improve the city's physical environment and promote the development of urban economy and social. Secondly, the paper analyzes the main characteristics of American urban renewal in three stages of beginning, development, transformation. That is to say, the incipient stage began with cleaning slums and gradually turned to large-scale commercial development, and to comprehensive governance in development stage to small-scale community development in transition stage. Finally, this paper expounds the main urban problems in American urbanization after World War II and the origin of the federal government urban policy. After World War II, American urban problems are mainly that the political center position of the central city is losing and the serious financial crisis in metropolitan area, the deterioration of housing conditions, urban race riots etc. During Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal period, the federal government large-scale involved in urban affairs, thus forming relatively complete federal government urban policy.The second chapter analyses the federal government policy in incipient stage of urban renewal America. The beginning stage of American urban renewal was from 1949 to the end of the 1950s. This chapter generalizes the urban policies of Truman-Eisenhower government, and focuses on analyzing the Housing Act of 1949 and the Interstate Highway Act of 1956 and their influence, summarizes the traits of the urban renewal policy of the federal government in the 1950s. After World War II, starting from the housing shortage and slum problems, the federal government introduced the Housing Act of 1949, which ushering in postwar American urban renewal movement, the implementation of this bill relieves American housing crisis to a certain extent. On this basis, in the 1950s, the federal government revised the housing act for several times and successively promulgated the Housing Act of 1954 and the Housing Act of 1959, greatly increasing the ratio of commercial development in the urban renewal. At the same time, the Interstate Highway Act of 1956 has had a significant and profound effect on modern urban America. These measures stimulate the development urban economy and trigger many social problems. Nonetheless, a series of laws and regula-tions written by the federal government in the 1950s still laid a policy foundation for the later urban renewal.The third chapter analyses the federal government policy in development stage of urban renewal America. The development stage of American urban renewal was in the 1960s. This chapter expounds urban policies of Kennedy-Johnson administration, analyzes several important urban legislation of the federal government in the 1960s, and on the basis summarizes the traits of the federal urban renewal policy in the 1960s. In the 1960s, the federal government began to consider linking slums clearing with solving the housing problem and social problem in the city, carrying on comprehen-sive governance, which caused the wave of large-scale integrated urban renovation mainly in large cities. Johnson government era is the harvest time of the legislation and practice of urban renewal America, successively promulgated the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965, the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the Demonstration Cities Act of 1966. The implementation of a series of bills basically solved urban housing shortage since before World War II, but because private developers had been lacking enthusiasm for the construction of low-income public housing, most of housing problems of the black and the poor couldn't solve.The fourth chapter analyses the federal government policy in transformation stage of urban renewal America. The transformation phase of urban renewal America was in the 1970s. This chapter outlines the urban policy of Nixon government, with some emphasis about two important legislation of the federal government in the 1970s, analyzes the effect of the federal urban renewal policy in the 1970s and the trend of the federal urban policy in the 1980s. In the 1970s, American economic situation worsened and the Nixon government abandoned massively directly funding to the city since the New Deal, urban renewal turned to small-scale community development. The federal government established the Community Development Block Grants, and sub-sequent introduced the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974. The policy aimed at developing and constructing the community, especially the poor community, which attracted a large number of middle class returned to the downtown area. But the problem is that the funds were spread and used for other purposes.The epilogue summarizes the main argument of this article: After World War II, urban renewal policy of the federal government in general shows staged characteristic, which is from initial material renovation to medium-term comprehensive governance to later small-scale community development emphasized citizen participation, which reflects the idea of American urban renewal was gradually mature and perfect. However, the reconstruction and development of the center city didn't provide public housing for low-income residents, it also did not improve poor communities. The city's social problems still remain. That showed reconstruction-type urban renewal made revitalization of city center impossible when urbanization got mature. The urban renewal must be not only advocated material renewal but also dedicated to solving deep problems of economic structure and social structure disorders.