Housing Act of 1954 Expands Urban Renewal, Intensifies Destruction of Black Communities

On August 2, 1954, President Eisenhower signed the Housing Act of 1954, dramatically expanding the urban renewal program that had begun with the 1949 Housing Act. The law introduced the “workable program” requirement for federal funds, mandated comprehensive planning, and provided new financing mechanisms—but in practice accelerated the destruction of Black neighborhoods that critics labeled “Negro removal.”

The 1954 Act shifted urban renewal’s nominal focus from solely slum clearance to “community conservation and rehabilitation,” but retained provisions allowing wholesale demolition. It required cities to submit “workable programs” demonstrating their capacity for urban renewal, which created bureaucratic infrastructure for systematic displacement. The Act also introduced Section 220 mortgage insurance for urban renewal housing, primarily benefiting developers building in cleared areas.

Between 1949 and 1973, urban renewal demolished an estimated 2,500 neighborhoods, displacing over one million people—approximately two-thirds of them African American. Cleared land often sat vacant for years before redevelopment, primarily as commercial projects, highways, or middle-to-upper-income housing that excluded former residents. The small amounts of replacement public housing built typically contained fewer units than were destroyed.

In cities across America, urban renewal targeted vibrant Black commercial and residential districts under the pretext of “blight” removal. Boston’s West End, a working-class neighborhood, was demolished. San Francisco’s Fillmore District, known as the “Harlem of the West,” was gutted. New York’s Robert Moses used federal funds to clear land for Lincoln Center and other projects, displacing tens of thousands. St. Louis demolished the Mill Creek Valley, the nation’s largest Black neighborhood clearance, removing 20,000 residents.

The Housing Act of 1954 exemplified how ostensibly race-neutral federal policy could systematically destroy Black wealth and community when administered by local officials committed to racial hierarchy. Urban renewal transferred prime urban land from Black communities to developers and institutions, constituting one of the largest upward transfers of wealth in American history.