Urban Renewal And The Housing Act Of 1949

Urban Renewal started with the Housing Act of 1949. This program had some goals in mind which all sounded too good to be true. The goals were to eliminate substandard housing, revitalize city economies, construct better housing, and to reduce racial segregation. The way these goals were carried out were trough tearing down areas and then rebuilding them. Federal funds and eminent domain were used to keep this program going. After these areas were cleared then they became available to developers at a low cost. Congress envisioned that Urban Renewal would be a housing program that would replace old housing with better housing. Many people disliked urban renewal, because it displaced many people and families. Better housing meant that the housing …show more content…
Since competition from other countries was down due to the war, more jobs were created and some came with higher pay. When the soldiers came back home they decided to move away and out of from the city, which led to a major increase in suburbs. All of the soldiers being home also lead to the baby boom. More babies meant more demand in bigger and better housing. Building housing eventually started to resemble a production line where one group of people specialized in one thing. These houses were all built at the same time on a big piece of land. There were several groups of workers and each group did one thing to the house and then moved on to the next. This was more efficient then building one house at a time because the demand for housing was so high. My only concern here was what if one process took longer than the next? What would the group behind them do in the mean-time while they waited for the next …show more content…
Sprawl is a natural result from suburb development. There are three different types of sprawl and they are: leapfrog or scattered development, commercial strip development, and large expanses of low-density or single-use development. Leapfrog development is when sprawl is formed away from a developed area. Strip development is used commercially. Low-density suburban development is divided into small areas usually to develop housing and each part is owned privately. What are some of the causes of sprawl? It can happen from a number of reasons. People have different preferences in housing and like I stated earlier, each look for different aspects. Technology has enabled people to live in one city and then drive their vehicle to the next city to work. The advancement of communicating with one another has come to the point where we can talk to someone and see them on our phone while they are in a whole different country. Now with the automobile and the telephone there is no need to live close to relatives or friends. Highways were also another big advancement that helped people move around faster and more efficiently. People can now drive their car on the freeway from a farther distance and arrive to work in less or the same amount of time as if they lived closer and drove only on the streets. Of course there are some costs to sprawl. One is the cost of travel. Cars need gas. The farther someone drives then the more gas they will need. More cars