Asheville, NC
Asheville now boasts the nation's second fastest pace of gentrification, and its poor black residents have historically paid the price. Beginning in the 1950s, communities of color across the United States were systematically uprooted and displaced in the name of “urban renewal.” This process is exemplified by the East Riverside Urban Renewal Project (ERURP) in the Southside neighborhood of Asheville, NC: the largest urban renewal project in the American Southeast. |
Life in Southside before urban renewal — 1960s
From the beginning, racist language was used to justify the East Riverside Urban Renewal Project, and the interests of poor black residents in the area were disregarded. The object of urban renewal, as established in the US Housing Act of 1954, was to revitalize American cities by removing and preventing “urban blight,” a phrase which grossly overlooks the value of impoverished communities. In 1966, Southside spanned 425 acres and housed 4,800 residents, 98% of whom were black, and who made up ½ of Asheville’s black population. Despite often low standards of living in residential areas, 1966 Southside also comprised a vital business and social center. Advocates of ERURP promised that the project would “get rid of public apathy” and Ashevillians’ “lack of interest in progress." One contributor even believed that only landlords in the target area, who would lose profit on “their substandard buildings” should be opposed to the project. |
Life in Southside after urban renewal — 1977 and on
Starting with the first demolitions in 1977, many former Southside residents moved into public housing with reassurance that new homes would be built in their neighborhoods--a promise that was never met. Despite some improvements in living conditions, one displaced resident pointed out in a 1994 interview that displacement brought health risks of its own, remembering that “a whole lot of old folks died shortly after relocation began." Dr. Mindi Fullilove, a professor of public health and an expert on urban renewal, uses the term ‘root shock’ to describe the “traumatic stress reaction” experienced by victims of displacement. To make matters worse, urban renewal brought a new wave of food insecurity to Southside. Though the neighborhood once housed as many as 23 grocery stores, there has not been a single grocery store in the area for over 40 years, and Southside is now officially classified as a food desert by the USDA. Surrounded on all sides by food security, the lack of food access in Southside is just further evidence of exclusion under the guise of urban ‘renewal and revitalization.'
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"It’s certainly bittersweet when you look back at those days. I think what we lost was community, and I’m not sure how, if you can ever get that again.”
— Robert "Bob" Smith, 1994