Title I of the Housing Act of 1949 gave cities federal money to buy and clear land, often using eminent domain, and resell it to developers. Officials frequently defined blight in racial terms. Black neighborhoods that redlining had denied investment were among the first targets.
The program reshaped cities. Bulldozers cleared the Fillmore District in San Francisco, Boston's West End and the Hill District in Pittsburgh. Psychiatrist Mindy Thompson Fullilove estimated that urban renewal destroyed 1,600 Black neighborhoods across the US. In a 1963 interview, James Baldwin said urban renewal meant "Negro removal." Much of the cleared land became highways, civic centers, offices and housing that displaced residents could not afford.
Congress replaced the program with Community Development Block Grants in 1974. Its effects remain. Displaced families lost homes, businesses, churches and community networks, and many lost wealth they never regained. Fullilove called the trauma of that loss root shock, and some cities have begun to study reparations for it.