Urban Renewal - Long-term Implications

Long-term Implications

Urban renewal sometimes lives up to the hopes of its original proponents – it has been assessed by politicians, urban planners, civic leaders, and residents – it has played an undeniably important role.

Additionally, urban renewal can have many positive effects. Replenished housing stock might be an improvement in quality; it may increase density and reduce sprawl; it might have economic benefits and improve the global economic competitiveness of a city's centre. It may, in some instances, improve cultural and social amenity, and it may also improve opportunities for safety and surveillance. Developments such as London Docklands increased tax revenues for government. In late 1964, the British commentator Neil Wates expressed the opinion that urban renewal in the USA had 'demonstrated the tremendous advantages which flow from an urban renewal programme,' such as remedying the 'personal problems' of the poor, creation or renovation of housing stock, educational and cultural 'opportunities'.

As many examples listed above show, urban renewal has been responsible for the rehabilitation of communities—as well as displacement. Replacement housing – particularly in the form of housing towers – might be difficult to police, leading to an increase in crime, and such structures might in themselves be dehumanising. Urban renewal is usually non-consultative. Urban renewal continues to evolve as successes and failures are examined and new models of development and redevelopment are tested and implemented.

An example of urban renewal gone wrong is in downtown Niagara Falls, New York. Several failed projects such as the Rainbow Centre Factory Outlet, Niagara Falls Convention and Civic Center, the Native American Cultural Center, the Hooker Chemical (later the Occidental Petroleum) Headquarters building, the Wintergarden, the Fallsville Splash Park, Aquafalls, a multi-story parking ramp, an enclosed pedestrian walkway/bridge, the Falls Street Faire/Falls Street Station amusement complexes, parts of the Robert Moses State Parkway, and the Mayor E. Dent Lackey Plaza closed within twenty years of their construction. Many demolished blocks were never replaced. Ultimately, the former tourist district of the city along Falls Street was destroyed. It went against the principles of several urban philosophers, such as Jane Jacobs, who claimed that mixed-use districts were needed (which the new downtown was not) and arteries needed to be kept open. Smaller buildings also should be built or kept. In Niagara Falls, however, the convention center blocked traffic into the city, located in the center of Falls Street (the main artery), and the Wintergarden also blocked traffic from the convention center to the Niagara Falls. The Rainbow Centre interrupted the street grid, taking up three blocks, and parking ramps isolated the city from the core, leading to the degradation of nearby neighborhoods. Tourists were forced to walk around the Rainbow Center, the Wintergarden, and the Quality Inn (all of which were adjacent), in total five blocks, discouraging small business in the city.