The Urban Renewal thread (the movement, not OCURA)

[Teo9969]

Pete if there is another thread on this or if there is another place this should go, feel free to merge/move.

So I'm a young pup (24) and have only learned about city/civic planning, urban development, etc. since I started following this forum. I've become more involved in the past year or so after reading occasionally for years. I don't know much of the history of OKC as neither of my parents substantively lived here until the 1980s (my dad's parents are from the midwest, he moved down here in the early 80s. My mom's parents are from El Reno/Calumet, lived here when until Mom was in HS, then moved to Colorado. Mom moved back in the early 80s as well).

So everything I've really learned about OKC has been on this site. I know not much about Urban Renewal but it constantly comes up and I have a couple questions about the movement that will hopefully clear some things up for me:

1. When did UR emerge as a movement?
2. Who were the major people/players, National and Local, that pushed for the movement to take root?
3. When did UR die off and why?
4. In terms of OKC UR, I understand that I.M. Pei put together a grand project...what caused that vision to not come about?
5. What have been the responses to UR in other cities?

Feel free to correct any misconceptions I have about UR if they have presented themselves in this thread. I is unedumacated bout thiz stuff.

[Just the facts]

Nationally, funding started with the 1949 Fair Housing Act. Add to that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. The ideas for rebuilding cities in this method go back a long time but the modern movement we are afflicted with in OKC came directly from Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (aka Le Corbusier) and his Radiant Cities ideas. Pei was a Le Corbusier follower. It also spun off from the City Beautiful movement.

Le Corbusier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

City Beautiful movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you get the chance watch the documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. It is the culmination of all these ideas ending in total disaster.

[HangryHippo]

Nationally, funding started with the 1949 Fair Housing Act. Add to that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. The ideas for rebuilding cities in this method go back a long time but the modern movement we are afflicted with in OKC came directly from Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (aka Le Corbusier) and his Radiant Cities ideas. Pei was a Le Corbusier follower. It also spun off from the City Beautiful movement.

Le Corbusier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

City Beautiful movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you get the chance watch the documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. It is the culmination of all these ideas ending in total disaster.

Do you think the City Beautiful Movement ended in total disaster?

[Just the facts]

Do you think the City Beautiful Movement ended in total disaster?

I'm not all that upto date on the City Beautiful movement as a whole. They made some great public spaces but I know replacing housing with parks didn't work out so well for those living in the houses. However, it was Pruitt-Igoe that ended in disaster - much like every other public housing project that was built by the same mind-set, and not the City Beautiful movement.

Here is a history of the City Beauthiful Movement in OKC.

http://digital.library.okstate.edu/e...s/C/CI007.html

[Spartan]

People were living in cold water tenements before City Beautiful.

[Just the facts]

I understand that. I'm not knocking City Beautiful. I'm just saying Urban Renewal was the modernism version that grew out of it.

[ThePlainsman]

+1 on watching The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. Worth your time.

[Praedura]

Came across an amazing old film posted online by the Oklahoma Historical Society



Shot in the early seventies (it would appear), it gives quite a lengthy overview of what Urban Renewal was trying to accomplish. Lots of footage of downtown (and surrounding areas) of the time.

Absolutely fascinating to watch. Guaranteed to stir some emotions (and not all good ones either).

[catch22]

The Valir 10th and Hudson page is broken, but a lot of land on the block immediately west of the Valir site recently sold. Is MidtownR behind Midtown Hill LLC? Midtown 11th and Park Place LLC was the buyer of the Valir Health land a few weeks ago.

Midtown Hill LLC from Corsair Estate LLC, 409, 411 and 417 W Park Place, 420 NW 11 Street and 1135 N Hudson Ave., $1,087,000.

Oklahoma County land sales | NewsOK.com

Oops, wrong thread. Meant to post in Midtown thread.

[UnFrSaKn]

Density



Original

[Doug Loudenback]

...
So everything I've really learned about OKC has been on this site. I know not much about Urban Renewal but it constantly comes up and I have a couple questions about the movement that will hopefully clear some things up for me:

1. When did UR emerge as a movement?
2. Who were the major people/players, National and Local, that pushed for the movement to take root?
3. When did UR die off and why?
4. In terms of OKC UR, I understand that I.M. Pei put together a grand project...what caused that vision to not come about?
5. What have been the responses to UR in other cities?

For excellent tracing and analysis of Okc's experience, I heartily recommend Steve Lackmeyer's & Jack Money's 2006 book, OKC: 2nd Time Around. My book review is here: Doug Dawgz Blog: OKC 2nd Time Around

[Steve]

Thanks Doug!

[Plutonic Panda]

Density



Original

Where is this? NYC?

[Teo9969]

Where is this? NYC?

Would think so..."NY Jewelry Center"

[Plutonic Panda]

Would think so..."NY Jewelry Center"

Yeap. I posted that comment prematurely. :/ .... Was unable to edit any further. idk why.

[UnFrSaKn]

[Rover]

So, Moscow is our model now?

[hoya]

Pete if there is another thread on this or if there is another place this should go, feel free to merge/move.

So I'm a young pup (24) and have only learned about city/civic planning, urban development, etc. since I started following this forum. I've become more involved in the past year or so after reading occasionally for years. I don't know much of the history of OKC as neither of my parents substantively lived here until the 1980s (my dad's parents are from the midwest, he moved down here in the early 80s. My mom's parents are from El Reno/Calumet, lived here when until Mom was in HS, then moved to Colorado. Mom moved back in the early 80s as well).

So everything I've really learned about OKC has been on this site. I know not much about Urban Renewal but it constantly comes up and I have a couple questions about the movement that will hopefully clear some things up for me:

1. When did UR emerge as a movement?
2. Who were the major people/players, National and Local, that pushed for the movement to take root?
3. When did UR die off and why?
4. In terms of OKC UR, I understand that I.M. Pei put together a grand project...what caused that vision to not come about?
5. What have been the responses to UR in other cities?

Feel free to correct any misconceptions I have about UR if they have presented themselves in this thread. I is unedumacated bout thiz stuff.

You could spend years reading about this and studying it. Like you, I didn't know a whole lot about our history with urban renewal until I came here. But for a short answer to some of your questions:

The I.M. Pei plan was designed to tear down a lot of older abandoned buildings and replace them wth modern structures. The fact that we tore down a bunch of cool old buildings from the turn of the century through the 1930s, and were going to replace them with the finest in early 1970s architecture (uglytecture?) makes this plan look questionable today. At the time they thought they were going to be replacing ugly old stuff with cool new stuff. But what happened is that we tore down all the buildings and then the oil bust hit, and First National Bank failed, and all the money went away before we got around to repacing much of it.

So today, instead of us having an abundance of older buildings that could either be renovated or rented out inexpensively like most cities, we have empty lots where those buildings once stood.

[Teo9969]

You could spend years reading about this and studying it. Like you, I didn't know a whole lot about our history with urban renewal until I came here. But for a short answer to some of your questions:

The I.M. Pei plan was designed to tear down a lot of older abandoned buildings and replace them wth modern structures. The fact that we tore down a bunch of cool old buildings from the turn of the century through the 1930s, and were going to replace them with the finest in early 1970s architecture (uglytecture?) makes this plan look questionable today. At the time they thought they were going to be replacing ugly old stuff with cool new stuff. But what happened is that we tore down all the buildings and then the oil bust hit, and First National Bank failed, and all the money went away before we got around to repacing much of it.

So today, instead of us having an abundance of older buildings that could either be renovated or rented out inexpensively like most cities, we have empty lots where those buildings once stood.

Did OKC undergo UR far more severely than every where else, or are there other cities that did the same thing as OKC?

[hoya]

I'm sure there are other cities who did similar things, but we were pretty severe as far as the percentage of downtown properties that we destroyed that were not later rebuilt. Basically OKC destroyed a large number of buildings and then went into a 20 year recession. It wasn't until a lot of the MAPS projects started being built around '99 or 2000 that we really started replacing much of what was lost. Several of the lost buildings just had parking lots in their place until the Devon Tower replaced them.

I'm certainly not an expert, but I'd guess that OKC had some of the worst timing of any city when it came to urban renewal.

[Anonymous.]

I'm sure there are other cities who did similar things, but we were pretty severe as far as the percentage of downtown properties that we destroyed that were not later rebuilt. Basically OKC destroyed a large number of buildings and then went into a 20 year recession. It wasn't until a lot of the MAPS projects started being built around '99 or 2000 that we really started replacing much of what was lost. Several of the lost buildings just had parking lots in their place until the Devon Tower replaced them.

I'm certainly not an expert, but I'd guess that OKC had some of the worst timing of any city when it came to urban renewal.

I would say that is a fair statement, which makes it all the more amazing that OKC is pulling this off.

[UnFrSaKn]

Double post

[UnFrSaKn]

MICHAEL WOLF PHOTOGRAPHY

Hong Kong

[Teo9969]

MICHAEL WOLF PHOTOGRAPHY

Hong Kong

How unbelievably depressing.

[HangryHippo]

My god, that's depressing.