Cooperative Community Solidarity Against Urban Renewal

This case study documents the initial intrusion of an urban renewal program, designated as the Neighborhood Development Program (NDP), into a black Buffalo community. The NDP program as it was initially conceived could have presented an ideal opportunity for meaningful citizen participation in the urban renewal process. In actuality, the program became another marked failure resulting in one more documented case of "black removal" in urban America. This article describes the dynamic interaction between the community representatives and urban renewal officials for a year and a half during the planning stages for the NDP program. It includes the Federal and city officials' presentations of the program to the community residents; the residents' accounts of their past experiences with urban renewal and their attitudes toward the program; and the efforts of the Project Advisory Committee (PAC), composed of neighborhood residents, to play a meaningful role in the NDP planning. Discussed in the summary and conclusion are some of the larger implications that analysis of a single social process sheds on the future socio-economic development of Afro-American communities in the United States.