This report from HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research gives the results of a study designed to explore state regulatory and economic initiatives to redevelop previously used sites, particularly brownfields or contaminated sites. The study, which was just placed online last week, is focused on how such state initiatives encourage the economic revitalization of depressed neighborhoods....

Urban renewal in its various guises swept through many American cities beginning in the early 1950s, and there are many who have not forgotten these experiences. Jordan Mechner, a filmmaker, has brought together the experiences of those who lived through the demolition of the Chavez Ravine community in Los Angeles for the Independent Lens series on PBS. The story of Chavez Ravine is quite complex...

Business improvement districts (BIDs) are a tool used by concerned members of the business community and politicians to enhance a commercial retail area's economic fortunes. As it turns out, they may also improve the social environment of their neighborhoods as well. Published in 2009, this study commissioned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was completed by the RAND Corporation....

Renewing Inequality is a project from the University of Richmond's Digital Scholarship Lab that provides information and data visualizations about urban renewal projects that took place in U.S. cities between 1950 and 1966. These visualizations are based on data from the Urban Renewal Project Quarterly (a federal government publication) and from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development...

American cities have undergone a robust period of renaissance and rejuvenation as of late, but not all cities have been able to partake in this process. This vexing topic is the subject of a May 2007 report authored by Jennifer S. Vey for The Brookings Institution. This particular 84-page report is primarily concerned with examining older industrial cities in the Northeast and the Midwest, and the...