MISSING: Stories of Urban Renewal in Asheville’s Historic East End and Valley Street Neighborhoods
On Exhibit: February 1st – 27th, 2020 in Ramsey Library’s Blowers Gallery
““Urban renewal” as a technical term dates back to the US Congress’s Housing Act of 1954, which granted the federal government authority to claim “blighted” properties from private owners and redevelop the land those properties occupied in the name of civic progress. Though many urban renewal projects were undertaken with the best of intentions, on the whole they resulted in the dislocation of millions from their homes and businesses, most powerfully affecting communities of color. MISSING, crafted by UNC Asheville students enrolled in Patrick Bahls’s first-year seminar on urban renewal, examines the impact of urban renewal on specific locations in the East End and Valley Street neighborhoods of Asheville, neighborhoods among several local predominantly African American neighborhoods impacted by urban renewal during the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s.” -Professor Patrick Bahls
