Programs designed to clear, rebuild, and redevelop urban slums. Critics contend that although they bulldoze slums, urban renewal programs often have led to their replacement by office buildings and by apartment houses for the well-to-do.
Government-sponsored destruction of slum housing with a view to the construction of new housing.
Note: Large-scale urban renewal was engaged in during the 1960s and 1970s, after the departure of the rich and the middle class for America's suburbs had left many United States cities in decay and disrepair.
comprehensive scheme to redress a complex of urban problems, including unsanitary, deficient, or obsolete housing; inadequate transportation, sanitation, and other services and facilities; haphazard land use; traffic congestion; and the sociological correlates of urban decay, such as crime. Early efforts usually focused on housing reform and sanitary and public-health measures, followed by growing emphasis on slum clearance and the relocation of population and industry from congested areas to less-crowded sites, as in the garden-city and new-towns movements in Great Britain. Late 20th-century criticisms of urban sprawl prompted new interest in the efficiencies of urban centralization.