The Decision to Demolish provides clarity to why urban renewal was a policy utilized in Atlanta to redesign the city and what were the mechanisms city leaders employed, including slum clearance, the creation of the urban renewal and housing authority offices, and public-private partnerships, to plan and demolish sections of the Fourth Ward neighborhoods. Where Did People Go details the documented experiences and outcomes of the former residents of Buttermilk Bottom including the process, activism, and collaboration conducted to rehouse residents in Bowen Homes, the redeveloped Bedford Pines, and other locations.
Figure B-2: Entering Buttermilk Bottom – REPO History, Arts Festival of Atlanta (1995) Courtesy of Auburn Avenue Research Library, James Malone Collection
This community history offers historical context to frame the neighborhood as a cultural landscape requiring deeper study, analysis, and preservation. The conditions residents of Buttermilk Bottom and Butler Street lived in were not unique to their communities. Urban renewal was a strategy designed to redevelop urban areas and create newly-funded public housing for Black and poor White residents. The double application of two federally-funded and legislated programs, urban renewal and the Interstate highway system, facilitated the physical and economical destruction of the social fabric of Black communities across the United States. Now is an opportune time to for the City of Atlanta to fulfill promises of equitable development; to justly extend
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