1968 - Neighborhood Development Plan “was the new urban renewal. It was ‘intended to increase the participation of lower-class citizens and neighborhood groups in local government affairs.” 1968- “Not until 1968 was enough funding available by the federal government to build all of the public housing that had been authorized by the 1949 Housing Act to provide much of the replacement housing. 148 1969- funding for urban renewal projects at the federal level dried up, funding came from local city government, banks, and developers, creating Park Central Communities, Inc. 1969- Georgia Power began construction on a 24- story, $62.5M HQ 1970- Revitalization of Bedford Pines completed 1971- when Congress passed the Uniform Relocation Act, was full legal and financial protection given to displaced residents. Public and federally subsidized housing programs were first introduced in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s as part of his New Deal initiatives. Charles Palmer, a real estate developer who became the first executive director of the Atlanta Housing Authority, initially had the idea that the removal of the sight and “threat” of impoverished White families, whom he described as “working poor, prostitutes, and thieves who could not afford rent in decent housing”, would be beneficial to the city and greatly improve his daily commute into downtown. 149 Once Palmer learned about the 3 Billion dollar Public Works Administration's (PWA) grant program, a grant awarded to cities to support their building of public housing and/ or for ‘slum’ clearance, his business idea of increasing property value, transformed into a "civic obligation" according to the Atlanta Housing website. 150 Palmer in coalition with Clark Howell, senior publisher of The Atlanta Constitution ; Dr. M. L. Brittain, president of Georgia Tech; and Herbert Choate, president of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, with the support of Atlanta’s Mayor James L. Key, applied for funding from the $3 Billion grant program. Palmer and the coalition were awarded $2,375,000 in federal funding to raze the “slums” in Techwood Flats and build the first public housing project in Atlanta. 151
Simultaneously, on the westside at Atlanta University, President John Hope, in coalition with civil engineer O. I. Freeman, and architect W. J. Sayward, applied for and
148 Keating, Atlanta: Race, Class, and Urban Expansion 149 https://www.atlantahousing.org/about-us/ah-history/ 150 “Atlanta Housing History,” Atlanta Housing, last modified August 10, 2021, https://www.atlantahousing.org/about-us/ah-history/ 151 “Atlanta Housing History,” Atlanta Housing, last modified August 10, 2021, https://www.atlantahousing.org/about-us/ah-history/
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