Talk: “Boston’s Urban Renewal Plans: Time’s Up!” A Conversation with Shirley Kressel
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Presented by
The West End Museum
Wednesday, November 4th.
7 to 8:30 pm.
@ The West End Museum.
The talk is free and open to the public. Registration is required.
n the heyday of urban renewal, the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) created a number of Urban Renewal Plans, using “blight” declarations to take control over large areas of the city’s working-class neighborhoods. Thousands of families were displaced, never to return; thousands of homes and community buildings, which would today be cherished as historic treasures, were destroyed. The most famous, and infamous, neighborhood destruction was that of the West End.
These Plans, meant to last for 40 years, are now expiring. The BRA persuaded the City Council to grant a 10-year extension in 2005. Now, the BRA is is seeking a second 10-year extension. This is an issue on which all Urban Renewal Plan Area residents should should speak out — and others as well, because what affects our neighbors affects us.
Why does the BRA want to hang on to these Plans when the law intended them to expire? What are the so-called “tools” of Urban Renewal, and for whom do they work? What will happen when the Plans end? How will the extension decision made? How should we be preparing for the ending of these Plans? And how does this issue relate to the Mayor’s forthcoming citywide Master-Plan, “Imagine Boston 2030″?
These questions and more will be discussed in this conversation.