UNCA History major Ashley McGhee worked as an
Intern in Special Collections over the summer.
During her internship she digitized photographs from the Isaiah Rice
Collection (more about this later this semester!) and processed dozens of
boxes from the Housing Authority of the City of Asheville Records (HACA), creating
more detailed finding aids that will help researchers find materials easier. All
told, Ashley and Special Collections librarian Gene Hyde processed a total of
47 boxes of material from the HACA Records, adding folder-level details and removing restricted files, effectively opening
up sections of the HACA Records to researchers for the first time. You can see
the newly processed materials in the HACA Records finding aid – look for Parts
1-6, which include materials from the Asheville Downtown Commercial Complex files and
the East End/Valley Street Project files.
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Ashley McGhee and her Housing Authority of the City of Asheville exhibit |
Ashley also designed an exhibit based on the
HACA Records, which is on the wall outside of Special Collections on the 3rd
floor of Ramsey Library. She wrote the following essay about these newly
processed HACA Records:
Housing Authority of the City of Asheville
by Ashley McGhee, History Intern, Summer 2015
The Housing Authority of the City of Asheville
was created on June 12, 1940, stemming from President Roosevelt’s New Deal
policies of abolishing slum neighborhoods across the nation. On the national level, the Housing Act granted
unrivaled power to federal, state, and local governments in altering a
neighborhood’s social, racial, and economic make-up. When the Housing Authority was awarded
federal housing funds their work became even more focused and they began to
undertake the nationwide program of urban renewal.
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HACA Logo |
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Urban renewal began in the 1950’s as an effort
to enhance so-called “blighted” areas of cities across the country. The purpose of the program was to eliminate
slums and restore neighborhoods to former splendor through state-of-the-art
housing and amenities for residents living there. Nationwide however, urban development was
also responsible for the dismantling of thousands of communities and the
displacement of hundreds of thousands of families from their homes. In Asheville, urban development and the
creation of new public housing units brought immense changes into the
communities they touched.
A majority of the communities tagged in
Asheville for urban renewal, and indeed across the country, were predominately
African American. Initially, public
opinion was favorable towards urban renewal, due to a post-war faith in
institutions, as well as what appeared to be solid planning, but eventually
negative public opinion began gaining ground.
One of the largest detractors of urban renewal was the policy of using
“redlining” to assist with choosing neighborhoods for redevelopment. The criteria used for redlining often boiled
down to racial lines, and even more telling was the fact that almost all
communities chosen for urban renewal were African American and almost always
overlapped redlined areas.
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The Housing Authority gave this pamphlet to Asheville residents when notifying them that the city was planning on acquiring their property |
The East End and Valley Street neighborhoods had
been a vibrant part of the community since the late 1880’s. By the late 1970’s though, the Housing
Authority had tagged the neighborhood for an urban renewal project, despite the
fact that there were several active businesses and thriving centers for the
community to gather, such as the culturally significant Stephens Lee High
School. Although poor structural
conditions symbolized many of the homes in the community, there were also an
equal number of homes that could certainly not be categorized as slums or
blighted. While many in the community
initially favored urban renewal for the positive changes slated for
implementation, there were others who considered the urban renewal project as
nothing more than a program that would rupture both the individual and
community identity of the East End and Valley Street neighborhoods. Unfortunately, and in the end, instead of the
model homes and immaculately landscaped areas those in the neighborhood had
been promised, most residents were either shunted into inadequate public
housing projects or forced from the community entirely; their former homes
replaced with widened highways and office buildings.
During Asheville’s urban renewal projects, much
of the downtown area, and especially the buildings and places with historical
value, managed to remain untouched during this era of redevelopment. This would change with the creation of the
Asheville Revitalization Committee, whose plan was to “revitalize” the heart of
downtown Asheville by replacing 11 city blocks with a hotel, several major
department stores, and a sizable office complex complete with parking
garage. The committee contracted with
Strouse Greenberg & Co. out of Philadelphia on the project, with an
estimated multi-million dollar demolition bill slated for taxpayers in the form
of bonds. From this proposal came the
creation of two groups- Building for a Better Asheville- backed by Asheville’s
business elite, and Save Downtown Asheville- informally known as The Asheville
1,000 and with noted hometown warrior Wayne Caldwell at the helm. After endless campaigning on both sides, city
voters took up the battle and in a resounding two to one vote defeated the bond
proposal and effectively killing the project.
Decades later, by combining the ideals of both historic preservation and
progress in rehabilitating the downtown area, Asheville has been molded into
one of the most noted creative and cultural centers in the South.