Greetings,

I am a research scholar at the University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab. We recently completed a digital mapping project based on historical HOLC Redlining maps, titled Mapping Inequality (https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=4/36.71/-96.93&opacity=0.8). We are well underway on our next project, which will map the nearly 4,000 federally funded urban renewal projects, ca. 1949-1974. We have collected white v. non-white family displacement data, funding, and land use changes for all of the projects and are now in the process of collecting specific project maps within each renewal city. 

Because these programs were administered locally, this process is proving more difficult than we’d hoped, and we are hoping to crowd source as many maps as possible. We do not need high res images – even cell phone snaps will work – and I’ve linked to some examples of project maps that are on the web. These often appeared in grant applications, newspaper articles on the program, HUD reports, and the like. We would be incredibly grateful for any images of urban renewal project maps that you could send our way. And, of course, if you know of any repositories with multiple or many maps, that information would be incredibly helpful as well. We have a trip planned to the National Archives, but a preliminary visit indicated that the maps they have are scattered throughout a several-thousand container records set.

Examples: 

Temple Urban Renewal Project, Los Angeles, California (https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/10/c6/4e/10c64e55196fd3b31aa99d1d9e8703cb.jpg)

Detroit Urban Renewal Projects as of 1963 (https://detroitography.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/detroit-urban-renewal-plans-e1397015133573.jpg)

Brooklyn Urban Renewal Project Area, Charlotte, NC (https://charlottemayoralcollections.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/brookshire-ur2.jpg)

Many, many thanks for any assistance.

Brent Cebul, PhD

Mellon Postdoctoral Research Scholar
Digital Scholar Lab
University of Richmond
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