This new collaboration with Professor Fan Zhang at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, as part of Cornell Global Hubs, aims to uncover urban renewal areas in the United States during the mid-20th century.

There is sparse research that systematically investigates Urban Renewal programs at a national level in the United States. A crucial reason is the lack of detailed, neighborhood-level data on the sites of urban renewal. Using a combination of archival records from the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA) and the Urban Renewal Administration (URA), partially digitized maps records from the Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL), and aerial imagery from Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC), this demonstration project will begin to create a national dataset of urban renewal sites and estimate the impact of urban renewal on the socioeconomic, racial, and housing outcomes on neighborhoods around the area.