| 1855 |
|
First "model tenement"
built in Manhattan. |
| 1862 |
|
Homestead Act opened
the lands of the Public Domain to settlers for a nominal fee and five years
residence. |
| 1864 |
|
New York Council of Hygiene of the
Citizens Association mounts a campaign to raise housing and sanitary standards. |
| 1877 |
|
Alfred T. White, New York philanthropist, completes
his "Home Buildings" for poor immigrants. With their fireproof
construction, private toilets, and balconies, they are considered the most
advanced tenements of their age. White's example inaugurates a model tenement
movement. |
| 1879 |
|
Debut of the "Dumbbell Tenement,"
so called because of its shape. A form of multifamily housing widely built
in New York until the end of the century and notorious for the poor living
conditions it imposed on its denizens (lack of light, air, space). |
| 1890 |
|
How the Other Half Lives,
by Jacob Riis, is published; a powerful stimulus to housing and neighborhood
reform. |
| 1901 |
|
New York State Tenement House Law.
The legislative basis for the revision of city codes that outlawed tenements
such as the "Dumbbell Tenement." Lawrence Veiller was the leading
reformer. |
| 1907 |
|
Founding of New York Committee on
the Congestion of Population. Fostered movement, led by its secretary, Benjamin
Marsh, to decentralize New York's dense population. |
| 1909 |
|
The First National Conference on City Planning
convenes in Washington, D.C., and brings together the leaders of the housing
and city planning movements. |
| 1916 |
|
Nation's first comprehensive zoning
resolution adopted by New York City Board of Estimates under the leadership
of George McAneny and Edward Bassett, known as the "Father of Zoning." |
| 1918 |
|
U.S. Housing Corporation and Emergency
Fleet Corporation influenced later endeavors in public housing. Operated
at major shipping centers to provide housing for World War I workers. |
| 1932 |
|
Federal Home Loan Bank System established
to shore up shaky home financing institutions. |
| 1933 |
|
Home Owners Loan Corporation established
to save homeowners facing loss through foreclosure. |
| 1934 |
|
National Housing Act. Established
FSLIC for insuring savings deposits and the FHA for insuring individual
home mortgages. |
| 1937 |
|
U.S. Housing Act (Wagner-Steagall).
Set the stage for future government aid by appropriating $500 million in
loans for low-cost housing. Tied slum clearance to public housing. |
| 1939 |
|
Homer Hoyt's influential "sector
theory" of urban structure appears in his monograph, The Structure
and Growth of Residential Neighborhoods in American Cities. |
| 1944 |
|
Serviceman's Readjustment Act ("G.I.
Bill") guaranteed loans for homes to veterans under favorable terms
thereby accelerating the growth of suburbs. |
| 1947 |
|
Housing and Home Financing Agency
(predecessor of HUD) created to coordinate federal government's various
housing programs. |
| 1949 |
|
Housing Act (Wagner-Ellender-Taft
Bill). First U.S. comprehensive housing legislation. Aimed to construct
about 800,000 units. Inaugurated urban redevelopment program. |
| 1954 |
|
Housing
Act of 1954. Stressed slum prevention and urban renewal rather than
slum clearance and urban redevelopment as in the 1949 act. Also stimulated
general planning for cities under 25,000 population by providing funds under
Section 701 of the act. "701 funding" later extended by legislative
amendments to foster statewide, interstate, and substate regional planning. |
| 1964 |
|
The Federal Bulldozer by
Martin Anderson indicts then-current urban renewal program as counterproductive
to its professed aims of increased low- and middle-income housing supply.
With Herbert Gans's The Urban Villagers (1962), a study of the consequences
for community life in a Boston West End Italian-American community, contributes
to a change in urban policy. |
| 1965 |
|
Housing and urban policy achieve
cabinet status when the Housing and Home Finance Agency is succeeded by
the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Robert
Weaver becomes HUD's first Secretary and nation's first African-American
cabinet member. |
| 1966 |
|
The Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan
Development Act launched the "model cities" program, an interdisciplinary
attack on urban blight and poverty. A centerpiece of President Lyndon Johnson's
"Great Society" program. |
| 1970 |
|
The Miami Valley (Ohio) Regional
Planning Commission Housing Plan is adopted, the first such plan in the
nation to allocate low- and moderate-income housing on a "fair share"
basis. |
| 1972 |
|
Demolition of St. Louis's notorious
Pruitt-Igoe Project symbolizes a nationwide move away from massive, isolating,
high-rise structures to a more humane form of public housing architecture:
low-rise, less isolated, dispersed. |
| 1974 |
|
The Housing and Community Development Act reshapes
housing policy by replacing the customary categorical grant with the block
grant as the principal form of federal aid for local community development,
and by creating a rental assistance program for low- and middle-income
families. |
| 1983 |
|
In a case focusing on Mt. Laurel,
New Jersey, the New Jersey Supreme Court rules that all 567 municipalities
in the state must build their "fair share" of affordable housing.
A precedent-setting blow against racial segregation. |
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