Deborah,

Thank you. (And it consider yourself lucky that you didn't get to listen to my presentation-I was new to the projector's remote control, which threw my timing and comments WAY off.)

@Angela Ford: Thank you so much for this information! Wendy Fulilove is new to me, and I will definitely check her book out.

@Grace Harris: Agreed, definitely.I also believe the aggregate of the changes (too often harms) is seldom considered in 'renewal'/gentrification and similar decision-making. There's a haunting photo of a tribal elder just crying his eyes out as a smiling Dwight Eisenhower (I think) signs a bill creating a damn on (former) tribal land. I can't imagine what that massive loss must have felt/been like.

@Elizabeth G. Vermilyea: Yes, it is difficult to have the words--and the space--for this, yet it is (as you note) horrible and traumatizing. In fact, I think the lack of language to signify the harm makes it that much more challenging to recognize.

Thanks, to all of you, for your comments; I value them greatly.

Angela

Thanks for sharing.  Wendy Fullilove (Columbia University) has done extensive work in this area while I was at University of Pitt.  We brought her in to work with community groups in Pittsburgh, PA. about 20 years ago - she is still very much involved.  Check out her book:  

Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, and What We Can Do About It

They called it progress. But for the people whose homes and districts were bulldozed, the urban renewal projects that swept America starting in 1949 were nothing short of assault. Vibrant city blocks—places rich in history—were reduced to garbage-strewn vacant lots. When a neighborhood is destroyed its inhabitants suffer “root shock”: a traumatic stress reaction related to the destruction of one’s emotional ecosystem. The ripple effects of root shock have an impact on entire communities that can last for decades. 

Thanks for sharing - our media rarely talks about who is displaced when redevelopment occurs and no one thinks to find out what happened to those people who had a neighborhood.  Sometimes we easily fall into giving words about out values without actually using the same values when we make broad decisions.

Angela, What a poignant and important issue. I saw that kind of thing happening when I lived in Baltimore, but we had no words for it - erasure is perfect, and horrible.