75 years later, New Haven still reshaping the scars of ‘urban renewal’

Nemerson, who was president of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce in the 1990s, said he finds the urban renewal years interesting in that “there’s a whole alternative history.

“At a local and national level, it was engineered by Yale for the purpose of cleaning up New Haven for their campus,” he said.

Born “out of the master planning that was done by Maurice Rotival ... his plans for the early ’40s were the blueprints,” Nemerson said.

He said it was “not surprising Yale ended up being one of the leading beneficiaries in the whole country” of the results of urban renewal.

Two goals were “to build a city that could compete with the suburbs and to build a city that could compete with Harvard and MIT” and the areas around them, Nemerson said. 

About this website

NHREGISTER.COM

75 years later, New Haven still reshaping the scars of ‘urban renewal’

Editor's note: This is the 47th story in the Register's Top 50 series. NEW HAVEN - If you just moved to New Haven during the past few years, you may not think what went on during the "urban renewal" years that began in the late '40s and continued for a half century or so has anything to do with you....