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Norfolk and Portsmouth UR
Southern-Fried Urban Renewal?
Comparing Atlanta to Philadelphia and Boston, I at least, think the “plot” is different. Northern urban renewal is not telling the same story Atlanta presents. This is interesting, because of all the southern cities Atlanta is commonly felt to be the least southern, being instead, if anything, the capital of the New South. Yet even in Atlanta, urban renewal seems to occupy a somewhat different function and legacy than the northern Big City experience. Two differences, one obvious, the other more subtle spring to my mind: time underscores both.
At the end of our observation (late sixties) the cities are in different spots in history. Philadelphia and Boston are considerably older, and the weight of the historical industrial city seems overwhelming. They are battling population decline and, paradoxically, Great Migration inflow. They are in process of changing their demography, culture and politics. In a few short years, by the middle seventies, they will be perceived an in almost hopeless decline, having been torn asunder by riots and intensified suburbanization—as well as implosion of the economic base. That is obviously not the “feel” or the legacy of Atlanta—as we end by asserting the CBD (and suburban) commercial boom continues for a generation, never mind decade. The rise of the Sunbelt, of course, lay ahead, the collapse of the Rustbelt also. The Age of Urban Renewal occurred in the transition era to regional change. But more precisely, the Big Cities and their relevant Policy World carved out public housing, slum clearance, blight and urban renewal for their own purposes and needs; cities not in the same historical “place” used it for their own purposes and needs. Urban renewal may (or may not) have looked much the same in operation, but the ends toward which it was employed varied by region.
An oft-times criticism of urban renewal my reading has uncovered, is that urban renewal is dismissed as a mere “city beautiful” initiative. That critique is seldom levied against northern Big Cities, but used against western and southern cities. In my mind, the city beautiful metaphor is reasonably valid for many cities in these latter regions. In the Age of Urban Renewal western and southern cities are constructing a CBD for their version of a modern city. Most of these cities are for the first time achieving sufficient scale to justify their inclusion into Big City rank. Perhaps as this and the next two chapters suggest, this version of a modern CBD rests more comfortably on a polycentric metropolitan area than its Big City northern counterparts, struggling to use urban renewal to retain primacy, achieved.
The second time difference is, I suspect, without realizing it, is that we have lost the better part of a decade or more between Pittsburgh, Newark or Philadelphia, even Baltimore in our discussion of Atlanta’s urban renewal. Northern Big Cities leaped, mostly unsuccessfully, to take advantage of the 1949 Housing Act. Atlanta doesn’t enter into that picture into the middle 1960’s under the Allen administration. This will prove common in the South and West. Despite approving enabling legislation early on, many southern and western cities did little (for a variety of reasons) in developing programs and projects until the later fifties and early sixties.
Early and middle sixties urban renewal is not identical to 1954 urban renewal—the latter is still infused with its housing and neighborhood slum removal heritage and is almost experimental in its application. Atlanta is using urban renewal during the Great Society-Model Cities years. The urban renewal of Atlanta may have demolished a slum neighborhood, but, rightfully or wrongly, it built institutions associated with the CBD in its place. Even in a southern city with a major public housing heritage, urban renewal proponents consciously set that heritage aside in favor of a pure CBD development strategy. It took the 1974 Community Development Block Grant for that to happen in the northern Big Cities.
A third regional difference is the more open and obvious role large corporation elites played not only in leading urban renewal, but actual governance of the city. In that many link large corporate elites with Privatist (and worse, dare we say Neo-Liberal) beliefs and motivations, the sincere Progressive tendencies of Atlanta’s business elites can be off-putting. That is certainly reflective of the Atlanta political culture and it will be placed in sharp contrast to equivalent large corporation elites in Dallas and Houston. But in each of these cities, the large corporation elites openly governed, and dominated our economic development policy agenda and structures. There are few veneers or veils hiding corporate influence in these policy systems—the redevelopment agency is more an instrument than the critical link between private and public elites that it is in the North. What is not obvious is that future chapters will describe how this corporate elite-led system will soon collapse and be turned on its head—and CBD growth will largely, but noisily continue.
These and other differences will be considered as we present more snapshots of urban renewal in other southern cities—and in later chapters western cities as well. In this spirit, this chapter will in the next section examine other important examples of urban renewal in southern cities.
Norfolk
Norfolk is Virginia’s second city. Norfolk presents an opportunity to discuss a fairly different Age of Urban Renewal experience than Atlanta[1]. Norfolk was especially impacted by the war. The role of the federal government in the war years was not typical of most cities in this era. Its political system, a machine contested by business reformers, shares eastern Big City dynamics. Situated in a different Tidewater political culture than Atlanta, the path of housing/urban renewal policy still played out similarly —but for different reasons. Also, unlike Atlanta, the city’s relationship with its neighboring cities and suburbs was quite different and produced rather dramatic consequences.
Local Politics and Urban Renewal
When we begin this case study in 1930, Norfolk’s metro area population exceeded 262,000 and the city’s population nearly 130,000 (62nd nationally). In a region of small cities (Miami, for example is 110,000) Norfolk was typical. Norfolk is not typical, however, in that it possessed an established naval base that grew exponentially during the war. By 1940 civilian population doubled to 259,000, by 1942 to 323,000 and 365,000 in 1944. Add another 128,000 military and this population explosion was a tsunami, flooding every nook and cranny in the area—and impacting severely the lifestyle (and mores) of its residents. Soldiers and sailors going off to war inflated prices, fostered rampant prostitution and gambling, trailer cities, and incredibly cramped housing. The place was a “delight”, and the residents and political leaders were not happy[2].
Politically, the city, and the city council, was controlled by Virginia’s Byrd machine local czar, the Clerk of Courts. When the population onslaught became overwhelming in 1944, the city manager simply left town. The Navy Department in Washington and the military base leadership became the most important administrative force in the area—the shore patrol, for example, was the only force that could control the sailors. The city’s business community could not be described as dominated by “large corporation elites”, even compared to places like Richmond, and was composed of local and regional business leaders and professionals.
Aside from public safety and morals, the most crushing problem was housing this mass of people. Remembering the crippling recession that followed the end of First World War, the city council wanted nothing to do with building housing that would become vacant and have to be destroyed at war’s end crushing tax revenues in the process. In no way did they see that significant population growth would result after this world war. The dominant political culture stressed fiscal prudence and limited government. At a time when Big Cities in the north were pleading for monies to construct housing and remove slums, the city council of Norfolk wanted nothing to do with slum removal or housing construction. The result was a five year battle between the local political leadership and the Navy Department over housing construction. Congress and the President got involved. The Navy Department in desperation sent our old friend, Robert Moses, down to do a study (1942) and a Congressional subcommittee commenced a series of hearings (1943) to add its two cents worth. The solution finally required the Navy to build huge amounts of on-base housing, the construction of 10,000 units by the federal Public Housing Department, and a further 11,000 units privately-built. The city during these four years built less than 800 units—some of which were immediately torn down at war’s end.
Having fought tooth and nail to do as little housing development as possible, one might have thought the city had been absent from the public housing debate described in earlier chapters. That, however, would be wrong. Actually, the passage of the 1934 Housing Act inspired local business Progressives to advocate for slum removal and public housing. The city manager formed a committee “to make a study of the slum districts of Norfolk with the hope of obtaining federal funds to eliminate them”[3]. A 1937 public conference/workshop followed from the committee’s report—which apparently inspired the state of Virginia to approve its enabling low permitting localities to establish a local housing authority and participate in the federal program (1938). After a Richmond state-wide workshop held in January 1940 by the League of Virginia Municipalities, the Norfolk city council swept up with enthusiasm to demolish slums and build public housing approved the creation of the Norfolk Housing Authority in July of that year.
The behind the scenes story about these public housing/slum removal shenanigans was that they were driven by business social reformers (like Palmer in Atlanta) who got the city council to appoint a “Committee on Slums” to deal with perceived crime. They persisted in their efforts for the next three years when they capitalized on the Richmond-generated momentum to establish the housing authority. Then, with the war, the defense housing brouhaha commenced and the housing authority was put to work to build three “projects” in response to all federal, media and military pressures.
The reaction of the machine and its unwillingness to step to the plate and confront the war-related problem that beset and despoiled the city generated intense shame and demand for reform within Norfolk’s business community. By war’s end that business community, calling itself the “People’s Ticket” had coalesced behind leadership (mostly the same individuals who led the 1935-1940 resistance), and were now determined to throw the bums out. In June 1946, they swept into office, carrying all but African-American precincts controlled by the machine[4]. The business constituency which had led the slum removal/public housing/housing authority creation controlled the city council.
Their first impulse was to remove machine influence by modernizing and professionalizing the city’s bureaucracy. Creating a Personnel Department, a Planning Department, various other departments and conducting a national search for a new professional city manager brought in reforms common to most for nearly thirty years or more. Include in these reforms was the creation of the Newport Port Authority that was meant to be their economic development agency. They took advantage following the 1949 Housing Act of Virginia’s enabling law to expand the Housing Authority scope, renaming it the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority (NRHA). Immediately, that body designed, approved and submitted to the federal Public Housing Department an application for 3428 units of public housing, appropriate slum clearance of 190 acres north of the CBD. The NRHA believe their application was the first funded from the 1949 Housing Act.
And that was that! Following motivations my research has not uncovered, the People’s Ticket struck a deal (1950) with the Byrd Machine, put aside their GOTV (get out the vote) capacity, and in return for machine support of CBD redevelopment, they shared the city council with machine politicians. In subsequent elections, a “Harmony Ticket” controlled the city council and city politics. The professional city manager resigned in 1952 and the mayor, Fred Duckworth became the dominant voice in city government. Duckworth lived up to the deal; over the next fifteen years, the city pursued a vigorous urban renewal program, using federal funds. “In the back of [Duckworth’s] mind was a vision of metropolitan Norfolk as a major financial center able to compete equally with other South Atlantic cities … he continued to implement the development strategy [which included] new housing, new business investment, a new airport, a four-year college, new highways, new tunnels–All promised to supplant sour wartime memories with the shining steel and solid concrete of new Norfolk”.[5]
Norfolk departed from Atlanta in several ways. The time lag, the decade lost did not happen for Norfolk. The political support underlying the CBD revitalization/urban renewal was both different and comparable—the driving force for urban renewal was the business community (not, however, the large corporate elites of Atlanta. The motivation, however, for urban renewal was roughly similar. They were not combating decentralization, but were building for the first time a modern CBD and competing for success in their relevant urban hierarchy. Despite their first auspicious Housing Act application, housing in the post-1950 period received little to no attention. Just as happened in Atlanta. But, then, the similarity again breaks down.
School desegregation intruded and Norfolk followed the direction of the Byrd machine and bitterly contested court orders, in effect, they closed down the school system for part of a year (1959). The city council supported and participated actively in the resistance. Edward R. Murrow and CBS vividly reported on Norfolk’s belligerence. The Progressive business community came back to life. Taking an ad in the main newspaper, “one hundred leading business and professional men” opposed the city’s position and urged compromise to keep the schools open—and desegregated. The schools opened a week later, desegregated.
In local historiography the Committee of 100 is giving major credit for resolving the school crisis and pointing Norfolk back towards its primary goal of economic development. Certainly the men who recruited the signers of the advertisement represented the Norfolk establishment … director of the National Bank of Commerce … general counsel for the daily papers … chairman of the Redevelopment and Housing Authority … publisher of the two major papers [and VP of radio and TV stations] … Lewis Powell [future U.S. Supreme Court Justice] … [and President] of the Norfolk and Western Railroad…. The average [signer], however, was a man of means and position but not of extraordinary wealth … Most of the businesses represented on the Committee of 100 shared a chamber of commerce orientation toward Norfolk markets and the health of Norfolk real estate.[6]
The “Committee of 100” as they came to be called took over the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority and recommitted the agency to CBD-based urban renewal. Enjoying some success electorally in the 1959 elections, however, the Byrd machine renegotiated a 1961 equivalent to the Harmony Ticket and maintained its control over the council. Again, the core of the deal was Norfolk urban redevelopment.
Between 1955 and 1958 (before school desegregation) the two renewal projects removed (1) a bi-racial working class neighborhood of six hundred families, installing highway access to the CBD, and (2) the wartime sailor’s downtown red-light district. Following the notorious school segregation episode, subsequent urban renewal initiatives cleared area for privately-financed banking and high-rise office buildings and company headquarters, as well as new municipal buildings, a library, some public housing, some luxury apartment buildings, medical buildings with associated hospital expansion, and a downtown “shopping center”—the traditional mix of what an updated CBD should include.
During these years, Abbott observed, “the urban renewal program enjoyed almost complete support as a symbol of a city on the make”. Worth note is that the very same individuals who pushed for the formation of the 1940 Housing Authority remained in-charge of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority in the 1960’s. Also noteworthy is that Mayor Duckworth, a unanimous city council, and regional newspapers stood behind the program. Whatever the critique concerning the quality, competence, functionality, and esthetic qualities of what was built, with few exceptions, the program was not controversial, indeed, was well-received in Norfolk. In the early sixties, NRHA activated an image program, urging outsiders to create a “vision in Virginia”. The image initiative was meant partly to counteract negative school desegregation publicity (and older sailor’s memories), but also to demonstrate to the world that Norfolk had made it. NRHA’s programs won awards from ULI, National Municipal League, and NAHRO. In the later sixties, NRHA reversed policy and built new middle-class housing downtown, demolishing an African-American neighborhood, to support downtown retail.[7] NRHA’s return to a housing-biased program, however, presents us an opportunity to link the Norfolk policy system to goings-on in its metropolitan hinterland.
Hinterland, Hierarchy and Housing: Using non-Economic Development Policy Areas
Comparing regional variation during the Age of Urban Renewal provides the opportunity to glimpse at a much larger picture of a transition period in our urban history, and the emergence of a cutting-edge “new” policy area: economic development. Something is going on in Norfolk that in varying degrees, dates, and effects is going on across the nation. Decentralization, a population movement, with enormous city-building implications, was slowly taking precedence from the Great Migration as the cutting-edge of change and the disruptor of the urban hierarchy.
Certainly, the first two decades of the Age are shaped more by the reality of the Great Migration (and the threat of significant decentralization), but the last two decades are more affected by the reality of decentralization (and the consequences of the Great Migration). The vast blurred, almost amorphous, transition is most pronounced in the fifties and sixties on which this chapter principally focuses. In these years, the institutions and political coalitions essential to an understanding of the future are laying their foundations throughout the entire metropolitan area. The policies and strategies that will follow, as with the institutions, jurisdictions, and the relationships between them all, will be developed—with political culture serving as a filter-prism to create variation, diversity—and commonality–across the nation. The goings-on within the Norfolk-Portsmouth metro area show us how some geographies resolved these dynamics and offer us clues as to why others are reacting in different ways.
Having opened this section with a cloud-level discussion, let’s go back to ground-level. Norfolk certainly intended that rebuilding its CBD would make its mark on the New South, but they did not lose sight for an instant their real competition lay primarily within the metropolitan area. Urban renewal programs were also intended to establish their CBD as the foremost commercial/finance geography of their hinterland against the “growing challenge of suburban areas”.[8] Norfolk city managers had consistently pursued an aggressive annexation strategy since 1946—the city planning staff was built around its support of annexation. National consultants were brought in (1948) and they recommended annexation of areas in the two counties Norfolk “bordered”. Tax base, land for industry, and population chasing were the prime motivations. Sizeable annexations occurred in 1949 and 1955. The city was in-process of final approval and implementation of another sizeable annexation in the early sixties.
Norfolk’s metropolitan neighbors were prepared to defend themselves. A bit of Virginia municipal law background, however, is necessary to understand what will follow. Tidewater municipal law, reflecting its plantation history, fostered little municipal incorporation and endowed any incorporated municipality with the jurisdictional powers it demarcated for counties. In effect, although for a limited land area, municipal incorporation created a quasi-city-county consolidation. Norfolk County had fought tooth and nail Norfolk City’s past annexations (and successfully pared them back by Supreme Court rulings). Princess Anne County (an influential element of the Byrd machine) also successfully fought past Norfolk annexation attempts. By 1961, something called “suburban autonomy”[9] was about to knock Norfolk knuckles and offer us new opportunities to look inside the Age of Urban Renewal.
The two counties marched on Richmond and secured permissive state legislation to incorporate two city-county municipal incorporations which completely surrounded Norfolk with now-incorporated boundaries. Further, in January 1962 retiree/non-Virginia-born, residents voted four to one to incorporate a new city of Virginia Beach. Six weeks later, Norfolk County residents incorporated a new city, Chesapeake. Within the space of a year, both Norfolk and her competing regional rival, Portsmouth, were totally contained by incorporated municipalities. Effectively, what had been two counties were now four municipalities. And talk about angry campers. A stick-it-in-your-eye politics and competition started from day one. In 1974 a final municipal consolidation formed a new city of Suffolk from neighboring Suffolk County and now the metro area had its own five-ring circus to watch. Apparently, Sunbelt annexation might not be all that it is cracked up to be. In any case, Virginia Beach today (2010) is approaching twice the size of Norfolk, which is larger than Richmond. Times change. It is no longer self-evident which is suburban and which is central city?
The politics of resentment, past baggage, and bitter memories settled in among the metropolitan contenders. Each developed their own political leadership dedicated to its growth and defense against its long-standing municipal enemies. The pillar of that municipal independence was successful population growth and a viable economy—twin goals of their economic development policy-system. From this incredible municipal jungle, economic development emerged as a first-order municipal policy priority in their overall policy system. A competing municipality metropolitan hierarchy had provided the justification for a battle of all, against all—in a landscape where no city was certain if it was striving for suburban autonomy or central city primacy. In this atmosphere, metropolitan planning by the Southeastern Virginia Planning District Commission settled into a brokerage, facilitator, and peacemaker function, “a sort of League of Nations”, where “almost every issue of regional policy [during the sixties/seventies] has been approached in the spirit of mutual jealousy” [10]. Even the Norfolk regional airport was threatened with the construction of a rival suburban airport.
Norfolk and Portsmouth, already well-along in their CBD revival swung their economic development efforts toward cementing that revitalization with upscale CBD-adjacent apartment and housing—particularly in their waterfront areas (the 1970’s). Portsmouth engaged in extended negotiations to lure a new oil refinery into its last large parcel of vacant land. That city also attempted to convert some marginal acreage into an industrial park. The suburban cities, on the other hand invested heavily in their infrastructure and schools, supporting a core bed-room strategy. Chesapeake, which had some resident industry at that point, diversified by attraction strategy to recruit light industry, retail and office. Virginia Beach, the resort city, was strongly influenced by its real estate sector, rezoned much former agricultural land for subdivisions, but also set up industrial parks, constructed a convention center (competing with Norfolk), and began planning on a port/marina development.
At this point, it is useful to return to the clouds. Our case study captured the separation of economic development from housing; by the time the cities of the Norfolk-Portsmouth metro are contesting each other for independence or supremacy, economic development is its own policy area. The 1949 Housing Act, certainly the 1954 Act, permitted communities to use federal funds to physically redevelop their cities and regardless of the region. That probably was the literal time of policy separation. From that point on the focus turned away from housing and neighborhoods, to CBD redevelopment. CBD redevelopment, however, was never an end in itself; CBD development both was an intermediate strategy and a symbol for some sort of central city primacy/stabilization over its hinterland. In the South, CBD upgrading was also intended to increase Norfolk’s position in its “New South” urban hierarchy. As a symbol, the CBD stood proxy for the jurisdiction, and constituted the visible symbol of the metro area. If there was a benchmark that indicated success, it seems to have been population growth, or stability. In any case, it is evident that economic development had become a first-order, high priority policy area in their urban policy system. Other policy areas, such as housing and schools, were tapped as elements in the economic development strategy.
This brings us to a final thought. Many policy areas compete in a community’s policy system. Housing had assumed for a time, the status of a high priority policy area in the first decades of the Age of Urban Renewal. Indeed, the original intent was to use neighborhood slum removal and public housing to counter decentralization. The infusion of an economic development purpose into housing policy, however, yielded little but controversy at the local level. So, slum removal and housing by the sixties had lost appeal, and visibly slipped in the hierarchy of urban policy areas. Certainly, it is reasonable to observe from this example that different policy areas can fluctuate in priority over time as well as compete among themselves for attention and resources. It seems equally reasonable to observe that high priority-status policy areas are able to use other policy areas to accomplish their purposes. By the end of the Age of Urban Renewal, it would appear that in the Norfolk-Portsmouth cases, waterfront affluent housing construction was an important element in their economic development strategy. K-12 school systems, higher education and even hospital and health care could be subsumed as an element in a larger economic development strategy.
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[1] At the outset I acknowledge that discussion in the case study was taken from a series of observations included throughout Carl Abbott’s, The New Urban America: Growth and Politics in Sunbelt Cities (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1981). I have integrated his comments and conceptual observations into our conceptual framework and accordingly have attached meaning not presented in Abbott’s chapters. The fit between the two frameworks, I believe, is quite close and they do not seem at counter-purposes.
[2] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., pp. 104-105. Magazines described Norfolk as “America’s worst war town” and, being fairly close to Washington, the goings on captured a great deal of attention in the nation’s capital.
[3] “History of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority”, www.nrha.us/about/history
[4] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., pp. 127-128.
[5] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., p. 129.
[6] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., pp. 130-131.
[7] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., p. 129.
[8] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., pp. 144-145.
[9] Oliver Williams, “Life Styles, Values and Political Decentralization in Metropolitan Areas”, Social Science Quarterly, 48, December, 1967, pp. 299-317. Suburban incorporation, suburban counties, and service districts each were organizational devices to preserve suburban residents control over their homes and surrounding areas. In most instances, it is reasonable this means low-density, spread-out physical landscapes. This is normally associated with economic class, sometimes ethnic, usually racial segregation. The school system (a service district in structure) is the third rail of this strategy of suburban autonomy. The success of suburban areas across the nation in achieving a considerable degree of suburban autonomy (from the central city and/or metropolitan planning) was, and still is, a significant theme in urban geography, planning, economics, and politics.
[10] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., p.206.
Policy system cut
Norfolk and Portsmouth Virginia (See detailed discussion in Chapter 12) degenerated into the “vortex” of these boom town issues—certainly for the East Coast. The explosion of naval and air facilities in these two cities generated a housing crisis, which for various reasons, the jurisdiction refused to confront. Scandals and people suffering, many soldier’s/sailor’s families were a constant reminder that all was not going well. This did not escape notice of the Policy World folk and the federal government, especially the military departments whose members and units were those most under duress. The Navy hired our favorite “planner” Robert Moses, who did a quick, nasty and dirty secret report of the Norfolk situation, a report which in usual fashion was quickly leaked to the press. The reaction included Congressional hearings and increased demands for a national response to the housing crisis[1]. In short order, the federal government would be on the local housing and planning scene offering its traditional gift of “help”. If dealing with rapid growth was not overwhelming in itself to local jurisdictions, by 1942-1943 the local housing crisis had escalated into a national crisis and the federal government was fast emerging as an important, in some cases vital, player in sub-state economic development.
[1] This also included the “President’s Committee on Congested Production Areas (1943) which, abandoning comprehensive planning, swooped down on eighteen identified cities to expedite federal aid for immediate housing, transportation and child care. Professional debate reflected Robert Moses’s strong conviction that public works (urban renewal) not comprehensive planning was the way to go. A 1944-45 Senate/House Special Committee reinforced the Moses approach by delinking capital budgeting from comprehensive planning and blocked both increases in planning dollars for public works and blocked any consideration of a national urban redevelopment program. This topic was touched on in the previous chapter.
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Policy Cut
Norfolk
Norfolk is Virginia’s second city. Norfolk presents an opportunity to discuss a fairly different Age of Urban Renewal experience than Atlanta[1]. Norfolk was especially impacted by the war. The role of the federal government in the war years was not typical of most cities in this era. Its political system, a machine contested by business reformers, shares eastern Big City dynamics. Situated in a different Tidewater political culture than Atlanta, the path of housing/urban renewal policy still played out similarly —but for different reasons. Also, unlike Atlanta, the city’s relationship with its neighboring cities and suburbs was quite different and produced rather dramatic consequences.
Local Politics and Urban Renewal
When we begin this case study in 1930, Norfolk’s metro area population exceeded 262,000 and the city’s population nearly 130,000 (62nd nationally). In a region of small cities (Miami, for example is 110,000) Norfolk was typical. Norfolk is not typical, however, in that it possessed an established naval base that grew exponentially during the war. By 1940 civilian population doubled to 259,000, by 1942 to 323,000 and 365,000 in 1944. Add another 128,000 military and this population explosion was a tsunami, flooding every nook and cranny in the area—and impacting severely the lifestyle (and mores) of its residents. Soldiers and sailors going off to war inflated prices, fostered rampant prostitution and gambling, trailer cities, and incredibly cramped housing. The place was a “delight”, and the residents and political leaders were not happy[2].
Politically, the city, and the city council, was controlled by Virginia’s Byrd machine local czar, the Clerk of Courts. When the population onslaught became overwhelming in 1944, the city manager simply left town. The Navy Department in Washington and the military base leadership became the most important administrative force in the area—the shore patrol, for example, was the only force that could control the sailors. The city’s business community could not be described as dominated by “large corporation elites”, even compared to places like Richmond, and was composed of local and regional business leaders and professionals.
Aside from public safety and morals, the most crushing problem was housing this mass of people. Remembering the crippling recession that followed the end of First World War, the city council wanted nothing to do with building housing that would become vacant and have to be destroyed at war’s end crushing tax revenues in the process. In no way did they see that significant population growth would result after this world war. The dominant political culture stressed fiscal prudence and limited government. At a time when Big Cities in the north were pleading for monies to construct housing and remove slums, the city council of Norfolk wanted nothing to do with slum removal or housing construction. The result was a five year battle between the local political leadership and the Navy Department over housing construction. Congress and the President got involved. The Navy Department in desperation sent our old friend, Robert Moses, down to do a study (1942) and a Congressional subcommittee commenced a series of hearings (1943) to add its two cents worth. The solution finally required the Navy to build huge amounts of on-base housing, the construction of 10,000 units by the federal Public Housing Department, and a further 11,000 units privately-built. The city during these four years built less than 800 units—some of which were immediately torn down at war’s end.
Having fought tooth and nail to do as little housing development as possible, one might have thought the city had been absent from the public housing debate described in earlier chapters. That, however, would be wrong. Actually, the passage of the 1934 Housing Act inspired local business Progressives to advocate for slum removal and public housing. The city manager formed a committee “to make a study of the slum districts of Norfolk with the hope of obtaining federal funds to eliminate them”[3]. A 1937 public conference/workshop followed from the committee’s report—which apparently inspired the state of Virginia to approve its enabling low permitting localities to establish a local housing authority and participate in the federal program (1938). After a Richmond state-wide workshop held in January 1940 by the League of Virginia Municipalities, the Norfolk city council swept up with enthusiasm to demolish slums and build public housing approved the creation of the Norfolk Housing Authority in July of that year.
The behind the scenes story about these public housing/slum removal shenanigans was that they were driven by business social reformers (like Palmer in Atlanta) who got the city council to appoint a “Committee on Slums” to deal with perceived crime. They persisted in their efforts for the next three years when they capitalized on the Richmond-generated momentum to establish the housing authority. Then, with the war, the defense housing brouhaha commenced and the housing authority was put to work to build three “projects” in response to all federal, media and military pressures.
The reaction of the machine and its unwillingness to step to the plate and confront the war-related problem that beset and despoiled the city generated intense shame and demand for reform within Norfolk’s business community. By war’s end that business community, calling itself the “People’s Ticket” had coalesced behind leadership (mostly the same individuals who led the 1935-1940 resistance), and were now determined to throw the bums out. In June 1946, they swept into office, carrying all but African-American precincts controlled by the machine[4]. The business constituency which had led the slum removal/public housing/housing authority creation controlled the city council.
Their first impulse was to remove machine influence by modernizing and professionalizing the city’s bureaucracy. Creating a Personnel Department, a Planning Department, various other departments and conducting a national search for a new professional city manager brought in reforms common to most for nearly thirty years or more. Include in these reforms was the creation of the Newport Port Authority that was meant to be their economic development agency. They took advantage following the 1949 Housing Act of Virginia’s enabling law to expand the Housing Authority scope, renaming it the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority (NRHA). Immediately, that body designed, approved and submitted to the federal Public Housing Department an application for 3428 units of public housing, appropriate slum clearance of 190 acres north of the CBD. The NRHA believe their application was the first funded from the 1949 Housing Act.
And that was that! Following motivations my research has not uncovered, the People’s Ticket struck a deal (1950) with the Byrd Machine, put aside their GOTV (get out the vote) capacity, and in return for machine support of CBD redevelopment, they shared the city council with machine politicians. In subsequent elections, a “Harmony Ticket” controlled the city council and city politics. The professional city manager resigned in 1952 and the mayor, Fred Duckworth became the dominant voice in city government. Duckworth lived up to the deal; over the next fifteen years, the city pursued a vigorous urban renewal program, using federal funds. “In the back of [Duckworth’s] mind was a vision of metropolitan Norfolk as a major financial center able to compete equally with other South Atlantic cities … he continued to implement the development strategy [which included] new housing, new business investment, a new airport, a four-year college, new highways, new tunnels–All promised to supplant sour wartime memories with the shining steel and solid concrete of new Norfolk”.[5]
Norfolk departed from Atlanta in several ways. The time lag, the decade lost did not happen for Norfolk. The political support underlying the CBD revitalization/urban renewal was both different and comparable—the driving force for urban renewal was the business community (not, however, the large corporate elites of Atlanta. The motivation, however, for urban renewal was roughly similar. They were not combating decentralization, but were building for the first time a modern CBD and competing for success in their relevant urban hierarchy. Despite their first auspicious Housing Act application, housing in the post-1950 period received little to no attention. Just as happened in Atlanta. But, then, the similarity again breaks down.
School desegregation intruded and Norfolk followed the direction of the Byrd machine and bitterly contested court orders, in effect, they closed down the school system for part of a year (1959). The city council supported and participated actively in the resistance. Edward R. Murrow and CBS vividly reported on Norfolk’s belligerence. The Progressive business community came back to life. Taking an ad in the main newspaper, “one hundred leading business and professional men” opposed the city’s position and urged compromise to keep the schools open—and desegregated. The schools opened a week later, desegregated.
In local historiography the Committee of 100 is giving major credit for resolving the school crisis and pointing Norfolk back towards its primary goal of economic development. Certainly the men who recruited the signers of the advertisement represented the Norfolk establishment … director of the National Bank of Commerce … general counsel for the daily papers … chairman of the Redevelopment and Housing Authority … publisher of the two major papers [and VP of radio and TV stations] … Lewis Powell [future U.S. Supreme Court Justice] … [and President] of the Norfolk and Western Railroad…. The average [signer], however, was a man of means and position but not of extraordinary wealth … Most of the businesses represented on the Committee of 100 shared a chamber of commerce orientation toward Norfolk markets and the health of Norfolk real estate.[6]
The “Committee of 100” as they came to be called took over the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority and recommitted the agency to CBD-based urban renewal. Enjoying some success electorally in the 1959 elections, however, the Byrd machine renegotiated a 1961 equivalent to the Harmony Ticket and maintained its control over the council. Again, the core of the deal was Norfolk urban redevelopment.
Between 1955 and 1958 (before school desegregation) the two renewal projects removed (1) a bi-racial working class neighborhood of six hundred families, installing highway access to the CBD, and (2) the wartime sailor’s downtown red-light district. Following the notorious school segregation episode, subsequent urban renewal initiatives cleared area for privately-financed banking and high-rise office buildings and company headquarters, as well as new municipal buildings, a library, some public housing, some luxury apartment buildings, medical buildings with associated hospital expansion, and a downtown “shopping center”—the traditional mix of what an updated CBD should include.
During these years, Abbott observed, “the urban renewal program enjoyed almost complete support as a symbol of a city on the make”. Worth note is that the very same individuals who pushed for the formation of the 1940 Housing Authority remained in-charge of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority in the 1960’s. Also noteworthy is that Mayor Duckworth, a unanimous city council, and regional newspapers stood behind the program. Whatever the critique concerning the quality, competence, functionality, and esthetic qualities of what was built, with few exceptions, the program was not controversial, indeed, was well-received in Norfolk. In the early sixties, NRHA activated an image program, urging outsiders to create a “vision in Virginia”. The image initiative was meant partly to counteract negative school desegregation publicity (and older sailor’s memories), but also to demonstrate to the world that Norfolk had made it. NRHA’s programs won awards from ULI, National Municipal League, and NAHRO. In the later sixties, NRHA reversed policy and built new middle-class housing downtown, demolishing an African-American neighborhood, to support downtown retail.[7] NRHA’s return to a housing-biased program, however, presents us an opportunity to link the Norfolk policy system to goings-on in its metropolitan hinterland.
Hinterland, Hierarchy and Housing: Using non-Economic Development Policy Areas
Comparing regional variation during the Age of Urban Renewal provides the opportunity to glimpse at a much larger picture of a transition period in our urban history, and the emergence of a cutting-edge “new” policy area: economic development. Something is going on in Norfolk that in varying degrees, dates, and effects is going on across the nation. Decentralization, a population movement, with enormous city-building implications, was slowly taking precedence from the Great Migration as the cutting-edge of change and the disruptor of the urban hierarchy.
Certainly, the first two decades of the Age are shaped more by the reality of the Great Migration (and the threat of significant decentralization), but the last two decades are more affected by the reality of decentralization (and the consequences of the Great Migration). The vast blurred, almost amorphous, transition is most pronounced in the fifties and sixties on which this chapter principally focuses. In these years, the institutions and political coalitions essential to an understanding of the future are laying their foundations throughout the entire metropolitan area. The policies and strategies that will follow, as with the institutions, jurisdictions, and the relationships between them all, will be developed—with political culture serving as a filter-prism to create variation, diversity—and commonality–across the nation. The goings-on within the Norfolk-Portsmouth metro area show us how some geographies resolved these dynamics and offer us clues as to why others are reacting in different ways.
Having opened this section with a cloud-level discussion, let’s go back to ground-level. Norfolk certainly intended that rebuilding its CBD would make its mark on the New South, but they did not lose sight for an instant their real competition lay primarily within the metropolitan area. Urban renewal programs were also intended to establish their CBD as the foremost commercial/finance geography of their hinterland against the “growing challenge of suburban areas”.[8] Norfolk city managers had consistently pursued an aggressive annexation strategy since 1946—the city planning staff was built around its support of annexation. National consultants were brought in (1948) and they recommended annexation of areas in the two counties Norfolk “bordered”. Tax base, land for industry, and population chasing were the prime motivations. Sizeable annexations occurred in 1949 and 1955. The city was in-process of final approval and implementation of another sizeable annexation in the early sixties.
Norfolk’s metropolitan neighbors were prepared to defend themselves. A bit of Virginia municipal law background, however, is necessary to understand what will follow. Tidewater municipal law, reflecting its plantation history, fostered little municipal incorporation and endowed any incorporated municipality with the jurisdictional powers it demarcated for counties. In effect, although for a limited land area, municipal incorporation created a quasi-city-county consolidation. Norfolk County had fought tooth and nail Norfolk City’s past annexations (and successfully pared them back by Supreme Court rulings). Princess Anne County (an influential element of the Byrd machine) also successfully fought past Norfolk annexation attempts. By 1961, something called “suburban autonomy”[9] was about to knock Norfolk knuckles and offer us new opportunities to look inside the Age of Urban Renewal.
The two counties marched on Richmond and secured permissive state legislation to incorporate two city-county municipal incorporations which completely surrounded Norfolk with now-incorporated boundaries. Further, in January 1962 retiree/non-Virginia-born, residents voted four to one to incorporate a new city of Virginia Beach. Six weeks later, Norfolk County residents incorporated a new city, Chesapeake. Within the space of a year, both Norfolk and her competing regional rival, Portsmouth, were totally contained by incorporated municipalities. Effectively, what had been two counties were now four municipalities. And talk about angry campers. A stick-it-in-your-eye politics and competition started from day one. In 1974 a final municipal consolidation formed a new city of Suffolk from neighboring Suffolk County and now the metro area had its own five-ring circus to watch. Apparently, Sunbelt annexation might not be all that it is cracked up to be. In any case, Virginia Beach today (2010) is approaching twice the size of Norfolk, which is larger than Richmond. Times change. It is no longer self-evident which is suburban and which is central city?
The politics of resentment, past baggage, and bitter memories settled in among the metropolitan contenders. Each developed their own political leadership dedicated to its growth and defense against its long-standing municipal enemies. The pillar of that municipal independence was successful population growth and a viable economy—twin goals of their economic development policy-system. From this incredible municipal jungle, economic development emerged as a first-order municipal policy priority in their overall policy system. A competing municipality metropolitan hierarchy had provided the justification for a battle of all, against all—in a landscape where no city was certain if it was striving for suburban autonomy or central city primacy. In this atmosphere, metropolitan planning by the Southeastern Virginia Planning District Commission settled into a brokerage, facilitator, and peacemaker function, “a sort of League of Nations”, where “almost every issue of regional policy [during the sixties/seventies] has been approached in the spirit of mutual jealousy” [10]. Even the Norfolk regional airport was threatened with the construction of a rival suburban airport.
Norfolk and Portsmouth, already well-along in their CBD revival swung their economic development efforts toward cementing that revitalization with upscale CBD-adjacent apartment and housing—particularly in their waterfront areas (the 1970’s). Portsmouth engaged in extended negotiations to lure a new oil refinery into its last large parcel of vacant land. That city also attempted to convert some marginal acreage into an industrial park. The suburban cities, on the other hand invested heavily in their infrastructure and schools, supporting a core bed-room strategy. Chesapeake, which had some resident industry at that point, diversified by attraction strategy to recruit light industry, retail and office. Virginia Beach, the resort city, was strongly influenced by its real estate sector, rezoned much former agricultural land for subdivisions, but also set up industrial parks, constructed a convention center (competing with Norfolk), and began planning on a port/marina development.
At this point, it is useful to return to the clouds. Our case study captured the separation of economic development from housing; by the time the cities of the Norfolk-Portsmouth metro are contesting each other for independence or supremacy, economic development is its own policy area. The 1949 Housing Act, certainly the 1954 Act, permitted communities to use federal funds to physically redevelop their cities and regardless of the region. That probably was the literal time of policy separation. From that point on the focus turned away from housing and neighborhoods, to CBD redevelopment. CBD redevelopment, however, was never an end in itself; CBD development both was an intermediate strategy and a symbol for some sort of central city primacy/stabilization over its hinterland. In the South, CBD upgrading was also intended to increase Norfolk’s position in its “New South” urban hierarchy. As a symbol, the CBD stood proxy for the jurisdiction, and constituted the visible symbol of the metro area. If there was a benchmark that indicated success, it seems to have been population growth, or stability. In any case, it is evident that economic development had become a first-order, high priority policy area in their urban policy system. Other policy areas, such as housing and schools, were tapped as elements in the economic development strategy.
This brings us to a final thought. Many policy areas compete in a community’s policy system. Housing had assumed for a time, the status of a high priority policy area in the first decades of the Age of Urban Renewal. Indeed, the original intent was to use neighborhood slum removal and public housing to counter decentralization. The infusion of an economic development purpose into housing policy, however, yielded little but controversy at the local level. So, slum removal and housing by the sixties had lost appeal, and visibly slipped in the hierarchy of urban policy areas. Certainly, it is reasonable to observe from this example that different policy areas can fluctuate in priority over time as well as compete among themselves for attention and resources. It seems equally reasonable to observe that high priority-status policy areas are able to use other policy areas to accomplish their purposes. By the end of the Age of Urban Renewal, it would appear that in the Norfolk-Portsmouth cases, waterfront affluent housing construction was an important element in their economic development strategy. K-12 school systems, higher education and even hospital and health care could be subsumed as an element in a larger economic development strategy.
[1] At the outset I acknowledge that discussion in the case study was taken from a series of observations included throughout Carl Abbott’s, The New Urban America: Growth and Politics in Sunbelt Cities (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1981). I have integrated his comments and conceptual observations into our conceptual framework and accordingly have attached meaning not presented in Abbott’s chapters. The fit between the two frameworks, I believe, is quite close and they do not seem at counter-purposes.
[2] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., pp. 104-105. Magazines described Norfolk as “America’s worst war town” and, being fairly close to Washington, the goings on captured a great deal of attention in the nation’s capital.
[3] “History of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority”, www.nrha.us/about/history
[4] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., pp. 127-128.
[5] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., p. 129.
[6] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., pp. 130-131.
[7] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., p. 129.
[8] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., pp. 144-145.
[9] Oliver Williams, “Life Styles, Values and Political Decentralization in Metropolitan Areas”, Social Science Quarterly, 48, December, 1967, pp. 299-317. Suburban incorporation, suburban counties, and service districts each were organizational devices to preserve suburban residents control over their homes and surrounding areas. In most instances, it is reasonable this means low-density, spread-out physical landscapes. This is normally associated with economic class, sometimes ethnic, usually racial segregation. The school system (a service district in structure) is the third rail of this strategy of suburban autonomy. The success of suburban areas across the nation in achieving a considerable degree of suburban autonomy (from the central city and/or metropolitan planning) was, and still is, a significant theme in urban geography, planning, economics, and politics.
[10] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., p.206.
———-
Virginia Beach: One Hell of a Hinterland Strategy
We are not yet done with Norfolk. Norfolk intended its CBD renewal would make its mark on the New South, but they did not lose sight for an instant that their real competition lay within the metropolitan area. Norfolk’s metropolitan neighbors were not suburbs populated predominately by refugees from Norfolk in the conventional northern Big City manner. The initial concern was Norfolk County. Norfolk city managers had consistently pursued an aggressive annexation strategy since 1946—the city planning staff was built around its support of annexation. National consultants were brought in (1948) and they recommended annexation of areas in the two counties Norfolk “bordered”. Tax base, land for industry, and population chasing were the prime motivations. Sizeable annexations occurred in 1949 and 1955. The city was in-process of final approval and implementation of another sizeable annexation in the early sixties.
Norfolk’s metropolitan neighbors were prepared to defend themselves. A bit of Virginia municipal law background, however, is necessary to understand what will follow. Tidewater municipal law, reflecting its plantation history, fostered little municipal incorporation and endowed any incorporated municipality with the jurisdictional powers it demarcated for counties. In effect, although for a limited land area, municipal incorporation created a quasi-city-county consolidation. Norfolk County had fought tooth and nail Norfolk City’s past annexations (and successfully pared them back by Supreme Court rulings). Princess Anne County (an influential element of the Byrd machine) also successfully fought past Norfolk annexation attempts. By 1961, something called “suburban autonomy” was about to knock Norfolk knuckles and offer us new opportunities to look inside the Age of Urban Renewal.
The two counties marched on Richmond and secured permissive state legislation to incorporate two city-county municipal incorporations which completely surrounded Norfolk with now-incorporated boundaries. Further, in January 1962 retiree/non-Virginia-born, residents voted four to one to incorporate a new city of Virginia Beach. Six weeks later, Norfolk County residents incorporated a new city, Chesapeake. Within the space of a year, both Norfolk and her competing regional rival, Portsmouth, were totally surrounded by incorporated municipalities. Effectively, what had been two counties were now four municipalities. And talk about angry campers. A stick-it-in-your-eye politics and competition started from day one. In 1974 a final municipal consolidation formed a new city of Suffolk from neighboring Suffolk County and now the metro area had its own five-ring circus to watch. Apparently, Sunbelt annexation might not be all that it is cracked up to be. In any case, Virginia Beach today (2010) is approaching twice the size of Norfolk, which is larger than Richmond. Times change. It is no longer self-evident which is suburban and which is central city?
The politics of resentment, past baggage, and bitter memories settled in among the metropolitan contenders. Each developed their own political leadership dedicated to its growth and defense against its long-standing municipal enemies. The pillar of that municipal independence was successful population growth and a viable economy—twin goals of their economic development policy-system. From this incredible municipal jungle, economic development emerged as a first-order municipal policy priority in their overall policy system. A competing municipality metropolitan hierarchy had provided the justification for a battle of all, against all—in a landscape where no city was certain if it was striving for suburban autonomy or central city primacy. In this atmosphere, metropolitan planning by the Southeastern Virginia Planning District Commission settled into a brokerage, facilitator, and peacemaker function, “a sort of League of Nations”, where “almost every issue of regional policy [during the sixties/seventies] has been approached in the spirit of mutual jealousy” [1]. Even the Norfolk regional airport was threatened with the construction of a rival suburban airport.
Norfolk and Portsmouth, already well-along in their CBD revival swung their economic development efforts toward cementing that revitalization with upscale CBD-adjacent apartment and housing—particularly in their waterfront areas (the 1970’s). Portsmouth engaged in extended negotiations to lure a new oil refinery into its last large parcel of vacant land. That city also attempted to convert some marginal acreage into an industrial park. The suburban cities, on the other hand invested heavily in their infrastructure and schools, supporting a core bed-room strategy. Chesapeake, which had some resident industry at that point, diversified by attraction strategy to recruit light industry, retail and office. Virginia Beach, the resort city, was strongly influenced by its real estate sector, rezoned much former agricultural land for subdivisions, but also set up industrial parks, constructed a convention center (competing with Norfolk), and began planning on a port/marina development.
By the end of the Age of Urban Renewal, it would appear that in the Norfolk-Portsmouth cases, waterfront affluent housing construction was an important element in their economic development strategy. K-12 school systems, higher education and even hospital and health care could be subsumed as an element in a larger economic development strategy.
[1] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., p.206.
end of policy system cut
=============
Norfolk is Virginia’s second city. Norfolk presents an opportunity to discuss a fairly different Age of Urban Renewal experience than Atlanta[1]. Norfolk was especially impacted by the war. The role of the federal government in the war years was not typical of most cities in this era. Its political system, a machine contested by business reformers, shares eastern Big City dynamics. Situated in a different Tidewater political culture than Atlanta, the path of housing/urban renewal policy still played out similarly —but for different reasons. Also, unlike Atlanta, the city’s relationship with its neighboring cities and suburbs was quite different and produced rather dramatic consequences.
=======================
Norfolk: Southern-Fried Urban Renewal
Norfolk is the more typical “southern” Age of UR city. Smaller cities have “smaller” corporate elites, but they are pragmatic—to the point of having slightly progressive tendencies. Important to us is how civil rights/desegregation affected the primacy of economic development in Norfolk’s policy agenda. This is very typical of the South, differentiating it from western cities.
Local Politics and Public Housing
In 1930, Norfolk’s metro exceeded 262,000; the city home to nearly 130,000 (62nd nationally). With an established naval base Norfolk’s economy was military and its best period of pre-1940 growth was during World War I. By 1920 the city was split fairly even between black and white, but very segregated. Booker T. Washington’s black capitalist approach fostered Black-owned small business and leadership (Lewis, 1991). Two annexations recaptured periphery expansion. The Norfolk city council/city manager was controlled by the state-Byrd machine’s local czar, the Clerk of Courts. The city’s business community did not include “large corporation elites” and was composed of local and regional business and professionals.
The 1934 Housing Act inspired local business Progressives to advocate for slum removal and public housing. The city manager formed a committee “to make a study of the slum districts of Norfolk with the hope of obtaining federal funds to eliminate them”[i]. A 1937 workshop followed from the committee’s report—which inspired the state to approve enabling legislation permitting localities to establish a local housing authority and participate in the federal program (1938). After a 1940 workshop held by the League of Virginia Municipalities, the Norfolk city council approved the Norfolk Housing Authority (NHA) in July.1940. The behind the scenes story was that public housing was driven by businessmen social reformers (like Palmer in Atlanta) who maneuvered the city council to create its “Committee on Slums” to deal with perceived crime. City leaders never embraced public housing per se. Reformers lobbied for three years before capitalizing on Richmond-generated momentum to establish the housing authority.
War Years
With the war, defense housing brouhaha commenced. Civilian population doubled to 259000 by 1940; by 1942 to 323000 and 365000 in 1944[ii]. Add 128000 military and this population explosion was a tsunami, impacting severely the lifestyle (and mores) of its residents. Soldiers and sailors going to war inflated prices, fostered prostitution and gambling, trailer parks, and incredibly cramped housing. The place was a “delight”; media and military pressures “stole” the housing authority putting it to work building military-related “projects”. The war made the Navy Department and naval base leadership the most important administrative force in the area—the shore patrol, for example, was the only effective control on sailors.
Aside from public safety and morals, the most crushing problem was housing this mass of people. Remembering the crippling recession that followed the First World War, the city council wanted nothing to do with building housing that would become vacant and have to be destroyed at war’s end crushing, tax revenues in the process. The result was a five year battle between the local political leadership and the Navy Department over housing construction. Congress and the President got involved. The Navy Department in desperation sent our old friend, Robert Moses, down to do a study (1942) and a Congressional subcommittee held hearings (1943) to add its two cents. The solution required the Navy to build huge amounts of on-base housing (10000 units by the federal Public Housing Department, and a further 11000 units privately-built); the housing authority built fewer than 800 units. When the population onslaught became overwhelming in 1944, the city manager left town. The worthless reaction of the machine, its unwillingness to confront war-related problems generated shame and demands for reform from Norfolk’s business community.
By war’s end that business community coalesced behind the “People’s Ticket”. In June 1946, they swept into office, carrying all but African-American precincts controlled by the machine (Abbott, 1981, pp. 127-8). Included in the People’s Ticket were the housing reformers that led the public housing/housing authority movement. Their first initiative removed machine influence by professionalizing the city’s bureaucracy. Creating a Personnel Department, a Planning Department, various other departments and conducting a national search for a new professional city manager resulted in a policy system change. Included in these reforms was creation of the Norfolk Port Authority meant to be their EDO[iii]. Taking advantage of Virginia’s 1949 Housing Act Norfolk expanded NHA’s scope, renaming it the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority (NRHA). Immediately, NHA submitted an application for 3428 units of federal public housing that required a 190 acre slum clearance. NRHA believes their application was the first funded from the 1949 Housing Act.
UR Meets School Desegregation
And that was that! Following motivations my research has not uncovered, the People’s Ticket struck a deal (1950) with the Byrd Machine for machine support of CBD redevelopment. In subsequent elections, a “Harmony Ticket” controlled city council and city politics. The professional city manager resigned in 1952 and mayor, Fred Duckworth ran city government. Over the next fifteen years, the city pursued a vigorous urban renewal program, using federal funds. “In the back of [Duckworth’s] mind was a vision of metropolitan Norfolk as a major financial center able to compete equally with other South Atlantic cities … the development strategy [included] new housing, new business investment, a new airport, a four-year college, new highways, new tunnels–All promised to supplant sour wartime memories with the shining steel and solid concrete of new Norfolk” (Abbott, 1981, p. 129).
School desegregation intruded. Initially, Norfolk followed Byrd machine dictates– bitterly contesting court orders and closing down the school system for part of a year (1959). The city council participated actively in the anti-desegregation resistance. CBS’s Edward R. Murrow dramatically reported Norfolk’s intransigence and the Progressive business community came back to life. Taking an ad in the main newspaper, “one hundred leading business and professional men” opposed the city’s position and urged compromise to keep the schools open—and desegregated. The schools opened a week later, desegregated. In local historiography the Committee of 100 is giving major credit for resolving the school crisis and pointing Norfolk back towards its primary goal of economic development. The “Committee of 100” took over NRHA returning it to CBD-focused urban renewal. Enjoying some success electorally in the 1959 elections, however, the Byrd machine renegotiated a 1961 equivalent to the Harmony Ticket and maintained its control over the council (Abbott, 1981, pp. 130-1). Again, the core of the deal was Norfolk urban redevelopment.
Before school desegregation hit the agenda, two renewal projects removed (1) a bi-racial working class neighborhood of six hundred families, installing highway access to the CBD, and (2) the wartime sailor’s downtown red-light district. Following school desegregation subsequent urban renewal initiatives cleared area for privately-financed banking and high-rise office buildings and company headquarters, as well as new municipal buildings, a library, and some public housing. Also constructed were luxury apartments and medical buildings associated with a hospital expansion, and a downtown “shopping center”. During these years “the urban renewal program enjoyed almost complete support as a symbol of a city on the make”. Worth note is the same individuals who had pushed for the 1940 Housing Authority remained in-charge of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority in the 1960’s. Also noteworthy is that Mayor Duckworth, a unanimous city council, and regional newspapers stood behind the program.
In the early sixties, NRHA launched an “image” program, urging outsiders to create a “vision in Virginia”. The image initiative counteracted negative school desegregation publicity, but also demonstrate to the world Norfolk had made it. In the later sixties, NRHA again built middle-class housing downtown, demolishing an African-American neighborhood, to support downtown retail (Abbott, 1981, p. 129).
[i] History of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority”, www.nrha.us/about/history
[ii] History of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority”, www.nrha.us/about/history
[iii] In 1952, the state created the Virginia Port Authority which took over the facilities of Norfolk, Hampton Roads, Newport News and Virginia Beach.
=========================
Local Politics and Urban Renewal
When we begin this case study in 1930, Norfolk’s metro area population exceeded 262,000 and the city’s population nearly 130,000 (62nd nationally). In a region of small cities (Miami, for example is 110,000) Norfolk was typical. Norfolk is not typical, however, in that it possessed an established naval base that grew exponentially during the war. By 1940 civilian population doubled to 259,000, by 1942 to 323,000 and 365,000 in 1944. Add another 128,000 military and this population explosion was a tsunami, flooding every nook and cranny in the area—and impacting severely the lifestyle (and mores) of its residents. Soldiers and sailors going off to war inflated prices, fostered rampant prostitution and gambling, trailer cities, and incredibly cramped housing. The place was a “delight”, and the residents and political leaders were not happy[2].
Politically, the city, and the city council, was controlled by Virginia’s Byrd machine local czar, the Clerk of Courts. When the population onslaught became overwhelming in 1944, the city manager simply left town. The Navy Department in Washington and the military base leadership became the most important administrative force in the area—the shore patrol, for example, was the only force that could control the sailors. The city’s business community could not be described as dominated by “large corporation elites”, even compared to places like Richmond, and was composed of local and regional business leaders and professionals.
Aside from public safety and morals, the most crushing problem was housing this mass of people. Remembering the crippling recession that followed the end of First World War, the city council wanted nothing to do with building housing that would become vacant and have to be destroyed at war’s end crushing tax revenues in the process. In no way did they see that significant population growth would result after this world war. The dominant political culture stressed fiscal prudence and limited government. At a time when Big Cities in the north were pleading for monies to construct housing and remove slums, the city council of Norfolk wanted nothing to do with slum removal or housing construction. The result was a five year battle between the local political leadership and the Navy Department over housing construction. Congress and the President got involved. The Navy Department in desperation sent our old friend, Robert Moses, down to do a study (1942) and a Congressional subcommittee commenced a series of hearings (1943) to add its two cents worth. The solution finally required the Navy to build huge amounts of on-base housing, the construction of 10,000 units by the federal Public Housing Department, and a further 11,000 units privately-built. The city during these four years built less than 800 units—some of which were immediately torn down at war’s end.
Having fought tooth and nail to do as little housing development as possible, one might have thought the city had been absent from the public housing debate described in earlier chapters. That, however, would be wrong. Actually, the passage of the 1934 Housing Act inspired local business Progressives to advocate for slum removal and public housing. The city manager formed a committee “to make a study of the slum districts of Norfolk with the hope of obtaining federal funds to eliminate them”[3]. A 1937 public conference/workshop followed from the committee’s report—which apparently inspired the state of Virginia to approve its enabling low permitting localities to establish a local housing authority and participate in the federal program (1938). After a Richmond state-wide workshop held in January 1940 by the League of Virginia Municipalities, the Norfolk city council swept up with enthusiasm to demolish slums and build public housing approved the creation of the Norfolk Housing Authority in July of that year.
The behind the scenes story about these public housing/slum removal shenanigans was that they were driven by business social reformers (like Palmer in Atlanta) who got the city council to appoint a “Committee on Slums” to deal with perceived crime. They persisted in their efforts for the next three years when they capitalized on the Richmond-generated momentum to establish the housing authority. Then, with the war, the defense housing brouhaha commenced and the housing authority was put to work to build three “projects” in response to all federal, media and military pressures.
The reaction of the machine and its unwillingness to step to the plate and confront the war-related problem that beset and despoiled the city generated intense shame and demand for reform within Norfolk’s business community. By war’s end that business community, calling itself the “People’s Ticket” had coalesced behind leadership (mostly the same individuals who led the 1935-1940 resistance), and were now determined to throw the bums out. In June 1946, they swept into office, carrying all but African-American precincts controlled by the machine[4]. The business constituency which had led the slum removal/public housing/housing authority creation controlled the city council.
Their first impulse was to remove machine influence by modernizing and professionalizing the city’s bureaucracy. Creating a Personnel Department, a Planning Department, various other departments and conducting a national search for a new professional city manager brought in reforms common to most for nearly thirty years or more. Include in these reforms was the creation of the Newport Port Authority that was meant to be their economic development agency. They took advantage following the 1949 Housing Act of Virginia’s enabling law to expand the Housing Authority scope, renaming it the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority (NRHA). Immediately, that body designed, approved and submitted to the federal Public Housing Department an application for 3428 units of public housing, appropriate slum clearance of 190 acres north of the CBD. The NRHA believe their application was the first funded from the 1949 Housing Act.
And that was that! Following motivations my research has not uncovered, the People’s Ticket struck a deal (1950) with the Byrd Machine, put aside their GOTV (get out the vote) capacity, and in return for machine support of CBD redevelopment, they shared the city council with machine politicians. In subsequent elections, a “Harmony Ticket” controlled the city council and city politics. The professional city manager resigned in 1952 and the mayor, Fred Duckworth became the dominant voice in city government. Duckworth lived up to the deal; over the next fifteen years, the city pursued a vigorous urban renewal program, using federal funds. “In the back of [Duckworth’s] mind was a vision of metropolitan Norfolk as a major financial center able to compete equally with other South Atlantic cities … he continued to implement the development strategy [which included] new housing, new business investment, a new airport, a four-year college, new highways, new tunnels–All promised to supplant sour wartime memories with the shining steel and solid concrete of new Norfolk”.[5]
Norfolk departed from Atlanta in several ways. The time lag, the decade lost did not happen for Norfolk. The political support underlying the CBD revitalization/urban renewal was both different and comparable—the driving force for urban renewal was the business community (not, however, the large corporate elites of Atlanta. The motivation, however, for urban renewal was roughly similar. They were not combating decentralization, but were building for the first time a modern CBD and competing for success in their relevant urban hierarchy. Despite their first auspicious Housing Act application, housing in the post-1950 period received little to no attention. Just as happened in Atlanta. But, then, the similarity again breaks down.
School desegregation intruded and Norfolk followed the direction of the Byrd machine and bitterly contested court orders, in effect, they closed down the school system for part of a year (1959). The city council supported and participated actively in the resistance. Edward R. Murrow and CBS vividly reported on Norfolk’s belligerence. The Progressive business community came back to life. Taking an ad in the main newspaper, “one hundred leading business and professional men” opposed the city’s position and urged compromise to keep the schools open—and desegregated. The schools opened a week later, desegregated.
In local historiography the Committee of 100 is giving major credit for resolving the school crisis and pointing Norfolk back towards its primary goal of economic development. Certainly the men who recruited the signers of the advertisement represented the Norfolk establishment … director of the National Bank of Commerce … general counsel for the daily papers … chairman of the Redevelopment and Housing Authority … publisher of the two major papers [and VP of radio and TV stations] … Lewis Powell [future U.S. Supreme Court Justice] … [and President] of the Norfolk and Western Railroad…. The average [signer], however, was a man of means and position but not of extraordinary wealth … Most of the businesses represented on the Committee of 100 shared a chamber of commerce orientation toward Norfolk markets and the health of Norfolk real estate.[6]
The “Committee of 100” as they came to be called took over the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority and recommitted the agency to CBD-based urban renewal. Enjoying some success electorally in the 1959 elections, however, the Byrd machine renegotiated a 1961 equivalent to the Harmony Ticket and maintained its control over the council. Again, the core of the deal was Norfolk urban redevelopment.
Between 1955 and 1958 (before school desegregation) the two renewal projects removed (1) a bi-racial working class neighborhood of six hundred families, installing highway access to the CBD, and (2) the wartime sailor’s downtown red-light district. Following the notorious school segregation episode, subsequent urban renewal initiatives cleared area for privately-financed banking and high-rise office buildings and company headquarters, as well as new municipal buildings, a library, some public housing, some luxury apartment buildings, medical buildings with associated hospital expansion, and a downtown “shopping center”—the traditional mix of what an updated CBD should include.
During these years, Abbott observed, “the urban renewal program enjoyed almost complete support as a symbol of a city on the make”. Worth note is that the very same individuals who pushed for the formation of the 1940 Housing Authority remained in-charge of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority in the 1960’s. Also noteworthy is that Mayor Duckworth, a unanimous city council, and regional newspapers stood behind the program. Whatever the critique concerning the quality, competence, functionality, and esthetic qualities of what was built, with few exceptions, the program was not controversial, indeed, was well-received in Norfolk. In the early sixties, NRHA activated an image program, urging outsiders to create a “vision in Virginia”. The image initiative was meant partly to counteract negative school desegregation publicity (and older sailor’s memories), but also to demonstrate to the world that Norfolk had made it. NRHA’s programs won awards from ULI, National Municipal League, and NAHRO. In the later sixties, NRHA reversed policy and built new middle-class housing downtown, demolishing an African-American neighborhood, to support downtown retail.[7] NRHA’s return to a housing-biased program, however, presents us an opportunity to link the Norfolk policy system to goings-on in its metropolitan hinterland.
Hinterland, Hierarchy and Housing: Using non-Economic Development Policy Areas
Comparing regional variation during the Age of Urban Renewal provides the opportunity to glimpse at a much larger picture of a transition period in our urban history, and the emergence of a cutting-edge “new” policy area: economic development. Something is going on in Norfolk that in varying degrees, dates, and effects is going on across the nation. Decentralization, a population movement, with enormous city-building implications, was slowly taking precedence from the Great Migration as the cutting-edge of change and the disruptor of the urban hierarchy.
Certainly, the first two decades of the Age are shaped more by the reality of the Great Migration (and the threat of significant decentralization), but the last two decades are more affected by the reality of decentralization (and the consequences of the Great Migration). The vast blurred, almost amorphous, transition is most pronounced in the fifties and sixties on which this chapter principally focuses. In these years, the institutions and political coalitions essential to an understanding of the future are laying their foundations throughout the entire metropolitan area. The policies and strategies that will follow, as with the institutions, jurisdictions, and the relationships between them all, will be developed—with political culture serving as a filter-prism to create variation, diversity—and commonality–across the nation. The goings-on within the Norfolk-Portsmouth metro area show us how some geographies resolved these dynamics and offer us clues as to why others are reacting in different ways.
Having opened this section with a cloud-level discussion, let’s go back to ground-level. Norfolk certainly intended that rebuilding its CBD would make its mark on the New South, but they did not lose sight for an instant their real competition lay primarily within the metropolitan area. Urban renewal programs were also intended to establish their CBD as the foremost commercial/finance geography of their hinterland against the “growing challenge of suburban areas”.[8] Norfolk city managers had consistently pursued an aggressive annexation strategy since 1946—the city planning staff was built around its support of annexation. National consultants were brought in (1948) and they recommended annexation of areas in the two counties Norfolk “bordered”. Tax base, land for industry, and population chasing were the prime motivations. Sizeable annexations occurred in 1949 and 1955. The city was in-process of final approval and implementation of another sizeable annexation in the early sixties.
Norfolk’s metropolitan neighbors were prepared to defend themselves. A bit of Virginia municipal law background, however, is necessary to understand what will follow. Tidewater municipal law, reflecting its plantation history, fostered little municipal incorporation and endowed any incorporated municipality with the jurisdictional powers it demarcated for counties. In effect, although for a limited land area, municipal incorporation created a quasi-city-county consolidation. Norfolk County had fought tooth and nail Norfolk City’s past annexations (and successfully pared them back by Supreme Court rulings). Princess Anne County (an influential element of the Byrd machine) also successfully fought past Norfolk annexation attempts. By 1961, something called “suburban autonomy”[9] was about to knock Norfolk knuckles and offer us new opportunities to look inside the Age of Urban Renewal.
The two counties marched on Richmond and secured permissive state legislation to incorporate two city-county municipal incorporations which completely surrounded Norfolk with now-incorporated boundaries. Further, in January 1962 retiree/non-Virginia-born, residents voted four to one to incorporate a new city of Virginia Beach. Six weeks later, Norfolk County residents incorporated a new city, Chesapeake. Within the space of a year, both Norfolk and her competing regional rival, Portsmouth, were totally contained by incorporated municipalities. Effectively, what had been two counties were now four municipalities. And talk about angry campers. A stick-it-in-your-eye politics and competition started from day one. In 1974 a final municipal consolidation formed a new city of Suffolk from neighboring Suffolk County and now the metro area had its own five-ring circus to watch. Apparently, Sunbelt annexation might not be all that it is cracked up to be. In any case, Virginia Beach today (2010) is approaching twice the size of Norfolk, which is larger than Richmond. Times change. It is no longer self-evident which is suburban and which is central city?
The politics of resentment, past baggage, and bitter memories settled in among the metropolitan contenders. Each developed their own political leadership dedicated to its growth and defense against its long-standing municipal enemies. The pillar of that municipal independence was successful population growth and a viable economy—twin goals of their economic development policy-system. From this incredible municipal jungle, economic development emerged as a first-order municipal policy priority in their overall policy system. A competing municipality metropolitan hierarchy had provided the justification for a battle of all, against all—in a landscape where no city was certain if it was striving for suburban autonomy or central city primacy. In this atmosphere, metropolitan planning by the Southeastern Virginia Planning District Commission settled into a brokerage, facilitator, and peacemaker function, “a sort of League of Nations”, where “almost every issue of regional policy [during the sixties/seventies] has been approached in the spirit of mutual jealousy” [10]. Even the Norfolk regional airport was threatened with the construction of a rival suburban airport.
Norfolk and Portsmouth, already well-along in their CBD revival swung their economic development efforts toward cementing that revitalization with upscale CBD-adjacent apartment and housing—particularly in their waterfront areas (the 1970’s). Portsmouth engaged in extended negotiations to lure a new oil refinery into its last large parcel of vacant land. That city also attempted to convert some marginal acreage into an industrial park. The suburban cities, on the other hand invested heavily in their infrastructure and schools, supporting a core bed-room strategy. Chesapeake, which had some resident industry at that point, diversified by attraction strategy to recruit light industry, retail and office. Virginia Beach, the resort city, was strongly influenced by its real estate sector, rezoned much former agricultural land for subdivisions, but also set up industrial parks, constructed a convention center (competing with Norfolk), and began planning on a port/marina development.
At this point, it is useful to return to the clouds. Our case study captured the separation of economic development from housing; by the time the cities of the Norfolk-Portsmouth metro are contesting each other for independence or supremacy, economic development is its own policy area. The 1949 Housing Act, certainly the 1954 Act, permitted communities to use federal funds to physically redevelop their cities and regardless of the region. That probably was the literal time of policy separation. From that point on the focus turned away from housing and neighborhoods, to CBD redevelopment. CBD redevelopment, however, was never an end in itself; CBD development both was an intermediate strategy and a symbol for some sort of central city primacy/stabilization over its hinterland. In the South, CBD upgrading was also intended to increase Norfolk’s position in its “New South” urban hierarchy. As a symbol, the CBD stood proxy for the jurisdiction, and constituted the visible symbol of the metro area. If there was a benchmark that indicated success, it seems to have been population growth, or stability. In any case, it is evident that economic development had become a first-order, high priority policy area in their urban policy system. Other policy areas, such as housing and schools, were tapped as elements in the economic development strategy.
This brings us to a final thought. Many policy areas compete in a community’s policy system. Housing had assumed for a time, the status of a high priority policy area in the first decades of the Age of Urban Renewal. Indeed, the original intent was to use neighborhood slum removal and public housing to counter decentralization. The infusion of an economic development purpose into housing policy, however, yielded little but controversy at the local level. So, slum removal and housing by the sixties had lost appeal, and visibly slipped in the hierarchy of urban policy areas. Certainly, it is reasonable to observe from this example that different policy areas can fluctuate in priority over time as well as compete among themselves for attention and resources. It seems equally reasonable to observe that high priority-status policy areas are able to use other policy areas to accomplish their purposes. By the end of the Age of Urban Renewal, it would appear that in the Norfolk-Portsmouth cases, waterfront affluent housing construction was an important element in their economic development strategy. K-12 school systems, higher education and even hospital and health care could be subsumed as an element in a larger economic development strategy.
[1] At the outset I acknowledge that discussion in the case study was taken from a series of observations included throughout Carl Abbott’s, The New Urban America: Growth and Politics in Sunbelt Cities (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1981). I have integrated his comments and conceptual observations into our conceptual framework and accordingly have attached meaning not presented in Abbott’s chapters. The fit between the two frameworks, I believe, is quite close and they do not seem at counter-purposes.
[2] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., pp. 104-105. Magazines described Norfolk as “America’s worst war town” and, being fairly close to Washington, the goings on captured a great deal of attention in the nation’s capital.
[3] “History of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority”, www.nrha.us/about/history
[4] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., pp. 127-128.
[5] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., p. 129.
[6] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., pp. 130-131.
[7] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., p. 129.
[8] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., pp. 144-145.
[9] Oliver Williams, “Life Styles, Values and Political Decentralization in Metropolitan Areas”, Social Science Quarterly, 48, December, 1967, pp. 299-317. Suburban incorporation, suburban counties, and service districts each were organizational devices to preserve suburban residents control over their homes and surrounding areas. In most instances, it is reasonable this means low-density, spread-out physical landscapes. This is normally associated with economic class, sometimes ethnic, usually racial segregation. The school system (a service district in structure) is the third rail of this strategy of suburban autonomy. The success of suburban areas across the nation in achieving a considerable degree of suburban autonomy (from the central city and/or metropolitan planning) was, and still is, a significant theme in urban geography, planning, economics, and politics.
[10] Carl Abbott, the New Urban America, op. cit., p.206.
Ron W. Coan 