IN-PERSON London. Section B

Abstract

The current Homelessness crisis in Downtown Denver reveals a type of societal short-sightedness which begs for a series of serious questions. While there were various causes and contexts which led to this social pathology, among the most acute ones was the dramatic shift of the site following its late 1970’s urban renewal. As part of a greater Neo-Liberal national vision on eradicating the blight from cities’ centers—and following the passing of the 1949 American Housing Act which funded the demolition of “decaying” neighborhoods—The Skyline Urban Renewal Project followed by the 16th Street Mall Plan aimed at re-imagining the Denver’s Downtown area as lavish, high, and rapid, and, most importantly: Sleaze-Free! In their 1999, ‘Braving the Street: The Anthropology of Homelessness’, Irene Glasser and Rae Bridgman point out that the emergence of Homelessness in the United States occurred during the late 1970s and early 1980s. This causal relation between the drastic transformation of the face and fabric of American cities and the arrival of homelessness as a national public concern not only contextualize the phenomenon of homelessness within the societal realm, but also, reveals that the other side of urban livability– as manifested within the Mid-20th Century American Vision on Urban Renewal—was the dying of the (other) city dwellers. This paper explores the relations between the current Homelessness crisis in Downtown Denver and its late 1970’s urban renewal as a symptom of a paradoxical American Dream on Livable City.