Research Symposium

BIO

Charlie Campbell is a first-year geography major from Orlando, Florida. He is interested in spatial urban research, particularly gentrification and urban renewal. Charlie hopes to pursue a career in either geography or urban planning as he has a passion for understanding how humans interact with the world around them.

Smokey Hollow: Urban Renewal and the Historic Displacement of a Black Community in Tallahassee

Abstract

Beginning in the 1940s and continuing through the 1960s, urban renewal efforts across the United States displaced some of the country’s poorest communities for the purpose of municipal construction and redevelopment. These communities, dubbed “slums”, were appropriated for public use, often becoming urban road or park infrastructure, or resold to private developers. However, an effect of urban redevelopment efforts that went largely unaddressed by the government during this time was the relocation of Black citizens who comprised the majority of these communities.

This project examines the slum clearance of Smokey Hollow, a historically black community in Tallahassee, Florida that was repossessed for the construction of the Apalachee Parkway and Capitol Center in the 1960s. While the purchased properties were cleared for this urban renewal project, a large portion of them were left undeveloped. Thus, it is clear that slum clearance of Smokey Hollow, like many urban renewal projects at the time, was a thinly veiled attempt to rid rapidly developing parts of the city of Black citizens.

Keywords: Geography, Urban Renewal, Gentrification