- Urban renewal
- Segregation
- 1959–1969
- City of Atlanta
- General area only
Butler Street urban redevelopment area (GA R-9)
One of Atlanta's first federally aided renewal projects. It covered blocks east of downtown around Butler Street (now Jesse Hill Jr. Dr) and Auburn Avenue, beside the new Downtown Connector, inside what the city's own 1962 map shaded as a Black residential area.
The record
The Housing Authority's project control map was revised from May 1959 through September 1963. It marks clearance, rehabilitation, public housing, churches, parks and schools, and land set aside for commercial and multifamily reuse. The study-area plates show the expressway right-of-way running through the project, and a suggested site plan with hotels, motels and apartments. By June 1969 the Housing Authority reported about 81 acres acquired for project R-9. The city's 1962 'Negro Residential Areas' map labels the 'Butler Street U.R.A.' inside the shaded Black district that ran from Boulevard west to the Connector and took in Grady Homes. Bayor's study of Atlanta's renewal program argues that race shaped where renewal and relocation housing went, as much as economic goals did.
Today: The area lies between Grady Hospital, Georgia State and Sweet Auburn. It is now mostly institutional and residential redevelopment beside the Connector.
Where on the map: Project boundary is drawn on GSU layers atlpm0031b and atlpm0081b–atlpm0081o.