1954 Court Case Opened the Door For Urban Renewal

Decision Favoring Redevelopment Changed Face of Many U.S. Cities

The history of land use in the United States took at dramatic turn on Fourth Street SW in 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for urban renewal projects -- then called slum removal -- that would change the face of U.S. cities.

In 1945, Congress, which then governed the city, passed the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act, intended to aid city officials in slum clearance and urban reconstruction. The D.C. Land Redevelopment Agency set to work developing a radical plan that called for the demolition of the homes of 1,345 families, 97.5 percent of them black.

The Southwest area became its early focus. About 58 percent of the houses there had outdoor toilets, 29 percent lacked electricity, 82 percent had no wash basins or laundry tubs, 94 percent lacked central heating. About 64 percent of the buildings were deemed too dilapidated to repair. The tuberculosis death rate in the area was more than double the city average. Property owners were unable or unwilling to upgrade the housing stock.

The new buildings would be built and owned by private developers.

The plan had widespread public support from business people, church leaders and even some residents. One who testified at an early public hearing was a homemaker, Mrs. Bessie Frazier, who lived in the redevelopment area with her five children in two rooms, with an outside toilet. "I hope it will start very, very soon and come to my house first," Frazier said, according to an article in The Washington Post on Dec. 18, 1952.

The leaders of some black organizations protested that many black residents would be displaced because many would not be able to afford the rents in the new housing. D.C. officials assured them public housing would be built to accommodate them.

Within the redevelopment area, some businesses were slated for demolition and some were not. A gasoline station and a theater, for example, were deemed consistent with the redevelopment plan but a hardware store and a department store on the same block were not.

Merchant Max R. Morris was the owner of Frank's Department Store, which to modern eyes looks more like a small variety store, at 712 Fourth St. SW. Morris protested the government's plan, which would call for the destruction of his business. He brought suit against the District, alleging the redevelopment act violated the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, which permits governments to take land only for public use. His lawyer, James C. Toomey, argued that giving the land to developers was an illegal private use. A three-judge federal court upheld the constitutionality of the Redevelopment Act, and Morris appealed his case to the Supreme Court.

Morris died before his case reached the high court, and his son-in-law, Samuel Berman, took his place in bringing the case. The case took Berman's name rather than Morris's.

The Supreme Court also ruled in the redevelopment agency's favor. In a sweeping opinion issued in December 1954, Justice William O. Douglas, writing for the majority, said the government has expansive power to intervene in land use issues to promote public health and economic well-being.

"The concept of the public welfare is broad and inclusive," Douglas wrote. "The values it represents are spiritual as well as physical, aesthetic as well as monetary. It is within the power of the legislature to determine that the community should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as well as clean, well balanced as well as carefully patrolled. In the present case, the Congress and its authorized agencies have made determinations that take into account a wide variety of values. It is not for us to reappraise them. If those who govern the District of Columbia decide that the nation's capital should be beautiful as well as sanitary, there is nothing in the Fifth Amendment that stands in the way."

The controversial era of urban economic redevelopment had begun.