When People Are Forced To Move

A recently completed study 1 supported by a Social Security Administration research grant examined the economic, social, and psychological impact of forced relocation upon families displaced by urban renewal. A secondary purpose was to evaluate the effectiveness of a local urban renewal agency in mitigating some of the negative effects anticipated in the relocation process. The presence of two major reconstruction projects on adjacent sites in downtown Topeka provided the opportunity to compare experiences of persons displaced by urban renewal with those displaced by an interstate highway project. Only the former group received counseling and assistance through the urban renewal agency. Two samples of voluntary movers in the Topeka area were selected as control groups for the study. The racial composition of the samples were comparable in that each included roughly the same proportion of Negro families (22-30 percent). However, only the urban renewal group contained a large number of Mexican-American families (21 percent). The urban renewal population was also somewhat older and less educated and contained more low-income families and fewer married couples than the other groups. As might be expected the urban renewal group lived in the poorest and least costly housing. In examining the geographical distribution of the samples after relocation, the study found that the families in the urban renewal group were the most likely to remain within a mile of their former homes. This was especially true for the Mexican-Americans who tended to remain within close proximity to their former church and shopping area. White families tended to move the farthest from their former homes. However, with income differentials taken into account, the whit.e families from the urban renewal sample were less likely to move to more distant outlying areas of