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Remembering communities destroyed by redevelopment means treating historical memory, resident authority, and material repair as part of the project—not as decoration added after construction. Cities can add housing, parks, and infrastructure without repeating the erasure caused by redlining, urban renewal, and highway building, but only when people from affected communities help decide what is documented, built, funded, and maintained.
The approach described as remembrance design combines historical research with community-led public design. Examples in Greenville, Raleigh, Vancouver, and Seattle show different ways to make displaced neighborhoods visible. They also show why a plaque alone is insufficient: a credible project preserves records and stories, gives descendants decision-making power, and addresses cultural, social, and economic needs alongside physical change.
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Why can city growth erase a community?
Redevelopment erases a community when the physical replacement of homes and institutions is accompanied by the loss of the relationships, businesses, cultural practices, and public history that made the place identifiable. The American Society of Landscape Architects’ 2019 account links this pattern to redlining, urban renewal, and highway construction. Redlining systematically restricted investment in particular neighborhoods; later clearance programs could then portray those same neighborhoods as deteriorated or expendable.
Infrastructure can make the rupture permanent. When a road, viaduct, stadium, or redevelopment superblock replaces a neighborhood, former residents may lose not only a building but also a church, social club, corner store, school route, and informal support network. Sociologist Mindy Thompson Fullilove calls the resulting disruption “root shock,” a term the ASLA article uses to describe damage to neighborhood networks. Repeated moves can become serial displacements, making it harder for families to maintain a shared place and for later generations to find their history.
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The 2019 article reports Kofi Boone’s estimate that some 200 communities had been “renewed,” meaning displaced. That is an article-reported estimate, not a current verified count. Boone also cited a 2019 comparison of average family wealth—$122,000 for a white family, $1,600 for a Latinx family, and $1,300 for an African American family. The article does not establish the original dataset or year for those figures, so they should be read as Boone’s attributed figures rather than current national statistics. The broader point remains practical for construction: displacement can remove assets and opportunities that are difficult to replace with a single capital project.
Vancouver’s official planning record provides a concrete example. The City describes Hogan’s Alley as an informal name for an area that included a significant African-Canadian population and other immigrant communities. Homes were removed beginning in 1967 for the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts, after years of city actions that weakened and displaced the neighborhood. The Northeast False Creek Refined Area Plan documents that context.
What is remembrance design?
Remembrance design is a process that researches removed or destroyed places and turns those histories into community-led public memory and design. It can include a park, interpretive landscape, restored naming, archive, public art, cultural facility, housing commitment, or a combination of these. The physical form matters, but the process matters more: affected people should have authority over the story and the priorities.
Zena Howard of Perkins + Will describes the distinction directly: “Discovery is not just community engagement — it is the process.” In the same ASLA article, she says, “Curiosity about the past can drive a process of remembrance.” Those statements reject the common sequence in which a project team makes the major decisions, schedules a late listening session, and treats community comments as an optional design layer.
Kenneth Luker, also with Perkins + Will, defines remembrance design as “a process that can tell the story of historically disenfranchised and negatively impacted communities. This is the way to reconcile with the past and use history to create an inclusive future.” Boone adds a governance test: “the most historically disenfranchised communities should have the loudest voice.” For a construction project, that means participation must be tied to authority—such as paid advisory roles, approval points, co-ownership of interpretation, and enforceable commitments—not merely attendance at meetings.
How should a construction or planning team begin?
Start with the history and the people, before fixing a final site plan. The following sequence can be adapted to a building, infrastructure corridor, park, or district plan.
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- Define the affected geography. Map the original neighborhood, institutions, property lines, streets, and relocation destinations. Include areas altered by earlier disinvestment, not only the parcel being rebuilt.
- Build a shared record. Review planning files, maps, photographs, newspapers, oral histories, cemetery and church records, business directories, and family collections. Pay residents and local historians for expertise, and agree on how sensitive material will be stored and displayed.
- Give affected people decision rights. Create a representative group with descendants, former residents, cultural organizations, tenants, and nearby residents. Set out which decisions require its consent, which are advisory, and how disagreements will be resolved.
- Translate memory into the site. Use names, paths, building footprints, landscape elements, art, exhibits, digital archives, and programming to show what stood there. Explain what was removed, by whom, and under which policy; avoid vague language that makes displacement sound inevitable.
- Pair interpretation with material benefit. Consider affordable or social housing, space for cultural businesses, meeting rooms, vendor opportunities, jobs, scholarships, or land and revenue commitments. A memorial that accelerates another round of displacement is internally contradictory.
- Label every commitment by status. Distinguish completed work from funded work, a proposal, a policy goal, or an idea still under discussion. Publish a schedule, responsible party, budget source, and maintenance plan for each item.
- Plan stewardship after opening. Fund interpretation updates, repairs, programming, and community governance for the life of the project. Memory changes as new evidence and testimony emerge, so the design should allow additions and corrections.
What do the case studies show?
Sycamore Hill Gateway Plaza, Greenville, North Carolina
The ASLA article describes Sycamore Hill as a once-vibrant African American community displaced by urban renewal. Sycamore Hill Baptist Church was destroyed by fire, and Perkins + Will worked with community members on a gateway plaza at the church’s former site. The article describes a one-acre park with a tower, benches, and historical interpretation.
The lesson is not simply that a tower can symbolize a lost landmark. The project connects a specific institution, a documented neighborhood, and a public route into a civic setting. A builder working on a similar site should ask whether the landscape helps visitors understand the former street pattern and social life, rather than presenting an abstract monument with no names or chronology. These details come from the 2019 article and should not be assumed to describe the plaza’s present condition without a current local source.
Freedom Park, Raleigh, North Carolina
The article presents Raleigh’s Freedom Park as a one-acre park designed with community participation to make African American histories and contributions visible in a symbolic civic setting. It attributes the concept and description to Michael Stevenson and notes architect Phil Freelon’s involvement.
Freedom Park illustrates how remembrance can be integrated into an everyday public space instead of isolated in a traditional memorial. Its value depends on whose histories are represented, how visitors encounter them, and whether programming keeps the place connected to living communities. When adapting this model, teams should budget for interpretation and events as part of the park’s operating plan, not as an unfunded opening-day feature.
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Hogan’s Alley, Vancouver
Hogan’s Alley was an informal name for a Vancouver area known largely for its African-Canadian population and also home to other immigrant communities. The City says homes were removed beginning in 1967 to build the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts. Cynthia Lau, a planner with the City, is quoted in the ASLA article saying, “In the process, the community was displaced and erased from history.”
This example shows why a project must address both physical loss and narrative loss. The story is not that a highway merely passed through an empty site; it is that public decisions removed homes and then failed to preserve the community’s place in the city’s account. Any interpretation should name the policies and institutions involved while recognizing the different experiences of Black residents and other immigrant groups.
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Hing Hay Park, Seattle
The ASLA article describes a Chinese American community organization’s advocacy for a more culturally resonant public space at Hing Hay Park. The redesign included room for night markets, linking the park’s physical form to a living social and economic practice.
The useful construction insight is to design for activities residents already value. Space for vendors, electrical service, storage, shade, seating, loading, and evening access can support cultural events more effectively than a symbolic object alone. The article’s project description was not independently checked here for current status, so treat it as a source for the design example rather than a statement about present-day operations.
What is happening with Hogan’s Alley now?
Hogan’s Alley is an ongoing cultural-redress process, not a completed redevelopment. The City of Vancouver reports that council approved a memorandum of understanding with the Hogan’s Alley Society concerning public benefits and amenities on the 898 Main Street block. The City says negotiations and detailed business, financial, and development planning remain part of the next stages.
Current work also includes community activation and events near Nora Hendrix Place, according to the City’s reconciliation and cultural-redress update. These activities matter because they let the community use and shape the site while permanent decisions are still being developed. Temporary activation should not be presented as proof that the long-term project is finished, but it can create relationships, test programming, and keep the history visible.
The City’s urban-design guidance for Northeast False Creek describes proposed features including a cultural centre, culturally centered retail and food, public space organized around Hogan’s Alley, and a target of 300 social-housing units. Those are policy and planning goals, not evidence that every feature has been built or that a final delivery date exists. A responsible article, bid document, or public presentation should label them as proposed and link to the City’s current information.
How can a project avoid repeating displacement?
Use a decision framework that tests power, memory, benefit, and durability together. A project can score well on one dimension and still fail overall.
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| Question | Evidence to request | Construction or planning response |
|---|---|---|
| Who sets priorities? | Names, roles, compensation, voting rights, and meeting records for community representatives | Put authority and escalation rules in the project charter and contracts. |
| What was lost? | Maps, oral histories, institutional records, photographs, and relocation accounts | Reflect the former geography and named places in plans, signage, and digital records. |
| Who benefits now? | Housing, commercial, cultural, employment, and access commitments with funding sources | Attach measurable benefits to approvals, leases, procurement, and operating budgets. |
| What is actually delivered? | Status labels, schedule, budget, owner, and maintenance responsibility for each feature | Separate built, funded, proposed, and unresolved items in every public update. |
| Can the work endure? | Stewardship agreement, replacement budget, programming plan, and process for corrections | Fund maintenance and give the community a continuing role after completion. |
This framework also improves ordinary project controls. It identifies scope that might otherwise disappear during value engineering, clarifies who can approve a change to interpretation, and makes cultural commitments visible in procurement and closeout documents. If a design element is removed to save money, the team should disclose the decision and its effect on the community’s agreed priorities.
What should builders do differently on the ground?
Contractors and subcontractors influence whether remembrance survives the transition from concept to finished work. Protect historic features and artifacts during demolition; create a chain of custody for objects and records; coordinate with community historians before removing names or landscape elements; and sequence work so events and temporary access can continue where the community wants them.
Construction documents can require culturally appropriate materials, artist coordination, interpretive text review, local or community-approved vendors, and training for site staff who will explain the project to visitors. Procurement can include apprenticeships, small-business participation, and paid cultural-consultant roles, provided those commitments are lawful, funded, and monitored rather than aspirational.
Design teams should also anticipate practical use. A market or cultural gathering needs power, water, lighting, waste collection, storage, weather protection, accessible routes, and loading space. A memorial that cannot support the events named in its concept will quickly become a static object. Operations staff should be involved before construction documents are issued, and the community should be able to adjust programming as needs change.
How should a city communicate an incomplete project?
Use precise status language and dates. Say that a feature is “proposed,” “under negotiation,” “funded,” “under construction,” or “open,” and identify the source and date. Vancouver’s Hogan’s Alley work demonstrates why this matters: official pages document an MOU, activation, and planning goals while also stating that further negotiations and development planning remain.
Do not convert a 2019 description into a present-tense claim without checking a current official source. The Sycamore Hill, Freedom Park, and Hing Hay Park details in the ASLA article are historical examples as reported in 2019; their current condition, programming, or ownership may have changed. Clear qualification protects the community from having its history frozen in an outdated project narrative.
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What should cities do next?
Cities should make remembrance an ordinary part of capital planning, not an exceptional response after controversy. Before approving major redevelopment, require a displacement and history assessment, a community authority plan, a benefits budget, and a stewardship commitment. During design and construction, publish what has changed and why. After opening, measure whether descendants and current residents can still live, work, gather, and tell their own stories in the area.
Growth and memory are not competing objectives. A new building or infrastructure project can repair a broken public record when it preserves evidence, names responsibility, and returns decision-making power and tangible benefit to people who were pushed aside. If it only places a plaque beside another displacement, it has remembered the past without learning from it.
For background on the term and the four examples, read Jared Green’s ASLA article on remembering communities displaced by urban growth. For Vancouver’s history and current planning, consult the City’s Northeast False Creek plan, Hogan’s Alley project page, and updates on cultural redress.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can a small construction project include remembrance design?
Begin with a paid local-history review and a short oral-history process, then reserve a defined portion of the site and budget for names, interpretation, or a community-selected use. A small project can also preserve a street name, commission local artists, or fund an archive rather than attempting an oversized monument.
What if community members disagree about which history to present?
Document the disagreement instead of forcing a single story. Use a representative governance group, publish the evidence behind each interpretation, and create space for multiple accounts; an honest account of conflict is more credible than a polished narrative that excludes dissent.
Can temporary events count as cultural redress?
They can contribute when the community controls the program, receives appropriate resources, and the events are connected to longer-term commitments. Temporary activation is not a substitute for housing, land, cultural facilities, or governance, and it should never be described as a completed permanent redevelopment.
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Where should a project team look for evidence about a displaced neighborhood?
Combine public records with community-held sources: planning and transportation files, historic maps, newspapers, church and business records, photographs, family papers, and oral histories. Ask permission before publishing sensitive material, compensate contributors, and preserve copies in an archive the community can access.
