Urban Renewal Project

Albany is broken up into different neighborhoods. Park South is a neighborhood that is basically in the center of the city and holds a lot of historic and cultural significance. It is home to historic row-houses and a large variety of restaurants and stores. One of the biggest parks in the city is directly across from it and it borders the Downtown area. The neighborhood has a lot to offer but it has been acquiring a lot of low income families and college students throughout the past few years. This has caused it to get rougher and develop social issues like drugs, violence and other negative disturbances. Part of the renewal plan is to address these issues by renovating housing in the hopes of attracting higher income families and up-ing the homeownership. This will also help the businesses prosper because people won't worry about being in the area. The project will open up more space for businesses and fix the infrastructure because Park South contains some of the worst streets and sidewalks in Albany.

I'm not scared of the neighborhood but with the recent increase in random violence my mom wouldn't let me walk around and talk to people, even if she was with me. Instead I had to deal with people at the forefront of the project and gage community reactions from them. I talked to a lot of store owners but none of them had much to say, it seemed like they really didn't want to be talking to me. I was very disappointed because I was relying on community voice to make my story human but it is more of an informational piece with community voice in the background.