Could a bold anti-poverty experiment from the 1960s inspire a new era in housing justice?

Model Cities staff in front of a Baltimore field office in 1971. Robert Breck Chapman Collection, Langsdale Library Special Collections, University of Baltimore , CC BY-NC-ND

by Deyanira Nevárez Martínez , Michigan State University

In cities across the U.S., the housing crisis has reached a breaking point . Rents are skyrocketing, homelessness is rising and working-class neighborhoods are threatened by displacement.

These challenges might feel unprecedented. But they echo a moment more than half a century ago.

In the 1950s and 1960s, housing and urban inequality were at the center of national politics. American cities were grappling with rapid urban decline, segregated and substandard housing , and the fallout of highway construction and urban renewal projects that displaced hundreds o