urban renewal

Beginning in the 1960s, the San Antonio Urban Renewal Agency acquired property across a 92-acre area southeast of downtown. Homes, businesses, churches, and other community spaces were purchased or acquired through eminent domain as the land was assembled and cleared for the fair.

This was part of a much larger era of urban renewal in the United States. With federal support, cities identified areas considered “blighted” and used redevelopment programs, including eminent domain, to acquire and clear property for highways, civic projects, commercial development, and other plans intended to modernize American cities. In San Antonio, urban renewal made it possible to assemble the large, continuous site necessary for Hemisfair.

But the administrative language of urban renewal can obscure what happened at the scale of everyday life. Properties were not simply parcels on a map. They were houses where families had lived, businesses people depended upon, churches where communities gathered, and streets where children played. More than 1,600 people were displaced from the Hemisfair site. Some property owners accepted compensation and relocated, while others challenged aspects of the acquisition process.

As the city transformed the memory of what came before would fade, not only individually but collectively. Streets are rerouted. Addresses cease to exist. Landmarks are replaced. Generations pass. Eventually, the event built on top of a place can become more familiar than the place that preceded it.

Today, the Tower of the Americas makes Hemisfair immediately recognizable in San Antonio’s landscape. The neighborhood that stood beneath that history is much harder to see.