The invocation of culture and civilization is common to all colonizing projects. Colonizers claim superior culture and humanity to justify the suppression and removal of subjects deemed less civilized and thus less human. This was no different in 1960s Newark, where urban planners used the language of high culture to demote and delegitimize existing populations.

Even a humanist like Mason Gross, philosophy professor and President of Rutgers Uinversity, placed his idealism into the service of exclusion. While he deplored the deep cultural silence of the suburbs and the alienated atomization of a vacuous consumer society, his definition of cultural renewal for cities like Newark was rooted in a vision of European culture as superior, allowing him to claim that New Jersey was culturally bankrupt despite the rich cultural efflorescence in Newark’s African American community. The city’s urban planners, developers, and think tanks like the Urban Land Institute seized on these tropes of superior culture to justify the clearance of existing minority families based on their supposed lack of aesthetic sensibility, covering over urban renewal’s actual, far more venal goals: the desire for economic expansion and profit.

The quotes below show how culture and clearance were intertwined in public documents in Newark’s urban renewal. They are represented on sound map 1 on the bottom left, and form a counterpoint to the voices of local community members which detail a rich culture of sound.

“To meet the great need for urban renewal within the foreseeable future, the Newark program must be large. Projects must be large to avoid being overwhelmed by surrounding blight and to justify the lengthy procedure of a complicated process. The program must advance simultaneously on many fronts. - 1

It would appear then, that blight is closely attached to aesthetic appearance and by multiplication of component parts – to that of a neighborhood and community. If the visual impression evokes no comment, criticism, objection, or revulsion, then it can be reasoned that an aesthetic receptivity is absent. - 2

And this offense is an affront to the human appreciation of and need for aesthetic order, harmony and balance. - 2

What is being measured is the extent to which the community, in its institutions, its investments, and its communal behavior, publicly and expressly fosters and cherishes these cultural values. - 3

But when the workday is over, and between 300,000 and 400,000 in-migrant workers desert Newark for their suburban sanctuaries, the city becomes a place bereft of culture and interest. - 4

A society without culture is a society without either a mind or a soul, a society which tends to man’s physical desires only while his wits become dull and his feelings are desensitized. In such a society there is no joy in living and no tragedy in dying. - 3

Let’s face it – if New Jersey is educationally impoverished and in debt, she is culturally almost bankrupt. - 3

I may be ignoring some local activities, but in general it seems true to say that there is no legitimate theater and even very little popular theater except for the summer reruns; there is absolutely no opera and no ballet; most of the efforts at symphonic music fall far short of professional standards, and there is no effort at publicly supported chamber music. Exhibitions of first quality of painting or sculpture are at a minimum, and even local shows designed to encourage genuine developing talent are few and far between. - 3

Beauty, harmony, and visual satisfaction are elements which an urban renewal program should consciously introduce into residential and other types of neighborhoods. - 5

Because of its key location only 15 minutes from midtown or downtown Manhattan, the Newark Plaza will appeal to businesspeople who are exhausted by subway rush hours or who have become tired of suburban living. It will provide its residents with all the conveniences of “close-in” living, including proximity to transportation, good theater, art galleries, museums and music. - 6

In the last analysis, the future of cities depends on the behavior of people. Everyone must stop on a red light. - 1

Mapmaker: Eva Giloi
Posted 5/2/2023