“‘A Period Favorable to Economic Imperialists’: Railroads and the Hidden History of Slum Clearance in Cleveland, 1910–1930”

Abstract

Between 1910 and 1930, the Van Sweringen brothers of Cleveland, allied with many of Cleveland’s business leaders, undertook three railroad projects--including the nationally renown Union Terminal--that collectively displaced between 15 and 20,000 working class residents from two neighborhoods near downtown long believed to be slums. They also erased a significant portion of Cleveland’s oldest section of its downtown, and even dramatically altered the city’s food economy by reorienting the city’s produce district. This “hidden era” of slum clearance predates postwar urban renewal and indicates railroads may have had a greater role in urban redevelopment than previously thought.