How My Hometown’s Failed Urban Renewal Strategy Shaped Me As An Urbanist

One warm summer’s day in 1974, when I was a college kid interning as a cub reporter at what was then known as the Auburn Citizen-Advertiser, I left the paper’s new building on Dill Street in downtown Auburn, New York, and walked three blocks to the City Hall on South Street to cover a meeting of the City Council — or, to be technically accurate, the Auburn Urban Renewal Agency, or AURA, which was an offshoot of the council.

In my recollection, it was like traversing a war zone. As I walked down Dill Street…