Word: cra
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Credit must go to the CRA for keeping corruption but of renewal in Cambridge, no easy task in Massachusetts. It also organized the support of M.I.T, the city, the state, and the Federal government for the eminently successful Technology Square project and finished a smaller redevelopment program in Riverview...
...completed projects of the Authority very few people needed to be displaced or relocated; thus, the projects were essentially large business transactions. When the CRA moved into Donnelly, however, threatened to affect 337 families by levelling 93 privately owned buildings (most two and three story walk-ups). The CRA failed to realize that the approach used with the previous two projects was not going to work...
Apparently, the Authority did not expect any wide-spread opposition to its plans from people living in Donnelly. Since the CRA had merely a skeleton professional staff of five only token measures toward "communication and participation" with Donnelly were possible; very little CRA money was budgeted for getting grassroots support among the residents. The opposition which erupted at the public hearings took the CRA by surprise. Members of the CRA were quick to blame the resistance on a few rabblerousers, but the opposition reflected the way most of the people in Donnelly felt about the CRA project...
...CRA unwittingly organized this resistance by committing two early blunders. First, it hired off-duty firemen to inspect the buildings to determine if they met health and safety standards. The firemen were probably qualified to check building standards, but they could not answer the questions of anxious and frightened housewives about the renewal program itself. The question, "What's going to happen to my home and my family?" went unanswered...
Second, the CRA made a naive mistake when in its renewal plans it included refurbishments of the Irish Catholic Church in the area. Although Donnelly Field is almost all Catholic, the CRA did not know (perhaps because it did not take the trouble to find out) that the community is organized around two ethnic groups rather than a single religious one. The Donnelly Field Lithuanians accused the CRA of favoritism when nothing was planned for the Lithuanian Catholic Church. The plans were subsequently changed, but the insensitivity had permanently alienated most of the Lithuanians...