2 people have watched this webinar. How Immersive Oral Histories Can Shape The Future of Neighborhoods April 14, 2021 As a neighborhood gentrifies, newcomers rarely explore or address the needs of long-time residents who have lived there for years. In the late ’60s, for example, the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA), a neighborhood on the Lower East Side of New York City, existed in disarray. In 1967 most of the buildings in a 14-block radius were condemned, which resulted in the displacement of low-income residents, most of whom were people of color. Promises of new, affordable housing never came to fruition – developers were not interested in building these sorts of units. What resulted was 40 years of disuse and hostility regarding unfulfilled commitments and increasing gentrification.