page_title: New Haven, Connecticut
section_title: Post-industrial era and urban redevelopment
hierarchical_section_title: New Haven, Connecticut / History / Post-industrial era and urban redevelopment
caption_attribution_description: English: Picture of the New Haven Green looking northeast, from a "Souvenir Folder of New Haven". Captioned "The Green, New Haven, Conn."; eBay webpage shows picture of front of souvenir folder with September 2, 1919 postmark; creases in the picture visible; the picture appears to show three panels of an "8-panel view of 'THE GREEN'".
context_page_description: New Haven is a coastal city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut, and is part of the New York metropolitan area. With a population of 129,779 as determined by the 2010 United States Census, it is the second-largest city in Connecticut after Bridgeport. New Haven is the principal municipality of Greater New Haven, which had a total population of 862,477 in 2010.
  New Haven was the first planned city in America. A year after its founding by English Puritans in 1638, eight streets were laid out in a four-by-four grid, creating what is commonly known as the "Nine Square Plan". The central common block is the New Haven Green, a 16-acre square at the center of Downtown New Haven. The Green is now a National Historic Landmark, and the "Nine Square Plan" is recognized by the American Planning Association as a National Planning Landmark.
  New Haven is the home of Yale University. As New Haven's biggest taxpayer and employer, Yale serves as an integral part of the city's economy.
context_section_description: New Haven's expansion continued during the two World Wars, with most new inhabitants being African Americans from the American South and Puerto Ricans. The city reached its peak population after World War II. The area of New Haven is only 17 square miles (44 km²), encouraging further development of new housing after 1950 in adjacent, suburban towns. Moreover, as in other U.S. cities in the 1950s, New Haven began to suffer white flight of middle-class workers.  One author suggested that aggressive redlining and rezoning made it difficult for residents to obtain financing for older, deteriorating urban housing stock, thereby condemning such structures to deterioration.
  In 1954; then-mayor Richard C. Lee began some of the earliest major urban renewal projects in the United States. Certain sections of downtown New Haven were redeveloped to include museums, new office towers, a hotel, and large shopping complexes. Other parts of the city, particularly the Wooster Square and Fair Haven neighborhoods were affected by the construction of Interstate 95 along the Long Wharf section, Interstate 91, and the Oak Street Connector. The Oak Street Connector (Route 34), running between Interstate 95, downtown, and The Hill neighborhood, was originally intended as a highway to the city's western suburbs but was only completed as a highway to the downtown area, with the area to the west becoming a boulevard (See "Redevelopment" below).
  In 1970, a series of criminal prosecutions against various members of the Black Panther Party took place in New Haven, inciting mass protests on the New Haven Green involving twelve thousand demonstrators and many well-known New Left political activists. (See "Political Culture" below for more information).
  From the 1960s through the late 1990s, central areas of New Haven continued to decline both economically and in terms of population despite attempts to resurrect certain neighborhoods through renewal projects. In conjunction with its declining population, New Haven experienced a steep rise in its crime rate.
  Since approximately 2000, many parts of downtown New Haven have been revitalized with new restaurants, nightlife, and small retail stores. In particular, the area surrounding the New Haven Green has experienced an influx of apartments and condominiums. In recent years, downtown retail options have increased with the opening of new stores such as Urban Oufitters, J Crew, Origins, American Apparel, Gant Clothing, and an Apple Store, joining older stores such as Barnes & Noble and Raggs Clothing. In addition, two new supermarkets opened to serve downtown's growing residential population. A Stop & Shop opened just west of downtown, while Elm City Market, located one block from the Green, opened in 2011. The recent turnaround of downtown New Haven has received positive press from various periodicals.
  Major projects include the current construction of a new campus for Gateway Community College downtown, and also a 32-story, 500-unit apartment/retail building called 360 State Street. The 360 State Street project is now occupied and is the largest residential building in Connecticut.  A new boathouse and dock is planned for New Haven Harbor, and the linear park Farmington Canal Trail is set to extend into downtown New Haven within the coming year. Additionally, foundation and ramp work to widen I-95 to create a new harbor crossing for New Haven, with an extradosed bridge to replace the 1950s-era Q Bridge, has begun.  The city still hopes to redevelop the site of the New Haven Coliseum, which was demolished in 2007.
  In April 2009, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear a suit over reverse discrimination brought by 18 white firefighters against the city. The suit involved the 2003 promotion test for the New Haven Fire Department. After the tests were scored, no black firefighters scored high enough to qualify for consideration for promotion, so the city announced that no one would be promoted. In the subsequent Ricci v. DeStefano decision the court found 5-4 that New Haven's decision to ignore the test 
caption: The historic New Haven Green, ca. 1919
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