<P> Large scale urban renewal projects in the US started in the interwar period . Prototype urban renewal projects include the design and construction of Central Park in New York and the 1909 Plan for Chicago by Daniel Burnham . Similarly, the efforts of Jacob Riis in advocating for the demolition of degraded areas of New York in the late 19th century was also formative . The redevelopment of large sections of New York City and New York State by Robert Moses between the 1930s and the 1970s was a notable and prominent example of urban redevelopment . Moses directed the construction of new bridges, highways, housing projects, and public parks . </P> <P> Other cities across the USA began to create redevelopment programs in the late 1930s and 1940s . These early projects were generally focused on slum clearance and were implemented by local public housing authorities, which were responsible both for clearing slums and for building new affordable housing . In 1944, the GI Bill (officially the Serviceman's Readjustment Act) guaranteed Veterans Administration (VA) mortgages to veterans under favorable terms, which fueled suburbanization after the end of World War II, as places like Levittown, New York, Warren, Michigan and the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles were transformed from farmland into cities occupied by tens of thousands of families in a few years . </P> <P> The Housing Act of 1949 provided federal loans to cities to acquire and clear slum areas to be sold to private developers to redevelop in accordance with a plan prepared by the city (normally with new housing), and grants to cover two - thirds of the portion of the city's costs in excess of the sale prices received from the developers . The phrase used at the time was "urban redevelopment". "Urban renewal" was a phrase popularized with the passage of the Housing Act of 1954, which made these projects more enticing to developers by, among other things, providing FHA - backed mortgages . </P> <P> Under the powerful influence of multimillionaire R.K. Mellon, Pittsburgh became the first major city to undertake a modern urban - renewal program in May 1950 . Pittsburgh was infamous around the world as one of the dirtiest and most economically depressed cities, and seemed ripe for urban renewal . A large section of downtown at the heart of the city was demolished, converted to parks, office buildings, and a sports arena and renamed the Golden Triangle in what was universally recognized as a major success . Other neighborhoods were also subjected to urban renewal, but with mixed results . Some areas did improve, while other areas, such as East Liberty and the Hill District, declined following ambitious projects that shifted traffic patterns, blocked streets to vehicular traffic, isolated or divided neighborhoods with highways, and removed large numbers of ethnic and minority residents . An entire neighborhood was destroyed (to be replaced by the Civic Arena), displacing 8000 residents (most of whom were poor and black). </P>

What were the goals of urban renewal following world war ii