Definition
Title I of the Housing Act of 1949 was the federal program under which the U.S. government paid local agencies to assemble urban land — by eminent domain — clear it of existing buildings, and resell it at a write-down to private developers. The official goal was slum clearance and replacement housing; the actual outputs varied wildly by city and program administrator.
In New York, Robert Moses was the local Title I administrator. He used the program to assemble vast parcels in Manhattan and the outer boroughs, demolish working-class neighborhoods, and steer the cleared sites to favored developers, frequently at terms generous enough to draw federal investigation.
Why it matters
How it works
A program that pays one party to demolish neighborhoods and another to redevelop the cleared land creates an irresistible incentive to define existing neighborhoods as substandard. The local administrator chooses the boundary; the federal government writes the check; the displaced residents have no veto and very weak relocation rights.
Combine that incentive structure with an administrator who controls land assembly, demolition contracts, and developer selection — and there is no internal check. The model worked at scale until federal investigators began to ask why so many cleared sites went to so few developers, on terms so favorable to them.