Urban Renewal in Lockport, NY, Part 1: Setting the Stage, 1949 - 1961

By studying the timeline, what national events and/or societal shifts in the post-WWII era may have influenced the urban renewal movement in US cities? Using the inverted pyramid model of listing most important to least important, place the national events in order of significance. Separately, explain how events in Lockport NY paralleled those happening nationally? Urban Renewal in the United States had it roots in the industrialization boom and the migration of disenfranchised populations from the South to the cities of the North in post-World War II America. Affordable automobiles, the Interstate Highway Act of 1956, and the growth of shopping plazas/malls, adversely affected local stores in large cities. These circumstances were paralleled in Lockport NY and other cities in the federal push for Urban Renewal beginning in the 1950s.