Signed by President Truman in 1949, the act declared the goal of 'a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family' and, under Title I, funded local slum clearance and urban redevelopment. Cities could designate areas as blighted, use eminent domain to clear them and convey the land for redevelopment. In practice clearance often outran the construction of promised replacement housing, and projects displaced over a million people between 1949 and 1973, disproportionately African American. The programme became a byword for the destructive 'federal bulldozer'.
The act launched federal urban renewal, whose large-scale clearance reshaped and, critics argued, damaged many American inner cities.
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