As BRA Seeks To Extend Urban Renewal Powers, Exhibit Looks At Controversial Past

As Boston’s building boom continues, its development agency wants to extend its urban renewal powers through the next decade.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority says the program “allows the BRA certain tools to catalyze development.” But the BRA has a controversial history with urban renewal. In the 1950s and ’60s, 41 acres of the West End were infamously razed in the name of urban renewal, having been designated blighted areas home to slums, according to the project plan.