How My Hometown Can Heal Its Urban Renewal Wounds

The Phoenix Building, formerly the Auburn Savings Bank, an iconic structure in Downtown Auburn, N.Y.

When I posted my essay about urban renewal in my hometown of Auburn, N.Y., back in October, I honestly thought I was just giving voice to something I’d felt for a long time: How urban renewal and construction of the arterial road through Auburn in the 1970s had created a kind of trauma for me and shaped my thinking as an urban planner.