“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Urban renewal projects ripped up the homes of the poor and destroyed older established neighborhoods. This often involved social divisions, for the impoverished were a mixture of blacks and “lower-class” whites. The better off sat at city councils, however, and the displaced poor were not able to afford the new structures. Through various manipulations, all underground, they were kept out of the “better” neighborhoods.

Crises such as this provide spotlighted views of reality, in which what has been hidden is suddenly only too apparent. In many cases the poor were saved, for most of the old homes and apartment houses survived while the newer ranch-style homes could not stand the onslaught of the water. Yet the college [Elmira College] still found itself with many of the dispossessed needy at its doorstep. Women who had no stronger purpose than playing bridge ended up struggling for survival beside their more destitute sisters. Many of the poor who lost their living quarters discovered qualities of leadership in themselves that astonished them.