Mapping Urban Fracture:

The "Livestock Show" neighborhood was located just north of W. Roosevelt Road, directly across from the Arkansas State Fairgrounds and immediately east of Roselawn Cemetery. The neighborhood was almost entirely comprised of Black, working class families. In 1958, it was identified by the City of Little Rock as a prime site for urban renewal due to the high number of homes classified as deteriorating or substandard.

The Housing Authority of the City of Little Rock identified several such urban renewal sites, as shown in the web map below. General areas designated as "blighted" or "slums" are shown in orange. Areas identified as specific urban renewal projects are shown with cross-hatched patterns.

Clicking on each of the former homes reveals information about the former homeowner and classification status of each home as part of the Housing Authority of the City of Little Rock's plan for Urban Renewal of this neighborhood. This web-map and associated database is expandable, allowing for the inclusion of new information about former residents.

Below is a working collection of Census documents that can be used by students to verify the addresses and personal information of former occupants of homes in the "Livestock Show" neighborhood. These documents are useful for fleshing out the lives of the former residents of this community. They can also be used to aid in the process of tracing patterns of relocation that resulted from the clearing of the southern third of the site. While the 1960 Census won't be released for general use until 2032, other possible sources include death certificates and the City Directory.

Students can also use the associated records to generate individual narratives for former residents and other individuals associated with the neighborhood, including landowners who had already migrated out of state by the time the urban renewal plan was developed (e.g., Amos P. Kidd, and musician Georgia Ann Laster, whose parents were still listed as propery holders in the neighborhood in 1958) to those properties owned and managed by white real estate agents (e.g., Claudia Berthe).

The CAHC collection includes many maps and planning documents associated with the various "urban renewal" projects that were implemented. The web map and static map above were reproduced using the Housing Authority of the City of Little Rock's plan for the "Livestock Show area". Students can be taught how to use ArcGIS Pro and QGIS to georeference historic maps for web usage, edit features like roads and housing boundaries, build spatial databases, embed geotagged images of sites, etc.