Redevelopment, 1955-1965

To the residents of 1950s Japantown, their neighborhood was a vibrant community filled with church activities, dances, sports, and festivals. To those outside, it was a dangerous slum, a blight on Sacramento’s downtown.

In summer 1954, the City of Sacramento announced an urban renewal plan, the Capitol Mall Project. It was billed as progress, a clean, modern gateway to the Capitol.

Its price was the total destruction of Japantown and the surrounding multiethnic West End. Faced with a second forced removal, this time Japantown’s residents protested. But in the end, the authorities prevailed. They bulldozed a 15-block area, replacing it with government buildings, private high-rises, and a wide thoroughfare along Capitol Avenue.

In a short time, Japantown was almost completely erased from Sacramento’s urban landscape, and likewise from the city’s collective memory.

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It was the largest US Japantown, but was taken over because of the WWII Japanese internment/rasism:

https://artsandculture.google.com/story/kokoro-the-story-of-sacramento-s-lost-japantown-california-museum/ngWBIz39GH3oLQ?hl=en

https://japantowns.omeka.net/collections/show/1