Resistance in Omaha
Neighborhoods
The neighborhoods that bordered Omaha’s central business district throughout the twentieth century were some of Omaha’s first residential neighborhoods. To the south and southwest of downtown resided predominantly white-ethnic, immigrant populations who worked in Omaha’s packing plants, stockyard, and railyards. These ethnic neighborhoods, portions of which laid in the Interstate’s path, formed the nexus of once-immigrant communities—neighborhood businesses, churches, and civic institutions that bound the community together.
Yet through the postwar era, Omaha’s ethnic neighborhoods lost population in light of booming housing developments along Omaha’s periphery, the displacement of homes through interstate construction, and the eventual erosion of urban industries. Together these processes encouraged a demographic shift away from “Old Omaha” and dramatically changed the urban environment and lives of those who remained in nearby neighborhoods. Older generations of white-ethnic, immigrant communities typically remained in these older districts while newer housing attracted subsequent generations who gradually their older neighborhoods.
In addition to the pull that new housing exerted on inner-city neighborhoods, external forces such as the Interstate, urban renewal, and eminent domain generated a reactionary mentality of “defensive localism” (Weir, 337-342) among those who remained that emphasized property owners’ and taxpayers’ rights and the defense of the home and neighborhood. Eminent domain jeopardized the family home, the symbol of financial stability and middle class life, and spurred numerous Omahans to actively oppose urban renewal and Interstate construction.
Omaha, like many similarly-sized industrial cities, was a strong immigrant city. While Omaha’s share of foreign-born people declined between 1900 and 1930—from 23 percent to 14 percent—almost half of Omaha’s population in 1920 was comprised of immigrants and their children (Larsen and Cottrell, 157-158). Although no ethnic group comprised a majority in any neighborhood larger than half a square mile during the first quarter of the twentieth century, many groups including Poles, Czechs, Italians, Jews and African Americans tended to form plurality districts in various Omaha neighborhoods (Chudacoff, 64-66). The first ethnic enclaves formed around the packing plant districts in South Omaha and the rail yards around downtown—Little Italy and Bohemia south of downtown, African Americans predominantly on the Near North Side, and Poles located southwest of Omaha’s central business district.
By the twentieth century, as America became an increasingly urbanized society, first generation immigrant families moved into the city and lived in growing ethnic neighborhoods close to the central business district. Many migrant laborers often took residence in boarding rooms or cramped apartments, and many families eventually purchased their own homes. Immigrant and ethnic communities tended to turn inward seeking people with similar cultures and creating tightly-knit ethnic neighborhoods. With urbanization, the neighborhood acquired greater importance and served as a “safe haven” that was “familiar, manageable in size, and [was] a refuge for face to face relations in an impersonal metropolitan world" (Chudacoff, v-vi). Here, ethnic immigrant communities created their own neighborhood institutions that shaped their lives. Local businesses and social clubs took root and neighborhood churches stood at the center of social and religious life.
Southwest of Omaha’s downtown resides the predominately Polish Catholic neighborhood, Sheelytown, a name adapted from the nearby Sheely Brothers Packing Company. This older neighborhood, located between 24th and 31st streets on the east and west and Hanscom Park and Frederick Street on the north and south, comprised a sizeable portion of the city’s blue-collar, Polish, Irish, and Czechs who worked in South Omaha's packing plants and stockyards. Omaha’s first Polish immigrants settled in this area in the late nineteenth century and labored at the nearby Sheely packing house. A smaller Polish district similar to Sheelytown—Little Poland—formed around 25th and 29th Streets and F and L Streets. Both communities gradually grew and expanded westward throughout the twentieth century.
Meatpacking, railroads, and livestock dominated Omaha's industry throughout much of the twentieth century. Since its founding, Omaha rapidly became a hub for railroad transportation, linking the Union Pacific Railroad to the greater American West and providing a point of access for farmers to ship their goods beyond Nebraska. Numerous packing plants developed in South Omaha and by the mid-twentieth century Omaha’s stockyards surpassed Chicago, becoming the largest in the nation.
The packing plants, railyards, and stockyards provided much of the low-skill and blue-collar jobs held by people in Omaha's older neighborhoods. These low-skilled, manual labor jobs offered strong and reliable income for immigrants and working-class citizens. These jobs offered reliable income for the largely white-ethnic families who resided on the periphery of Omaha’s downtown and industrial districts. Moreover, these jobs laid the foundation for families to accumulate wealth and save toward purchasing their own homes.
By the World War II era, plurality ethnic neighborhoods had become a staple of Omaha’s urban framework. Specific neighborhoods remained to some degree comprised of a particular ethnic group while older suburban neighborhoods on the west, such as Dundee, were less ethnically defined due to their wealthier composition. After the Second World War, however, housing subsidies, interstate highway construction, and shifts in employment patterns began to break down the ethnic divides between neighborhoods.
Like many postwar American cities, Omaha's territory grew enormously through suburbanization and aggressive annexation. The city expanded from 40.7 square miles in 1950 to more than 76.7 square miles by 1970 while its population increased from 251,117 in 1950 to 347,328 by 1970 (Daly-Badnarek, 288). Yet in terms of urban planning, Omaha is a unique case study compared to other postwar cities. Omaha did not fit the “large city models” of aging nineteenth-century industrial cities like New York, and it was not a ‘newer’ “Sunbelt town” experiencing rapid postwar growth such as Phoenix or Miami. It also was not a city with a rich planning tradition such as Boston or San Francisco. Unlike St. Louis, which was geographically confined by independent municipal suburbs, Omaha staved off confinement with aggressive annexation (Daly-Badnarek, 40). But Omaha was typical of many growing postwar cities that struggled to maintain their central business and industrial districts’ economic importance in the midst of rapid suburbanization, urban deindustrialization and dramatic investment in freeway infrastructure.