M. Justin Herman facts for kids

M. Justin Herman (died 1971) was an American public administrator. From 1951 to 1959 he was head of the regional office of the Housing and Home Finance Agency in San Francisco, California. From 1959 until his death in 1971 he was head of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency. Under his administration, large areas of the city were redeveloped; thousands of residents, many of them poor and non-white, were forced to leave their homes and businesses.

Career

Herman was appointed executive director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency by George Christopher in April 1959. He was an experienced administrator with significant connections in the federal government and an extensive knowledge of urban redevelopment. He had the support of the Bay Area Council, of the Blyth-Zellerbach Committee and of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Renewal Association. He greatly expanded the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, from about 60 employees before he took office to 462 shortly after his death.

Herman was responsible for the redevelopment, in two phases, of the Western Addition and for the transformation of Geary Street into Geary Boulevard. In the second phase of the Western Addition project, 10,000 people were displaced and more than 60 city blocks cleared by 1970. The agency also aggressively acquired land in Chinatown, the Golden Gateway, the port area, South of Market and the Tenderloin, expropriating poor people from those areas.

Herman died of a heart attack in 1971.