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With the request for federal approval of highway location, the state is required to submit "conceptual" relocation assurances. These include a general description of the relocation problems to be expected. More detailed "right- of-way" assurances are mandatory at the time of federal approval of the proposed highway design. Normal property acquisition and relocation occurs after design approval, during the right-of-way stage. After all relocations have occurred, the highway department must affirm that displacement has conformed to federal regulations. The FHWA will not approve reimbursement for construction costs unless it determines that adequate relocation housing has been made available. In recent years, the time interval between federal approval of a highways' location_and demolition of the housing in the highway corridor has increased to eight or more years. The length of this planning process is to some degree the result of the "due process" involved in planning a highway so that it is responsive to public concerns. Any highway location decision is partially a product of a political process. It constitutes a decision that certain members of the cor~aunity must bear sacrifices for the benefit of all. Thus a series of hearing and review procedures have been established to ensure that all relevant views have been considered in planning the highway. Any ~runcation of this planning process will make the ultimate highway design less responsive to the public. However, a lengthy planning process has serious consequences for those living in the highway corridor. The corridor approved for an urban expressway is usually about 300 feet wide. Those living within this corridor know that they will probably be evicted by the highway. But they are never quite sure. Even if they are not eventually displaced, the highway location decision can have irmnediate and serious effects on residents in the corridor area. Such effects were succinctly described by one court: As a practical matter, there is no longer an open market for the property in the corridor; there is only one potential buyer, the state. The inevitable effect is a lessening of the property owner's motivation to maintain his property and a depressing effect upon property values and the general physical, economic, and social tone of the area . . In response to such problems caused by the lengthy highway planning process the FHWA has allowed state highway departments to undertake "hardship acquisi- tions.'' This device ip designed to aid property owners in the designated high- way corridor pz~o~ to no~l acquisition. After obtaining the approval of the FHWA, the state highway department may buy the property at the request of the owner and then demolish it. Although the owner's sale is voluntary in theory it may be near-compulsory fn practice. He knows that the state will ultimately resort to its power of eminent domain if a sale is not negotiated. He knows that some owners will seek to escape with as much as they can rather than hang on in a neighborhood disintegrating as a result of a proposed highway corridor. Once this process begins on a significant scale, it acquires its own momentum, and may foster a sophisticated form of blockbusting. There will be some instances where genuine hardships justify advance acquisition by the state. However, under present practices, hardship acquisi- tions may occur without benefit of full relocation assurances. The "conceptual" III-8