Summit-University is a neighborhood in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States, that stretches roughly from University Avenue in the north, Lexington Parkway to the west, Summit Avenue to the south and to the east along John Ireland Boulevard, Kellogg Boulevard and Marion Street.

Rondo was the center of Saint Paul's African-American community since the Civil War, but was broken apart by the construction of Interstate 94 in the 1960s.

The great mansions along Summit Avenue and Crocus Hill declined somewhat but were not subdivided allowed to decay as were similar areas in many American cities.

The Saint Paul Pioneer Press claimed the Hill District was the “largest solid home community” in the country in the early 1930s.

Since the 1880s, Saint Paul's small black community had lived along the railroad corridors slightly north of Summit-University.

Expansion to the north was effectively blocked by the rail corridor, and the dislocations of the Eastern and Western redevelopment projects and freeway construction in the 1950s and 1960s drove African Americans into parts of the Summit-University neighborhood.

Planners, politicians and residents knew that Summit-University needed help, and considered urban renewal the answer.

[10] For more than a decade, major problems plagued renewal efforts in Summit-University despite the city's and residents’ determination to improve the area.

During the years of decline, the Summit-University acquired a number of social agencies including the Hallie W. Brown Community Center, and local chapters of the Urban League and the NAACP, that continued to play an important part in the life and health of the area.

The Dale-Selby Action Council, for example, formed in the early 1960s to protest HRA plans to construct a public high rise for the elderly on the abandoned Neill School site on the corner of Laurel and Farrington.

The HRA built the high rise despite the protest but the organization survived and formed one core of resident power.

Cathedral I had a specific client, the Saint Paul School Board, which proposed an unusual method of renewal.

The board was looking for a site for a technical school, so the HRA clear an area alongside the Saint Paul Cathedral.

The federal officials felt that the HRA was unable to handle more projects until the Eastern and Western redevelopments were complete.

In 1966, an impressive covey of Saint Paul business, religious, labor, and governmental notables made a trip to Washington D.C. to lobby for approval.

[14] But the divisions of the last decade had not been healed by the mission to Washington, D.C., and another legislative change provided a powerful mechanism for resident activism.

The considerable public expenditures during and after renewal formed the base for gentrification and rehabilitation in this area, and the city is still investing in it.

A 1984 WTCN broadcast video, “Nuthin’s the Same Anymore: The Gentrification of a Neighborhood,” though not a balanced view of renewal poignantly evoke the resentments and fears of many black residents.

The HRA did extensive house moving within the district to promote its historic ambience – an innovation that troubled HUD auditors for years.

Forced on city planners by neighborhood activists, the mall suffered the perennial problem of finding suitable tenants.

[20] The destruction of the Rondo neighborhood in the 1960s through the construction of 1-94 was the focus of Josh Wilder's play "The Highwaymen", which was directed by Jamil Jude and performed at the History Theater in February 2016.