For years, Tidewater Gardens has been home to one of the region’s highest concentrations of public housing, in which people live in 1950s-era buildings that no longer meet modern building standards. With a large portion of Tidewater Gardens built over an old creek bed, the area floods regularly, a problem worsened by crumbling infrastructure. Most importantly, the current community configuration creates a concentrated zone of poverty, segregation and crime that has defined the area for decades — a living, breathing geographical barrier that continues the cycle of poverty and results in physical, social and economic isolation, despite being right at the doorstep to Downtown Norfolk.