CY PLAN 113B Lecture 6: February 12
22 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Community & Economic Development in
Practice February 12, 2018
• Why Chicago?
o Reflective of the broader economic and demographic shifts confronting urban areas –
emblematic of urban areas for the past 30-40 years
o Modern urban sociology originated in Chicago; lots of research being done in Chicago
o Birthplace of the community development movement
• Chicago, the Black metropolis
o The destination of a significant movement of African Americans from the south
o Born on industrialization, which led to the transportation hub
o It became its own city within the city because of its vibrancy of the new immigrants; lots of
activity, housing, and entertainment that was segregated
o Strong cultural and business institutions that wanted to preserve this urban area
• Chicago is one of the most segregated city in the nation
o It is the neighborhoods in the South Side where modern community development gets its
start
• Historical evolution of community development
o Settlement houses and the progressive era
o Hull House (1889): first settlement house in the US; an idea of charity – women with times on
their homes that wanted to intervene in the conditions in the city
▪ Jane Addams paid for much of the capital expenses and operating costs
▪ Believed that intervention would have to include a community
▪ 13 building complex with playground and summer camp
o Influenced legislation on child labor laws, women’s suffrage, occupational health and safety,
workers’ compensation, compulsory education (people based intervention), immigration
rights, and pension laws
o Impact on urban planning and rise of “community” institutions (ie: first playground, library,
juvenile court)
o Public health interventions: housing, sanitation, and health
o Focus on the linkages between environment and behavior, women and children
o Settlement houses believed in the collection of data by using social surveys as a meaning to
understanding the “needs” of the poor community
o Chicago Area Project: you need the resident input in order to effectively provide solutions;
worked with youth to push against power structures
o Post WWII, large scale interventions in urban planning facilitate a “hollowing out” of cities,
exacerbate residential segregation, and coupled with the loss of jobs, create the “urban
crisis”
▪ Public housing, urban renewal, large highway projects, suburbanization, redlining
o Civil Rights Movement (1960s): urban crisis resulted from the loss of businesses/jobs and lots
of abandoned and vacant land/inadequate housing
▪ Organizing from work forces and businesses to protest
o Emergence of community development corporations (CDCs): begins with the Woodland
Organization
