Students and the Second Ghetto: Federal Legislation, Urban Politics, and Campus Planning at the University of Chicago

Abstract

In the years after World War II, the University of Chicago (U of C) enjoyed a position as a leader in higher education with the ability to help provide for national economic growth and global security through professional education and scientific research. It also faced a dramatically changing set of neighborhood conditions that threatened its leadership status. University administrators pursued an ambitious agenda of redevelopment and neighborhood management in South East Chicago in order to fight a wave of racial transition. In doing so, the university formed and led a coalition of top urban universities that shared real estate practices and helped create federal policy that made universities integral parts of urban renewal initiatives in the 1960s. This effort to create, manage, and redevelop housing, including student housing, provoked strident opposition from the student body and set the emerging New Left against the university in an early salvo of the student movement.

Beyond Town and Gown: Universities, Territoriality and the Mobilization of New Urban Structures in Canada

“…Evidence across numerous national contexts has indicated that replicating the experience of successful regions in other cities and universities is no simple matter (POWER and MALMBERG, 2008;ISAKSEN and KARLSEN, 2010;TOMANEY and WRAY, 2011). In the United States, for example, major research universities including Chicago, Berkeley, Harvard and Johns Hopkins only have a marginal stimulative impact on their immediate local economies; apart from that indirectly generated by salaries, general expenditures, and sourcing dynamics (RUTHERFORD and HOLMES, 2008, p. 250;WINLING, 2011). We argue there is a need to broaden our analytical, empirical and geographic focus.…”

The University, Neighborhood Revitalization, and Civic Engagement: Toward Civic Engagement 3.0

“…These events ignited the era of long, hot summers of violent urban rebellions in the United States. Over the next four years, hundreds of urban rebellions occurred as Black Power supplanted the Civil Rights Movement as the engine driving the African American freedom struggle [108,115,116].…”

Neighborhood Revitalization and the Anchor Institution

“…Meanwhile, university investments in slum clearance fundamentally changed the fabric of neighborhoods, often resulting in three outcomes (Carriere 2011;Winling 2011). First, universities and cities alike viewed the program as an opportunity to "clean house," clearing away physical, social, and economic blight in the name of "improvement" (Teaford 2000;Winling 2011). Broad displacement and demolition frequently preceded the development of new university facilities, including libraries, dorms, and laboratories.…”

“…The anchor institution literature, to date, largely favors universitycommunity engagement and revitalization strategies. Many articles criticize the legacy of universities-and other institutions-in urban neighborhoods, but those critiques are primarily set in Urban Renewal (e.g., Carriere 2011;Pritchett 2003;Teaford 2000;Winling 2011). In contrast, there are few critical assessments of recent university investments in neighborhoods (e.g., Etienne 2012).…”