CHICAGO: MAP TO THE MODERN CITY
Chicago is the birthplace of many of the insights we now use to understand our own cities. In the last 40 years there are very few cities more studied by urbanologists. There are few cities that have birthed more ground-breaking innovations on how to transform neighborhoods of blight into areas of health. As Bakke Graduate University is preparing a one-of-a-kind city immersion into Chicago this summer led by Ray Bakke (August 10-14), we thought it would be worth sharing two significant breakthroughs in how we now think about cities, which had their beginnings in Chicago.
OLD - Outsiders Know Best: We used to think the key to solving urban blight was to pour money and other resources into affected neighborhoods. Often this meant buildings - hospitals, schools, and huge housing projects, such as the famous Cabrini Green on Chicago's north side. The idea was to concentrate the area of need so that the resources could also be concentrated. This strategy was implemented on local and national levels, as well, e.g. the 1960's 'War on Poverty'.
NEW - ABCD: Today we realize that giving people the opportunity and tools to make their own decisions about how money is to be spent in their own neighborhood is as important as the resources themselves. A ground-breaking study in the 1970's in Chicago by Ray Bakke and others traced the flow of federal dollars into one neighborhood. The study showed much of the funding flowed through the neighborhood and landed in the hands of people employed to run programs for the people in the neighborhood, but these people lived outside of the neighborhood. This Chicago study was an important factor in a new model that was later called Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD). Instead of starting with elaborate studies to find neighborhood problems and attacking these problems with outside money and strategies, the first step of ABCD is to map the ASSETS of the neighborhood - what is going right and who is already creating solutions. Next, leaders are empowered to develop their own strategies for how outside money and internal opportunities can best help their own neighborhoods. Hope is built from within. Money stays in the neighborhood.
OLD - Attack Those in Power: During the first half of the 20th century, most cities were run by a small but powerful group - usually the mayor and his cronies. In the 1930's in Chicago, activist Saul Alinsky developed methods of intimidation, pressure and embarrassment to force these city fathers to release resources to help blighted neighborhoods. Alinsky's model and methods, birthed in Chicago (and also the subject of Hillary Clinton's senior honors thesis) became the primary influence in community activism for decades.
NEW - Build Power Through Coalitions: In the 50's and 60's city center neighborhoods became more diverse as whites moved to the suburbs. As a result, in the 60's, 70's and 80's most cities in the US experienced a shift in power from a few city fathers to a much more diverse and fractured system of mayors, city managers, city councils, and a wide array of grassroots influences. The new power base of city governments began to reflect diversity in race, social-economic status, perspectives and opinions. New voting districts were developed to ensure racial representation. Decisions that previously could be made in private by a few like-minded leaders now had to be widely debated in the public eye among those with wide differences in perspective and interests.
The old model of attacking and embarrassing those who held city power now made less sense because the conflict only created more fractures in city governments already stalled in creating solutions by their diverse interests. In the 1970's, again in Chicago, a new model was developed by BGU board member Janet Morrow and others. Called TRUST, the new style activists became neutral conveners, bringing together diverse leaders to study common problems. Instead of attacks from the outside, these new-style neighborhood activists focused on building trust among leaders, resulting in coalitions of power which broke log jams and provided solutions for neighborhoods.
In addition to these two ground-breaking shifts in how cities are transformed, Chicago is the home of some of the best current models of Christian Community Development, programs for at-risk youth and their families, and cooperation between suburban and urban churches and leaders.
August 10 -14 is a rare opportunity to visit the birthplace of many of the ideas shaping how we look at today's city, led by a key leader who was there when it happened. (See Upcoming Event for further information and registration.)
