Rethinking the University of Chicago's Role in Hyde
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Wesleyan University The Honors College The City as Social Laboratory: Rethinking the University of Chicago’s Role in Hyde Park’s Urban Renewal by Amanda Marguerite Faraone Class of 2011 A thesis submitted to the faculty of Wesleyan University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors in Sociology Middletown, Connecticut April, 2011 “…If the city is the world which man created, it is the world in which he is henceforth condemned to live. Thus, indirectly, and without any clear sense of the nature of his task, in making the city man has remade himself.” Robert E. Park, “The City as Social Laboratory”1 “An urban renewal program is the moment of truth in the life of any city or neighborhood. This is the moment when determinations have to be made as to goals and objectives, as to the future character of development and change over at least the ensuing quarter century. It is also the moment when assets and liabilities have to be cast up, when what is wrong and what is right has to be defined.” Julian H. Levi, Executive Director, South East Chicago Commission, Commencement Address to the John Marshall Law School, 19612 1 Emphasis mine, Robert E. Park, “The City as Social Laboratory” in Human Communities: The City and Human Ecology (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1952), 73. 2 Julian H. Levi, “Commencement Address,” Given before the John Marshall Law School, Chicago, Illinois, February 18, 1961, 6, emphasis mine, Office of the President, Beadle Administration, Records, 1916-1968, Box 353, Folder 5: Urban renewal, Julian Levi, speeches, 1961, Special Collections Research Center, The University of Chicago Library, Chicago, IL. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis was the culmination of a lifetime of experience and academic exploration in the Hyde Park community, and my first acknowledgment must go to this group of extraordinary thinkers, scholars and community members who raised me. Specifically, I would like to thank my parents, Chris and Susan Faraone, for guiding me throughout this process, editing various drafts and patiently listening to my questions; Professor Danielle Allen, for offering me her knowledge and expertise on the subject; the staff at the University of Chicago Special Collections, for helping me find what I was looking for; Professor James M. Redfield, for telling me so many wonderful stories about the neighborhood as I grew up; Clare and Cordelia Johnson (honorary Hyde Parkers), for being the best sisters I never had, and lending me books and support throughout; and Charles Carpenter, whose kindness and generosity impacted me greatly. At Wesleyan, I have been lucky to find another community of supportive and generous thinkers, who have contributed greatly to my intellectual growth. First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Professor Daniel Long, who has patiently listened to my somewhat incoherent ramblings on the subject over the last year and has never lost the capacity to ask the right questions, and whose commitment has been unswerving, even in the first few weeks of his daughter’s life. I can’t thank him enough. I would also like to thank Professor Jonathan Cutler, whose teaching and guidance over the past year has truly transformed the way I think about the world, and who has influenced the course of my thesis tremendously. I would like to thank my advisor, Professor Rob Rosenthal, for taking time out of his busy schedule to enlighten me about the history of housing in the United States, as well as overseeing my academic development throughout my time at Wesleyan. Professor Robyn Autry deserves recognition as well, for discussing my thesis topic with me early on, and helping me pin down my central question. Professor Joseph M. Siry shared a wealth of information with me about the history of architecture and planning in Chicago, which helped me greatly. Acknowledgement must also go to Professor J. Kehaulani Kauanui, who—in addition to improving my scholarship greatly— helped me to discover that this was a topic I had to write about; and Professor Charles Lemert who told me that I had to write this as a thesis. I would also like to thank Professor Miri Nakamura, and Professor Ulrich Plass, who made me fall in love with scholarship again—and who taught me to read critically. Last, and not least, my deepest thanks goes to my thesis tutor Emily Schmidt, another Hyde Parker, who spent countless, countless hours reading and revising my thesis, and without whose guidance this project would have been full of obtuse and unintelligible thoughts. I count myself as blessed to have her on my side throughout the arduous editing process. iii Figure 1 Map of Hyde Park—Kenwood, [circa 1952] (Peter H. Rossi and Robert A. Dentler, The Politics of Urban Renewal: The Chicago Findings [The Free Press of Glencoe, Inc.: USA, 1961], x). iv CONTENTS Acknowledgements iii List of Figures vii Abstract viii The University and the Modern Urban Problematic: An Introduction to Urban Renewal 1 Mysteries of Modern Urban Life 1 Central Questions 4 Methodology 5 The City as Problematic 6 Defining Urban Renewal 9 Key Sources 10 Summary 13 My Problematic 14 I. The University and the Hyde Park Story: Pioneers of Urban Renewal 18 Native Son 18 “A Community Fights For Its Life” 21 The University and the Village 25 Urban Renewal, Community Study and the University 29 The Effects of Renewal 32 Narratives of Renewal 38 II. The University and an “Appropriate Community”: Urban Renewal and Residential Segregation 41 A Dream Deferred 41 Hyde Park’s Flight Against Blight 44 The Second City 48 Restrictive Covenants, Environmental Injustice and Northern Racism 50 Racial Exclusion 55 The Conference and the University 59 American Jewish Liberalism and Early Civil Rights Rhetoric 72 “Managed” Integration 78 Color-Blind Racism 81 The Specter of Race 83 III. The University and the Growth Machine: The Political Economy of Urban Renewal 86 For the University’s Sake 86 Power, Elites, Cities 89 v Facing the Urban Crisis 93 Post-War American Cities and the Growth Machine 96 Members of the Growth Coalition 100 The University as National Resource 110 The Infallible Logic of Growth 113 IV. The University and the City: A Foucauldian Analysis of Urban Renewal 116 Blight, Natural Metaphors and the City as Ecology 116 The University, Biopower and Urban Renewal 118 Sociology, the Chicago School and Ecological Urbanism 123 Chicago’s Legacy: Racial Succession, Zonal Maps and Rating Systems 128 Twilight Zones, Biological Impurity and Racism as a Technology of Biopower 137 Levi, Eminent Domain and the Case of Hyde Park 141 Urban Revolution, Universities and Evolving Techniques of Governance 146 The University and Urban Renewal: Reflecting on the Past, Present and Future 154 The Mother of All Interdisciplinary Problems 154 Race, the Growth Machine and Biopower 157 A New Reading of Urban Renewal 163 Bibliography 172 Appendix 180 Appendix A: Timeline of Urban Renewal 180 Appendix B: Maps and Charts of Chicago and Hyde Park 186 Appendix C: Photographs of Campus 198 Appendix D: Conceptual Maps 201 vi FIGURES Figure 1 Map of Hyde Park-Kenwood iv Figure 2.1 Percentage of Black Population, 1940 186 Figure 2.2 Percentage of Black Population, 1950 187 Figure 2.3 Percentage of Black Population, 1960 188 Figure 3.1 The Village of Hyde Park, 1888 189 Figure 3.2 The Expansion of the Black Belt, 1945 190 Figure 3.3 Nonwhite Population by Subcommunities and Tracts: Hyde Park-Kenwood, 1950 and 1956 191 Figure 4.1 Hyde Park A and B: Renewal Treatment 192 Figure 4.2 Urban Renewal Plan: East Hyde Park 193 Figure 4.3 Urban Renewal Plan: Central Hyde Park 194 Figure 4.4 Urban Renewal Plan: South West Hyde Park 195 Figure 5.1 Current Map of Hyde Park 196 Figure 5.2 Current Map of the University of Chicago Campus 197 Figure 6.1 General Campus Views, 1941-1950 198 Figure 6.2 General Campus Views, Aerial, 1941-1950 199 Figure 6.3 General Campus Views, Aerial, 1961-1970 200 Figure 7.1 Zonal Map: Growth 201 Figure 7.2 Zonal Map: City Areas 201 Figure 8.1 Settled Areas Map, Chicago 203 Figure 8.2 Land Use Map, South Chicago 204 Figure 8.3 Pattern of Non-White Population 205 Figure 8.4 Growth of American Cities 206 Figure 8.5 Growth of Residential Areas 207 vii ABSTRACT In this thesis, I will explore the role of the University of Chicago in the implementation of Hyde Park’s urban renewal, which took place between 1952 and 1963. Hyde Park—a neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, which covers the area between 47th Street and 60th Street, from Cottage Grove Avenue to Lake Michigan—experienced significant changes in its built environment as well as its demographics through urban renewal. I have conducted historical archival research on Hyde Park’s renewal, using the tools of comparative historical analysis to present alternative readings of the subject at hand. In this work, I have employed traditional sociological analyses of race, political economy, and power, and contrasted these with the more recent theory of biopower as proposed by Michel Foucault. In examining the role of the University as a white elitist group forwarding an ideology of racial exclusion, an institution of great economic wealth within the “growth machine” and as a knowledge-producer of an ecological urbanism that arises within biopower, I come to argue that all three analyses of the role of the University can be understood through identifying the source of its power. viii THE UNIVERSITY AND THE MODERN URBAN PROBLEMATIC: AN INTRODUCTION TO URBAN RENEWAL “How uncommonly embarrassing that at a university we accept such a high degree of ignorance about our own circumstances.” Danielle Allen, Talking to Strangers1 Mysteries of Modern Urban Life On May 26, 2007, a man was shot while walking home on the South Side of Chicago.