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39668 Curs 50Th History.Indd TTHEHE CCENTERENTER FFOROR UUrbanrban & RRegionalegional SStudiestudies THE FIRST YEARS 50 A history published in celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Center for Urban & Regional Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill TTHEHE CCENTERENTER FFOROR UUrbanrban & RegionalRegional StudiesStudies THE FIRST YEARS 50 The Center for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill conducts and supports research on urban and regional affairs—research that helps to build healthy, sustainable communities across the country and around the world. The Center’s Faculty Fellows—all leading scholars in their respective fi elds—participate in both multidisciplinary research and more narrowly focused projects to generate new knowledge about urban and regional processes, problems and solutions. By supporting this network of scholars and connecting them to government agencies and foundations that commission research, the Center plays a vital role in linking the University community to ongoing efforts to address contemporary social problems. Ordering Information This report can be downloaded free of charge from our website: http://www.unc.edu/depts/curs. For more information, call 919.843.9708 or email [email protected]. Copyright© 2008 by The Center for Urban and Regional Studies, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All rights reserved. ISBN 0-9728693-9-7 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Special thanks to Debra Hill, Dorothy Keith, and Anne Patrone for their efforts to create this publication. The Center extends its thanks to the following individuals who gave interviews so that we could put together this history of the Center: Asta Crowe, Dave Godschalk, Ed Kaiser, Michael Stegman. Ray Burby, David Brower, Mary Beth Powell, Shirley Weiss, David Owens, and Stu Chapin. The 50th anniversary of the Center for Urban and Regional Studies leads us to refl ect on the legacy of the Center, its work, and its people. We want to capture the history of the TCenter and the experiences of those whose efforts created and sustained it over the years. To do this we reviewed archival material and interviewed each of the three directors and many of the long-time staff. What follows is a look back over time, at the people and projects that distinguish the Center as one of the leading urban research centers in the country. THE FIRST YEARS 50 In The Beginning s the troops returned home after World War II, cities in the U.S. were still the focal point for regional economies and culture. It became clear to me that the education of ADowntowns were thriving as most of the jobs urban planners needed a more systematic and and commercial activity were located in central scientifi c grounding for planning practice. cities. In the 1950s, however, things began to – F. Stuart Chapin 1 change. Migration to suburban areas, large- scale urban renewal, the creation and growth of the interstate highway system, and racial Institute for Research in Social Science (IRSS) tensions led to dramatic changes in America’s at UNC-CH. In the 1940s and early 1950s urban areas and their surrounding regions. the Institute supported a number of studies With those transformations came an increased on urban issues, including anthropological interest in understanding the forces behind the studies of southern communities and a study of changes and in developing effective policies urbanization in the South. for addressing their negative impacts. This desire for a better understanding of urban In 1954 IRSS received a Ford Foundation grant and regional change and its consequences to conduct a self-study on behavioral sciences motivated the creation of the Center for Urban at UNC-CH. The Behavioral Science Survey and Regional Studies at the University of Committee was created and it identifi ed six North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). focal areas with “implications for research.”2 One of these, “demography and social The Center for Urban and Regional Studies epidemiology,” had a sub-area entitled “urban began as a working group within the processes.”3 This led Gordon Blackwell, the 1 director of IRSS, to highlight “urban studies” as an important topic for future research.4 Capitalizing on the Institute’s interest in The Early Years urban studies, F. Stuart Chapin, Jr., who lthough the Urban Studies Committee joined the faculty of the Department had successfully created a forum of City and Regional Planning in 1949,5 …the Urban Studies Program has as a central and for urban researchers, it wanted to facilitated a series of luncheon meetings A unifying theme an interest in urban development in expand its capacity for conducting cutting- that were attended by faculty members 7 edge, collaborative research on urban issues. the Piedmont Industrial Crescent…” from the city planning, political science, Over a two-year period, from 1955 to 1957, and sociology departments. In these the Committee prepared a grant proposal meetings the participants shared their titled “Emerging Forms of Metropolitanism in the South,” focusing on the Piedmont Industrial own research on urbanization in America Crescent—the area along the transportation corridor connecting Washington, D.C. to Atlanta. and developed a framework for studying The Committee proposed to study the crescent between Raleigh, N.C. and Greenville, S.C.— the processes underlying urbanization. because of its proximity to the University, and potential to shed light on a new kind of In 1955, this group’s activities grew to urbanization, one driven by the rapid include a bi-monthly faculty seminar 1 From his “APA 25-Year Reminiscences,” http://www. proliferation of the automobile and new road that involved faculty from anthropology, planning.org/25anniversary/memberstories/chapin.htm. 2 Guy Benton Johnson and Guion Griffi s Johnson, Research in construction. economics, psychology, and social Service to Society: The First Fifty Years of the Institute for Research work. This larger group, called the in Social Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill In April 1957, the Ford Foundation awarded Urban Studies Committee, worked to (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), p. 272. 3 Ibid., p. 273. the Committee a fi ve-year, $1 million grant to expand the conceptual framework for 4 Ibid., p. 274. pursue its urban research agenda, including a studying urban development processes.6 5 Ibid., p. 308-309. 6 A Ten-Year Interdisciplinary Effort in Urban Studies (Chapel Hill: multifaceted study of urbanization processes The seeds for a large-scale study of Center for Urban and Regional Studies, University of North in the Piedmont Industrial Crescent. This grant urbanization had been planted. Carolina, 1963), p. 1; Research in Service to Society, p. 309. 7 1957-58 CURS Annual Report, p. 1. was also used to facilitate communication among urban researchers at several southern universities. IRSS housed both of these • Power structure studies of the activities, with Chapin heading up the Piedmont Crescent; research arm and Frederic M. Cleaveland • Newcomers to urban centers: why 2 directing the outreach program. A they move and their socio-political third portion of the grant went to enculturation in the city; the Institute of Government to fund • Role of the planner in urban research interpretation for state and local development of the Piedmont Crescent; organizations. Perhaps most importantly to this history, the Ford Foundation • Livability qualities of urban grant formalized Chapin’s collective development in the Piedmont of researchers as the Urban Studies Crescent; and Program, the organization that in 1963 • Metropolitan development problems would be renamed the Center for Urban in the Piedmont Crescent and and Regional Studies. alternative approaches to their solution. The Piedmont Crescent project was These topics refl ected the diverse highly interdisciplinary. It focused on interests of the Urban Studies Program’s seven distinct research areas: interdisciplinary research team, • Economic studies of the Piedmont including faculty members and research Crescent; fellows from city and regional planning, • Leadership patterns and community economics, political science, and decision making in cities of the sociology. Piedmont Crescent; F. STUART CHAPIN, JR. (1957 – 1969) o single person can be credited for developing the Center for Urban and Regional Upon his arrival, Chapin began conducting research on urban issues with the Institute for NStudies more than F. Stuart Chapin, Jr. Chapin was born in Northampton, Research in Social Science. Much of this research focused on methods for analyzing land Massachusetts in 1916 and earned a B.A. from the University of Minnesota and two use in cities, which in 1957 resulted in the publication of his classic textbook: Urban Land degrees in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the 1940s Use Planning. Upon completion of the fi rst Ford Foundation grant in 1962, Chapin took a he worked as a community and regional planner with the Tennessee Valley Authority, year’s appointment as a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Illinois. and served as the planning director for Greensboro, North Carolina. Chapin joined the It was here that he developed an interest in investigating household behavior, an interest University in 1949 as a professor of City and Regional Planning. that inspired both the study of moving behavior and residential choice, and the study of household activity patterns. Although
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