Friend or Foe? The Media Coverage of Chicago‟s Public Housing Transformation Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Matthew Schoene, B.A. Graduate Program in Sociology The Ohio State University 2011 Thesis Committee: Dr. Rachel Dwyer, Advisor Dr. Andrew Martin Dr. Claudia Buchmann Copyright by Matthew Schoene 2011 Abstract How does the newspaper participate in public housing reform battles? Contemporary urban theory suggests that the local media tends to support elite actors in their quest for urban growth and redevelopment, but social movement research demonstrates that the press has the power to either help or harm groups. For low-income groups, media attention plays an especially important role. This question has consequences for both urban theory and social movement tactics, but it is unclear if media coverage is biased in any way, what factors motivate the media to pay attention in the first place, and how these factors contribute to both supportive and unsupportive coverage. This paper conceptualizes housing battles as a social movement and focuses on Chicago‟s Plan for Transformation, the most radical example of public housing reform to date. A content analysis of a sample of Chicago Tribune newspaper articles indicates that newspaper coverage was skewed towards the pro-development side, but only slightly. Negative binomial regression then indicates that case-specific group actions rather than contextual, city-level issues better explain variation in both supportive and unsupportive coverage of the issue. Implications for urban theory, social movement strategy and future research are discussed. ii Dedication To God, for everything and every day iii Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful to Dr. Rachel Dwyer for her immense contributions to this project, which are far too many to list, from start to finish. I am also indebted to Dr. Andrew Martin, for introducing me to new theoretical ideas and giving me the methodological skills to perform this research. I also thank Dr. Claudia Buchmann, for her critical eye and unique insight. Additionally, I thank Tom Alzo, Denisha Jackson and Zachary Lewis, for valuable research assistance. Finally, I express my sincere appreciation to Eileen, Ralph, and Jessica. You continue to inspire me, every single day of my life. iv Vita June 2005………………………………………….…….......Fordham Preparatory School. May 2009…………………………………………………....B.A. Sociology, Villanova University. 2009-2010…………………………………………………..Graduate Fellow, Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University. 2010-2011………………………………………………......Graduate Research Associate, Prof. Zhenchao Qian, The Ohio State University. Fields of Study Major Field: Sociology v Table of Contents Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………………ii Dedication ………………………………………………………………………………...iii Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………….iv Vita ………………………………………………………………………………………..v Table of Contents …………………………………………………………………………vi List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………..vii List of Figures …………………………………………………………………………...viii Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………..1 Urban Redevelopment, The Growth Machine, and the Media ……………………………5 Movements and the Media ……………………………………………………………….10 Rethinking the Media‟s Role in Urban Redevelopment …………………………………15 The Plan for Transformation ……………………………………………………………..18 Data and Methodology …………………………………………………………………22 Results ……………………………………………………………………………………30 Discussion and Implications……………………………………………………………...35 Conclusions ………………………………………………………………………………39 References ………………………………………………………………………………..41 Appendix: Tables and Figures……………………………………...…………………….48 vi List of Tables Table 1: Descriptive Statistics of Dependant, Contextual and Case-Specific Variables …………………………………………………48 Table 2: Bivariate Correlation Matrix for all Dependent, Independent and Control Variables …………………………………………49 Table 3: Cross Tabulation: Slant of Quote by Institutional Affiliation …………………………………………………………………..50 Table 4.Untransformed and Transformed Coefficients from the Negative Binomial Regression of Contextual and Case-Specific Event Variables on Media Coverage …………………………………………………….51 vii List of Figures Figure 1: Number of Quotes in Chicago Tribune Articles on The Plan for Transformation by Month: January 1997 – December 2009….……………………………………………………..52 viii INTRODUCTION Twenty years from now, 25 years from now, when a sociologist or anyone starts to dig into this matter and figure out what happened with public housing--how it changed-- there's going to be two sides. There's going to be the side that everyone sees now, and there's going to be our side. --Mark Pratt, Cabrini-Green Resident From the era of urban renewal in the 1950s and 60s to the present day, the redevelopment of city land often brings groups into intense conflict. Because these decisions can affect the city for generations to come, scholars have long been interested in studying the redevelopment process. The growth machine theory provides a useful framework for understanding urban redevelopment and the conflict it often entails. This theory conceptualizes a “growth coalition” of political, real-estate and business elites who profit from increases in land values by aggressively pursuing redevelopment projects to raise population and revenue within the city (Molotch 1976). Often, growth coalition plans do not coincide with neighborhood-based uses of urban land, breeding conflict between the two interest groups. Contemporary urban theory tends to assume that the growth coalition has a powerful ally in these land-based conflicts: the local media (Molotch 1976; Logan & Molotch 1987). Because the media‟s interests seem to align with growth coalition goals, theory expects this institution to support redevelopment and oppose neighborhood interests. Other areas of research, however, suggest something different. Notably, the 1 social movement literature notes that the media represents a crucial resource to marginal populations, and as such, may be successfully engaged by neighborhood groups (Lipsky 1968). This mismatch between theoretical expectations and contemporary evidence suggests that there may be substantial gaps in our understanding of how the media participates in urban redevelopment conflicts. Specifically, it is unclear if the media is biased against neighborhood groups or what factors drive both supportive and unsupportive coverage of redevelopment proposals. This question has important implications for social movement organizations. If the media is biased against neighborhood groups, the press is not a resource which organizations can mobilize on their behalf, but if coverage is truly unbiased, they can potentially be a valuable ally. Additionally, depending on what factors motivate the media to cover an issue, neighborhood groups must recognize these opportune times and capitalize on them. To better explore this question, the current study examines a particularly contentious case of urban redevelopment: public housing reform in Chicago. Despite public housing‟s pejorative reputation, the institution still represents a haven for the “hardest to house” (Popkin et al. 2005; Wyly & DiFillippis 2009). In 1999, Chicago‟s Mayor Richard M. Daley announced the 10-year, $1.6 billion Plan for Transformation, designed to end public housing‟s isolation and concentration of poverty by replacing nearly every decaying high-rise with vibrant, functional mixed-income communities. Given that public housing is cited as one of the major causes of urban segregation and poverty (Goetz 2000), it seems unlikely that anyone would fight for these buildings‟ 2 continued existence. Not everybody shared the vision of a transformed city, however. While politicians, Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) officials and private real estate developers enthusiastically supported the plan, resident groups like the Local Advisory Council and the Coalition to Protect Public Housing opposed the transformation and feared losing their right to the neighborhoods in question (Venkatesh 2000). This case, and others like it, can be conceptualized as a very contentious social movement dispute.1 Public housing battles, in which a marginal, low-income and largely powerless group fights a dominant alliance of business and political interests, are an ideal example of a disadvantaged social movement organization fighting to protect their place in the city. Surprisingly, there has been little effort to view these battles as such. While Chicago‟s Plan for Transformation has been explored from a multitude of angles, it remains unclear how the media participated in this dispute. Marginalized, low- income groups like public housing residents lack the resources and political power to lobby effectivly for change through political routes, so the media becomes a crucial institution for groups to reach a public audience and disseminate their message. How the press participates in these conflicts, then, offers a lesson to other disadvantaged housing groups across the country. In this paper, I use the Chicago case to advance both urban redevelopment and social movement research. By combining these two areas, the media‟s relationship with movement groups like public housing residents can be better understood. The goals of this project are two-fold. First, using a sample of Chicago Tribune newspaper articles, I examine the local media‟s coverage of the Plan for 1 Tilly defines a social movement as “a series of contentious performances,