Make no little plans 2, If at first you don't succeed....

Blight

Alas, the tiny hamlet of Wicker Park could not avoid the planners. The city drew up a plan for us, In fact they drew up at least five official ones. An assortment of private parties drew up their own. Some, were written as a rebuttal to the Plan commission’s ideas, others came from well meaning busybodies and graduate students.

A 1939 WPA sponsored survey of housing had noticed us and its report led the city planners to label us as “Nearly blighted” in the 1942 “Master plan of residential land use”

Below is their assessment of the conditions.

Their assessment probably wasn’t far from the truth. We hadn’t been a fashionable neighborhood since the teens the housing stock was old and run down and packed chock full of people. But this war time, and although refining their plan, the city didn’t go any further.

In 1952 they drew up  "A plan to guide redevelopment in the northwest central area of Chicago" and once again they assessed our blight.

 

Add caption

You can see, the map has changed some. They separated the industrial areas (this plan had provisions for industry), the blight has moved around some, and the conservation area is much smaller. They claim the source of the data is the same 1939 survey, so I am not sure how the blight could wax and wane. Perhaps blight is in the eye of the beholder.

The city had more urgent blight to fry in Lincoln Park and Noble Sq, so it wasn’t until the late 60s that they thought about sending the dozers our way.

In 1969 they drew the “Proposed treatment areas for the East Humboldt Park, Near Northwest Area”, and once again tiny Wicker Park was on the map.

 

In the end, little of their plans would be built and large scale demolition would be held to a few city blocks.

Next time I’ll discuss the multiple plans for Wicker Park’s streets.

Paul K. Dickman

http://wickerblather.blogspot.com/2015/09/make-no-small-plans-5-we-dont-want.html
http://wickerblather.blogspot.com/2015/08/make-no-little-plans-4-if-at-first-you.html
http://wickerblather.blogspot.com/2015/08/make-no-little-plans-3-if-at-first-you.html

http://wickerblather.blogspot.com/2015/07/make-no-little-plans.html