Make no little plans

In the 1950 census, Chicago hit its peak population 3.6 million. Few realize that this last spurt of growth was due entirely to the great migration. The African American population increased 220,000 while the white population actually declined by about 3000. 

Ok, 3000 doesn’t seem like much, but when you factor in the rate of natural increase (birth rate – death rate) it constitutes a loss of 750,000 potential Chicagoans.

The first thought is to put this loss down to “white flight”, but that doesn’t hold water.

 Here’s a map. It shows areas of population loss and gain between 1940 and 1950. 

The red portions show the African American communities traced from a 1950 settlement map showing Chicago’s various ethnic communities.

 

Vast losses occurred in tracts where the residents never saw a black man.

The areas of loss have more in common with this map, showing areas of blight.

 Or this one indicating areas of high population density.

The city had been bleeding population to the suburbs for decades. The city of 1950 was a dump. The free market had favored the slumlord since the depression and our neighborhoods were dirty, crowded, smelly, run down places. As soon as the streetcars crossed the city limits, people loaded up their families and moved.

This didn’t escape the notice of the people who drew those maps. They are from the Chicago Plan Commission’s 1942 Master plan for residential land use.

Their plan was to bulldoze the blighted and near blighted areas, and create mini suburbs between the half mile streets, each with its own school and park. The side streets would be cul-de-sacs and the 1/2 miles widened to carry all the traffic. Then, they’d plop shopping centers at the corners.

Here’s their plan for Little Italy.

They write:

WEST SIDE REDEVELOPMENT PLAN. It is possible to create new neighborhoods and better residential patterns near the center of Chicago without scrapping all of the streets and utilities which exist today. This plan for the reconstruction of a West Side Blighted area calls for the demolition of the present obsolete buildings in order to provide much-needed open space for parks around the schools and community centers and ample yards about the residential buildings. Unnecessary streets would be closed to protect the residential sections from traffic hazards, but major through streets of the present would be retained. Heavy traffic would be confined to the super-highways and section-line streets which form the boundaries of this community. Organization of shopping facilities into coordinated centers with parking facilities and access to highways would make them easily available without conflicting with purely residential areas. Residential areas would be built up with apartment buildings three to four-stories in height and with two-story group houses. A moderately high population density would be achieved without crowding of either land or people.

Unencumbered by existing utilities in undeveloped areas, they hope to do away with the grid all together.

Here’s their idea for Scottsdale

They write:

PROPOSED PLAN FOR DEVELOPMENT OF A VACANT AREA IN SOUTHWEST CHICAGO. Here is indicated how an area of now-vacant land comprising over one and one-half square miles on the southwest edge of the city might be subdivided according to the best principles of community design. Curved streets in the interior residential portions discourage dangerous through traffic which is channelized into the bordering super-highways. Schools placed near the centers of the five neighborhoods are so located that small children can reach them without having to cross major traffic arteries. A centrally located high school with an associated athletic field and community park serves the entire community. Adjoining these facilities is a large community shopping center, and smaller neighborhood shopping centers are placed to serve two or more adjoining neighborhoods. The residential areas are separated into sections of apartments, group houses, and single-family dwellings arranged to give each type the maximum advantages of light, air, and open space around the structures. Such a community design illustrates what might be accomplished by creating an integrated community pattern designed to offer the maximum advantages for living.

Apparently the city of the future would look like Elk Grove Village.

Paul K. Dickman

These maps are courtesy of the Hathitrust Digital library, they were digitized by Google from originals in the 

University of Michigan collection
http://wickerblather.blogspot.com/2015/09/make-no-small-plans-5-we-dont-want.html
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http://wickerblather.blogspot.com/2015/08/make-no-little-plans-3-if-at-first-you.html
http://wickerblather.blogspot.com/2015/08/make-no-little-plans-2-if-at-first-you.html