Urban Renewal had a dramatic impact on the Hyde Park we know today and the surrounding communities. This part of Hyde Park’s History marked a sharp decline in population, the local economy, and furthered segregation.
With the onset of the Great Depression housing construction and maintenance stagnated. The arrival of southern African-Americans in the Great Migration precipitated a massive “white exodus” from communities all over the south side. Many areas changed from all-white to all-black within a few years. There were some in the local community who hoped to prevent that from happening in Hyde Park. The Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference began with an interracial group that met in 1949. In 1952 the Southeast Chicago Commission was organized with the support of the University of Chicago and the business community. These two organizations worked in tandem during the period of federally-funded urban renewal from the mid-1950’s to the early 1970’s. A local savings and loan bank was founded to assure the availability of home mortgages in the area, when other lenders were often redlining any area undergoing racial change. New schools, shopping centers, and social service agencies were built or expanded, but at some cost. The various plans and projects were controversial in many ways, but the result was the evolution to a stable multi-racial community which continues to attract new residents.
Culture of Opportunity: Obama’s Chicago – The People, Politics and Ideas of Hyde Park, Rebecca Janowitz, 2010. Chapter 5 – Creating a Racially Balanced Community
Out of print.
Amazon Kindle Edition: $15.33
CPL: Multiple Locations including Blackstone and Harold Washington
Chicago’s Historic Hyde Park, Susan O’Connor Davis, University of Chicago Press, 2013
Chapter 7 – Deconstruction, 1949-1978
Seminary Coop/57th Street Books, Powell’s, Amazon, ABE Books Online
Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference History of Urban Renewal
http://www.hydepark.org/historicpres/HPKCCstoryurbren.htm
Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference Urban Renewal Timeline
http://www.hydepark.org/historicpres/urbanrentimeline.htm
The Politics of Urban Renewal, Peter Rossi, New York, 1961
ABE Books
CPL: Harold Washington
University of Chicago Library
The Impact of Urban Renewal on Small Business: the Hyde Park-Kenwood Case, Brian J. L. Berry, Chicago, 1968
ABE Books
CPL: Harold Washington
University of Chicago Library
A Neighborhood Finds Itself, Julie Abrahamson, New York, 1959
ABE Books
CPL: Harold Washington, Blackstone
University of Chicago Library
The Hyde Park Kenwood renewal years: a history to date. Beadle, Muriel, Chicago, 1967. Privately printed by Muriel Beadle.
CPL: Harold Washington
University of Chicago Library