The Role of Private Institutions Post-World War II


The Role of Private Institutions Post World War II
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“1939--Cottage Grove Avenue At 35th Street” (Chicago History Today)

The Housing Shortage Post World War II

Losing racially restrictive covenants posed an economic threat to private institutions. The housing shortage responsible for the overflow of Blacks into white communities also encouraged white flight out of the city. Chicago’s white population relocated to the suburbs, increasing the number of predominantly Black inner-city communities. Worried over the loss of their white, upper- to middle-class clientele, downtown institutions and corporations united with the local government to promote urban redevelopment and ensure their future prosperity by drawing their clientele back into the city, consequently displacing Blacks. ​​​​​​​

“Chicago’s business elite clearly envisaged a postwar building boom on the city’s periphery, the flight of the middle class, and the insulation of State Street from its ‘normal market.’ They subsequently tried to counter the forces promoting decentralization through the ‘complete rehabilitation of the center of the city.’” (Hirsch 1983, 101)

“After World War II, the federal government endowed the cities with the wherewithal to launch urban redevelopment and renewal programs and massive public housing construction, all of which reinforced existing patterns of segregation. Such programs reconfigured the South Side, establishing institutional barriers to movement, replacing private dwellings with public housing monoliths, displacing thousands of poor blacks, and as a result creating the West Side ghetto.” (Biles 2001, 34-35)

The Start of Urban Redevelopment

Milton Mumford, assistant vice-president of Marshall Field and Company, and Holman Pettibone, president of the Chicago Title and Trust Company, were very influential figures in the private businesses involved in urban redevelopment. With the Metropolitan Housing and Planning Council, they were key in planning the Blighted Areas Redevelopment Act of 1947. This plan steered the issue of urban redevelopment away from the public sector of government and towards the private sector so it could better fit the interests of downtown institutions (Hirsch 1983).

(The American Title Association 1951)

Mayor Richard Daley and former Mayor Martin Kennelly, two key mayors who were crucial to the urban redevelopment plans (Chicago Tribune)

Marshall Field and Company Building circa 1907 (Library of Congress via Time Out Chicago)

“Together, Pettibone, Mumford, and the MHPC devised a redevelopment formula based on private profit and public power and saw their program accepted by both Mayor Martin H. Kennelly and the state legislature.” (Hirsch 1983, 102)

“The crucial point was that the Chicago Housing Authority, which operated publicly owned housing, had a nondiscriminatory tenant selection policy. Under the 1947 legislation, however, redevelopment projects would be privately owned and thus exempt from CHA restrictions.” (Hirsch 1983, 110)

The Lake Meadows Project

The Lake Meadows project was the first housing project under the Redevelopment Act. Despite its alleged goal to renew the slums it cleared, the project actually created more slums. Its creation pushed Blacks into a depleted housing market, forcing them into white neighborhoods or overcrowded Black neighborhoods. Instead of promoting integration, the project furthered substandard housing for Blacks and racial succession. Since the areas where white flight occurred did not negatively impact the downtown parties credited with formulating the Redevelopment Act, those institutions did little to prevent the ghetto creation that ensued. Instead, they championed the success of the Lake Meadows project, ensuring that the Redevelopment Act could be used to their benefit in the coming decades.

Lake Meadows Apartment Complex in the 1970s on Chicago’s South Side (Fine Art America 1972-1975)

“A Chicago Urban League report on the impact of urban renewal charged that the city was ‘forcing new slums to develop in place of those it clears’ as blacks were compelled to ‘double-up in areas of transition.’” (Hirsch 1983, 120)

“A more detailed study of the displacement accompanying the Lake Meadows project found that the relocatees were not the ‘pioneers’ who opened white areas to blacks; instead, they flooded into areas beginning transition and thus helped speed the process.” (Hirsch 1983, 121)

“Chicago Housing” 1948 (University of Chicago Photographic Archive, [apf2-09258], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

Map showing the number of displaced families by the Lake Meadows project (Digital Scholarship Lab, University of Richmond 2020)

“A segregation index used by demographers Karl E. Taeuber and Alma F. Taeuber - an index of dissimilarity that showed the minimum percentage of nonwhites who would need to move to produce a random racial distribution - gave Chicago a score of 92.1 in 1950 and 92.6 in 1960.” (Biles 2001, 36)

Downtown Urban Redevelopment

The initial “slum clearance” on the South and West Sides of Chicago paved the way for the downtown redevelopment private institutions dreamed of. The Lake Meadows Project tested Mumford, Pettibone, and the MHPC’s proposed plan and legislation. This test allowed downtown institutions and corporations to begin downtown urban renewal under Mayor Daley that restored much of the upper- and middle-class population in the downtown area. (Rast 2009, 405)

“Downtown business and institutions located in slum or transition areas turned not to violence or suburban flight but rather to the use of political and legal power. Locked in a desperate struggle for survival, the city’s large institutions used their combined economic resources and political influence to produce a redevelopment and urban renewal program designed to guarantee their continued prosperity.” (Hirsch 1983, 100)

“The plan’s call for a revitalized downtown surrounded by a ring of gentrified, middle-income communities strongly signaled the future orientation of development policy.” (Rast 2009, 403)

BREAKING THE LEGAL BARRIERS OF RESTRICTIVE COVENANTS
THE LEGACY OF RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION