Urban Activism in a Downsizing World: Neighborhood Organizing in Postindustrial Chicago

Author: Heathcott, Joseph

Source: City & Community, Volume 4, Number 3, September 2005 , pp. 277-294(18)

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Abstract:

In this article, I examine the origins and development of the National Training and Information Center (NTIC) in Chicago as part of a broader neighborhood organizing movement. I am particularly interested in the development of a philosophy and strategy of civic action in a postindustrial era. One of the most influential forms of grassroots urban activism in the 20th century was Saul Alinsky's community organizing movement. This movement, I argue, relied upon a relatively stable cadre of mass institutions including unions, the New Deal Democratic Party, and the Catholic Church. However, by the 1960s, these institutions fell into decline alongside the changing political, economic, and social conditions of the city wrought by deindustrialization. Neighborhood organizing arose in the late 1960s as one response to these changing conditions, and its emergence reflects an important shift in the methodologies of urban social action. Yet I conclude that the lack of a broad agenda for social change is a weakness of neighborhood organizing inherited from Alinsky, and that this weakness constitutes a major challenge for NTIC and like groups.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6040.2005.00117.x

Publication date: 2005-09-01

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