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The Chicago 21 Plan was a comprehensive development plan released in 1973 intended to revitalize the areas surrounding the Chicago Loop, Chicago's central business district. The 125-page document, subtitled "A Plan for the Central Area Communities" was published by the Chicago 21 Corporation, which was made up of members of the Chicago Central Area Committee (CCAC), founded by some of Chicago's most influential business and civic leaders. The cornerstone of the Chicago 21 Plan was the proposed creation of a new residential neighborhood in the of unused railroad yard bordered by the Loop to its north and the Chicago River to its west. The CCAC and Chicago's business and civic leaders praised the Chicago 21 Plan as a bold initiative to stave off middle-class white flight to the surrounding suburbs and revitalize a city hit hard by declines in manufacturing and industrial employment following World War II. Opponents of Chicago 21, however, charged the CCAC with trying to create a fortress-like moat around the important Loop businesses, pushing the poorer residents of the central-areas to outlying neighborhoods. These low-income residents created the Coalition of Central Area Communities to fight for a community voice in the planning process. Spurned in their efforts, they eventually changed their name to the Coalition to Stop Chicago 21. Over the following decades, the CCAC played a powerful role in Chicago's real estate development, while representatives of low-income members of central area communities (Pilsen and Cabrini–Green), asked for a louder voice in the planning process. ==Historical Context== When Richard J. Daley was elected mayor of Chicago in 1955, he inherited a city dealing with the issues facing many urban American centers - mainly a decline in manufacturing and industrial jobs and the exodus of middle-class white residents to the outlying suburbs. This "white flight" was prevalent especially in Chicago's West Town neighborhood, where the white population decreased from 98% to 55% from 1960 to 1980.〔The Natalie Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement, ''Gentrification in West Town: Contested Ground'' (University of Illinois at Chicago, 2001).〕 Daley focused his efforts on revitalizing the downtown areas. In 1958, the Department of City Planning issued the ''Development Plan for the Central Area of Chicago''. The plan called for a University of Illinois campus south of the Loop, the creation of McCormick Place as a convention center and several federal buildings and plazas in the North Loop.〔Rast, Joel. ''Remaking Chicago: The Political Origins of Urban Industrial Change'' (DeKalb, Norther Illinois University Press, 1999)〕 As his term as Mayor progressed, Richard J. Daley's planning and development staff was continuing to create a relationship between City Hall and the downtown business community, mainly the CCAC. The city was losing its manufacturing jobs and this new coalition saw the only way to revitalize Chicago was to cater to commercial growth in the Loop. The consequence of this philosophy was stated by one long-time journalist as "Mayor Daley was totally focused on the downtown; he was so focused that Chicago's neighborhoods went to hell."〔Ranney, David C., Patricia A. Wright and Tingwei Zhang, ''Citizens, Local Government and the Development of Chicago's Near South Side'' (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 1997)〕 Cautious of the feelings of many in the city's white population about racial mixing, the majority of the public housing built between 1946 and 1976 was contained in the square area of the South Loop which was almost an exclusively African-American neighborhood.〔 "Overcrowding caused living conditions in the black ghetto to deteriorate rapidly during the 1950s and 1960s."〔 Fearing this deteriorating community's proximity to the downtown business district, the CCAC sought for a way to essentially create a moat between the two. Real estate developer Arthur Rubloff was quoted by the Chicago Daily News as saying that "I'll tell you what's wrong with the Loop. It's people's perception of it. And the perception they have about it is one word - B-L-A-C-K. We have a racial problem we haven't been able to solve. The ghetto areas have nothing but rotten slum buildings, nothing at all, and businessmen are afraid to move in, so the blacks come downtown for stores and restaurants. The CCAC decided that the solution lay in the unused rail yards existing just south of the Loop. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chicago 21 Plan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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