The New Urban Renewal?

Tim Murphy at the Chicago Maroon published an article in Grey City a couple weeks ago called The New Urban Renewal.  I'm quoted in it thusly:

"Often in the corporate world, whenever management wants to do something that wouldn’t be good for [the rest of the company], they say ‘Oh, we just need to communicate about it,’” said James Withrow, a former chairman of the Co-Op Markets board, who blogs about the neighborhood at Hyde Park Urbanist. “Sometimes the policy just isn’t very good.”

There's a quid pro quo going on when the press interviews you.  You want to get your point of view across and they want a quote they can use to fill out the story.  You try to stay on message, but it rarely works out perfectly.  If the story is balanced, there'll be quotes from half a dozen people who see an issue from different points of view, which is exactly what Murphy has done here.  He's a good reporter and the quote's as I said it.  It's all aboveboard.

That might have been the most negative thing I said, though.  Generally, I think the University does a good job in the community when it sticks to its core competencies, like outreach in education.  The Hospital is another core competency and the community's main complaint is that it's withdrawing from services we're used to.  That's the polar opposite of the what I usually criticize the University for-- involving itself in retail and service industries, which is not a core competency.

And with the University's forays into neighborhood retail, I'd be happy if they stuck to the University's brand, what it's known for, its core values: improving market forces (expanding choice) and encouraging a robust examination of issues.  Communication is not the same as debate.  The former is one-way, from authority to us plebians. When people in authority say they want to communicate better, that's usually another way of saying they think they have all the answers and they're just not effectively persuading us the ignorant.  Debate, on the other hand, suggests that we can all learn from each other.

Murphy's article revolves around Ann Marie Lipinski, the new Vice President for Civic Engagement.

In Lipinski’s view, there are two conflicting legacies the University must build upon: The grand, outward-looking ambitions of its founding and the dark, insular legacy of urban renewal. The University can’t go forward without recognizing the lingering distrust of many in the community, nor can it look to revert back to the founding narrative that emerged at a time when the Cubs were still the National League’s dominant franchise.

“Both of those histories are real,” Lipinski says. “I had been here about a month when I had a conversation with somebody who said to me, ‘What we all have an opportunity to do now is create a third and new narrative for the University,’ or a third chapter.”

And there's another quote concerning the legacy of urban renewal:

David Hoyt, who contributes to the blog Hyde Park Progress under the name “Chicago Pop,” suggested that the administration as well as the community are both still stuck in a “grudge match” mentality over urban renewal.

“Its reflex response to many issues is to just kind of hunker down and get in a bunker,” Hoyt said of the University. “I think there’s a lingering legacy that results in the University not wanting to take [its] case out to [its] neighbors and lay it out there.”

I certainly agree with the second paragraph.  Hyde Parkers are independent thinkers and the University would find many willing allies, probably in surprising places, depending on the issue.

But I think Hoyt and Lipinski are misunderstanding the legacy of urban renewal.  There's actually a widespread consensus that urban renewal needed to happen.  Oh, you have some, often with a libertarian point of view, who believe it was wrong to use taxpayer money to fund these changes.  But most people believe it went too far.  I've certainly never heard anyone say that more buildings should have been torn down.  The consensus is that it was useful to a point. 

Nor was urban renewal something the University inflicted on the community.  The Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference, thru its block clubs, had extensive membership back then, maybe a quarter of the permanent residents.  HPKCC, as well as most other community organizations, signed off on Plans A and B.  Only after all the commercial structures were torn down along 55th Street and Lake Park did folks realize they'd gone too far.  But they'd gone too far together, the University and neighborhood in tandem, with relatively little organized opposition.

There's no "grudge match" going on here.  The only concern is that change will come too quickly and go too far once again.  I'd suggest that the best talking point for the University is that it wants to fix some of the things that it and the neighborhood got wrong during urban renewal, to bring commerce back to 55th Street and Lake Park Avenue, to gradually repair the damage.