Cleaning Streams in Cook County, IL: Forest Preserves, Water Pollution, and Interwar Environmentalism in the Chicago Region

In 1916, the Forest Preserve District of Cook County began acquiring land to create a natural retreat for Chicagoans in that booming metropolitan region. Since district officials acquired many properties along county streams, water pollution soon interfered with their mission of creating an urban wilderness for recreational pleasure. To address the problem, in 1931, county leaders appointed the Clean Streams Advisory Committee that collaborated with forest preserve staff members to pressure polluters to clean-up their operations and to persuade enforcement agencies to prosecute ongoing offenders. They also lobbied the Public Works Administration to earmark New Deal funding for sewage treatment in Cook County. Their efforts suggest that early activism against water pollution in American cities emerged not only from efforts to ensure clean drinking water, but also struggles to protect nature. The interwar campaign to clean forest preserve streams anticipated the goals of the federal Clean Water Act (1972) to make all American waterways fishable and swimmable. The movement also preceded the burst of anti-pollution activism that historians have documented in U.S. suburbs after WWII and laid the groundwork for postwar efforts to mitigate water pollution in Cook County.

If We Knew Then: A Postscript to the Kerner Report

The Kerner Report, which examined why 1967s rioting occurred, is one of America’s most important works on race and the inner city. Yet, for many, a belief exists that it has been ignored and represents a lost opportunity. Knowing now how the report was received, is there anything that could have been done to produce a more influential report? To answer this question, this article utilizes recent interviews with key Kerner Report participants. Such information not only expands our knowledge about the report, but given recent proposals to create new Kerner-type commissions to address today’s disparities, it possesses additional relevance.

From Community Coalitions to City Hall: Shaping Policy in Chicago With Mayor Harold Washington

Today’s cities are seeking more social equity—a response in part to police violence, pandemic disparities, and the racial wealth gap. Activists, planners, and local government reformers are looking for bold examples of equity planning—single initiatives and multi-faceted equity plans. The mayoral administration of Harold Washington in Chicago (1983–1987) shows how a grassroots electoral campaign combined with participatory policy development produced the Chicago Works Together (CWT) Development Plan—that promoted jobs, neighborhoods, and citizen participation. This article recounts the development of CWT and examines the impacts of CWT for Chicago and equity planning.

“For the Contrary View”: Reconsidering the Early Anti-Zoning Decisions”

When the 1926 Euclid v. Ambler decision found municipal zoning valid under the U.S. Constitution, previous state cases opposing the practice were overruled and subsequently almost forgotten. This investigation analyzes those early State Supreme Court cases to determine systematically the basis of these rejections. After constructing a contextual background of the legal arguments that could have been used by the judges, I assess cases to determine which were used, and find a dominance of concern regarding land use segregation justified by municipalities through an “aesthetics” defense. I conclude by considering links between these cases and current controversies.

A strategy for the seventies: Circular A-95 and US regional planning

In 1982, President Ronald Reagan issued Executive Order 12372, revoking a relatively obscure publication issued by the Office of Management and Budget in 1969, Circular No. A-95. One of many policy changes that were part of a broad effort to rebalance how power was shared between the federal government, the states, and municipalities, Reagan’s pen stroke ended what for many planners had been a critical piece of urban policy during the 1970s. Part of President Lyndon Johnson’s 1960s Great Society programs, an era when federal assistance to state and local governments in support of domestic policy increased significantly, A-95 had established a coordination and review process that local governments receiving federal funding for planning development projects would be required to follow. The program was designed to force local governments to engage in more comprehensive regional coordination. For the next 12 years, almost every planner across the country, at some point or another, worked within the A-95 process. But researchers who examined A-95 during its short life struggled to produce solid evidence of its effectiveness. Absent a clear metric of the program’s success or failure, the history and legacy of the A-95 program has since been largely neglected. This paper explores the history of Circular A-95, a booklet issued by the US Office of Management and Budget to guide the implementation of the Intergovernmental Cooperation Act of 1968. We argue that the rules contained in the A-95 circular should be understood as an effort to create a framework for regional planning. Using primary documents and secondary literature, we conclude that the program deserves to be re-read as an important attempt to use federal power to establish a pragmatic national planning policy in the United States in the latter half of the 20th century.

Hidden Influences: Exploring the Red Castle Restorations During the Italian Colonization of Libya

This article examines alterations made to the Red Castle in Tripoli during Italy’s colonization of Libya between 1911 and 1943. Italian architects completed two projects which both restored the castle and altered its design through the construction of a tunnel that cuts through the historic site and joined sections of the coastal road (Lungomare Conti Volpi). Using a new visual analysis of the structures, this study argues that traditional Roman architecture influenced changes to the castle, which included elements found in preexisting Roman structures. The implications of these interventions within the context of historic preservation and colonialism are also explored.