Chicago sociology and urban planning policy

Abstract

This account has provided one illustration of the possibility of an alternative approach to the sociology of knowledge other than the “reductionist” analysis of ideas as mere epiphenomena of material interests. If the sociology of knowledge cannot be pursued in any other fashion, the field's oft-lamented neglect seems entirely justifiable. But sociologists of knowledge can choose to define the purpose of their work, not as the exposure of perceptual distortions conditioned by social position, but as the elucidation of factors which lend certain formulations plausibility within a given socio-cultural context. Ironically, such explication of the relationship of ideology to work has been consonant with the developing Chicago tradition, although not unique to it, for Chicagoans have been concerned to elucidate the means by “which people respond creatively to the limitations of their institutional context.” As we have seen, the pre-World War II manifestation of that tradition has permitted urban bureaucrats to maximize their possibilities for action within the constraints of their formal obligations. Not only has their faith in the accuracy of evolutionist predictions sustained civil servants in the belief that they have maintained value-neutrality, but it has also allowed them to enjoy the pleasures of power and concrete accomplishment. For the city is conceptualized as an ever-expanding frontier, perpetually subjected to cycles of devastation and construction. Hence, while ostensibly acting as instruments of inexorable historical forces, urban bureaucrats are constantly provided with opportunities to raise tangible monuments to their personal authority. And evolutionist sociology has sanctioned a viable occupational strategy for the bureaucrat qua bureaucrat, for it justifies the civil servants' favored relationship with powerful clients, allowing them to negotiate their continued occupational survival. Although Chicago sociology has proved useful to planning professionals, I do not mean to suggest that its creators would have approved of the consequences of bureaucratic activity. In fact, both in method and substance the practices of government agencies have violated the human ecologists' ideal; Chicagoan Louis Wirth deplored planners' operational categories, arguing that they should be replaced with more sophisticated sociological ones. More importantly, federal officials used Chicago sociologists' projections to support policies counter to the Chicagoans' prescriptions for civilized society. Government policy has been effectively anti-urban. Based on the Chicago evolutionists' model, and in the name of sound business practices, central city decline has been assured and suburban expansion facilitated. Chicago sociologists saw conflict arising from large-scale urban migration and rapid industrialization, but they accepted conflict as necessary to progress; the highest development of civilization required diversity and an urban milieu. Within the city various groups created homogeneous communities, but heterogeneity of the population as a whole was essential to urban culture. Federal agencies, while adhering to the sociologists' premises, turned the model on its head; they sought to minimize conflict by eradicating social heterogeneity, and encouraged the growth of homogeneous suburban neighborhoods in which residents were protected from alien persons and lifestyles.