"If We Let the Market Prevail, We Won't Have a Neighborhood Left:" religious agency and urban restructuring on Chicago's southwest side

Abstract

Catholic parishes and their neighborhoods on the Southwest Side of Chicago have moved from a relatively autonomous, relatively self-enclosed local institutions with relatively narrow social perspectives to organizations that work across parish boundaries, address local problems regionally, and acknowledge relinquishing to some degree their local identity and autonomy as progressive responses to the new urban context. Much of this new vision was stimulated by archdiocesan management changes under Joseph Cardinal Bernardin; by massive realignment of people, jobs, and political power in metropolitan Chicago; and not least by broader cultural and theological visions of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).