Progressive cities
In the 1970s and 1980s, a few American cities fought back against national politics that tolerated job loss and neighborhood decline.
A new Olin Library exhibition illustrates these cities’ efforts, which redistributed resources and encouraged neighborhoods in their own planning, resulting in new city policy directions, new voices and new services that could take up slack left by a reduced public presence.
The exhibition celebrates Cornell’s Department of City and Regional Planning’s 75th anniversary and is based on the new Cornell University Press book “Activists in City Hall: The Progressive Response to the Reagan Era in Boston and Chicago” by Professor Pierre Clavel.
The exhibition represents just a small part of the Progressive Cities and Neighborhood Planning Collection, 1969-2005, in the library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections. Check out the exhibition cases outside the Current Periodicals Room (Olin 101) and view the online guide to the collection.