The Neighborhood and City Hall

Abstract

The creation of the National Commission on Neighborhoods by the Carter administration in 1977 reflects the growing interest of Americans in the most tangible social unit of our urban society outside the family. Declaring the urban neighborhood &dquo;a national resource to be conserved and revitalized,&dquo; the commission directed its investigation toward &dquo;the factors contributing to the decline of neighborhoods and the factors necessary to neighborhood survival and revitalization.&dquo;i I First, members of the commission took a tour of major American cities to see how well neighborhood life was surviving. They started in Baltimore because &dquo;we thought we ought to start with the best. &dquo;2 Baltimore has achieved, almost alone among the ten largest cities of the United States, a unique reputation for strong

Property Rights, Redevelopment Areas, and Toronto Ratepayer Associations in the 1950s

“…They became a permanent part of the Baltimore power structure where, only later, they were used to protect neighborhoods from development and, in the polarized racial politics of Baltimore, to reinforce segregation. 21 John Logan and Gordana Rebrenovic define neighborhood associations as "a civic organization oriented toward maintaining or improving the quality of life in a geographically delimited residential area," with most being formed around a single land-development project. 22 They distinguish such neighborhood associations from those that were common in 1960s and 1970s that primarily had advocacy goals around poverty, urban redevelopment, and other issues.…”