| Activists in City Hall: The Progressive Response to the Reagan Era in Boston and Chicago Subjects: Boston (Mass.) -- Politics and government; Chicago (Ill.) -- Politics and government; Community activists -- Massachusetts -- Boston; Community activists -- Illinois -- Chicago; Urban policy -- Massachusetts -- Boston; Urban policy -- Illinois -- Chicago; ; In 1983, Boston and Chicago elected progressive mayors with deep roots among community activists. Taking office as the Reagan administration was withdrawing federal aid from local governments, Boston's Raymond Flynn and Chicago's Harold Washington implemented major policies that would outlast them. More than reforming governments, they changed the substance of what the government was trying to do: above all, to effect a measure of redistribution of resources to the cities' poor and working classes and away from hollow goals of "growth" as measured by the accumulation of skyscrapers. In Boston, Flynn moderated an office development boom while securing millions of dollars for affordable housing. In Chicago, Washington implemented concrete measures to save manufacturing jobs, against the tide of national policy and trends. Pierre Clavel is Professor of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University. He is the author of The Progressive City , coauthor of Reinventing Cities , and coeditor of Harold Washington and the Neighborhoods . |