Local Governance Conflicts Under the Chicago Plan for Transformation Implementation

This paper will first develop an argument in favour of a micro-level / logic approach within governance implementation research, before developing an example from a fieldwork conducted in 2012 in Chicago. Micro-level analysis is today seen as the poor relation of political science, contrary to the significant use of monographs in sociology and/or urban studies for instance. Thus, I will first argue in favour of a neighbourhood-level analysis of local governance conflicts within implementation research. I will show the significance of neighbourhood-level analysis of local governance structures in policy implementation research. To illustrate this argument, I will then draw upon an analysis of the implementation of the Chicago Plan for Transformation of public housing, the largest urban renewal program ever attempted in the US history. I will show how the implementation of the Chicago Plan for Transformation, whose objective is the demolition of 35,000 neglected public housing units, has been delayed due to the resisting collective action of local actors. I will focus on the Roosevelt Square mixed-income redevelopment of the Chicago West Side. In the Roosevelt Square community, formerly called ABLA Homes, the Local Advisory Council is indeed in charge of representing public housing residents’ interests. The Chicago City Council is willing to close all Chicago Local Advisory Councils, in order to allow the Plan to move forward. Indeed, conflicting interests are at stake at the neighbourhood level between the local advisory council and private developers willing to pursue the construction of the mixed-income project and encouraged by the City of Chicago through it Housing Authority. This article, arguing in favour of neighbourhood-level analysis of public policies implementation, will therefore show how a local governance structure is today blocking a City-level plan for transformation in Chicago.