The New Urban Community: Mutual Relevance of the Social and Physical Environment.

This report presents a study carried out in the near southside Chicago community of South Commons. The site was chosen because it was considered planned, heterogeneous, and located in the inner-city. The analysis is based on preliminary work carried out in the summer of 1973. This project focuses on the social and physical construction of community. It is suggested that people have spatial needs--patterned obstructions that transcend individual differences and are integrated into the social matrix where they occur. The basis for analysis was said to be mostly culled from informal conversations, off-the-cuff remarks, and a sampling of interviews with adult residents of all income levels and ethnicities; this was complemeted by observations of children at play in their home areas, the playground, etc; and finally conversations with neighborhood Youth Corps boys and girls from Prairie Courts. It is concluded that the planned inner-city community must be considered as one element in the larger urban dynamic. There is a need, it is stated, which is documented in this report, for more adequate integration of human needs, physical or spatial needs, and human services in the planning and programming of a community. (Author/JM)