This book focuses on a gap in current social work practice theory: community change. Much work in this area of macro practice, particularly around -grassroots- community organizing, has a somewhat dated feel to it, is highly ideological in orientation, or suffers from superficiality, particularly in the area of theory and practical application. Set against the context of an often narrowly constructed -clinical- emphasis on practice education, coupled with social work's own current rendering of -scientific management, - community practice often takes second or third billing in many...

This book speaks to a lacuna in current social work practice theory: community change. Much work in this area of macro practice, particularly around "grassroots" community organizing, has a somewhat dated feel to it, is highly ideological in orientation, or-in the case of many "generalist" treatments of the topic-suffers from superfi ciality, particularly in the area of theory and practical application. Set against the context of an often narrowly constructed "clinical" emphasis on practice education, coupled with social work's own current rendering of "scientifi c management," community...

For many years Chicago's looming large-scale housing projects defined the city, and their demolition and redevelopment--via the Chicago Housing Authority's Plan for Transformation--has been perhaps the most startling change in the city's urban landscape in the last twenty years. The Plan, which reflects a broader policy effort to remake public housing in cities across the country, seeks to deconcentrate poverty by transforming high-poverty public housing complexes into mixed-income developments and thereby integrating once-isolated public housing residents into the social and economic fabric...