Nature and the Public: Urban Ecology and the Politics of Transportation in Progressive – Era Chicago

Abstract

This article argues that the model of urban ecology, as was formulated by Burgess, and McKenzie Park, comes from a uniquely local political context, in a city that had been the site of years of intense political agitation for reform. It shows how the specific model development will, in turn, used to intervene in this kind of "social laboratory of the nation ", to the extent that its principles will help identify priorities and dynamics of public policy Chicago in the decades following its publication.