The Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods has its origins in the MacArthur Foundation's longstanding interest in the causes and prevention of antisocial behavior. The Project has two goals: to identify and address the causes of some of the nation's gravest social problems, and to learn more about what goes right as children grow up in urban America.
How do large social and historical forces help shape individual developmental pathways?
That was the question posed more than a decade ago by the leaders of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods.They had long believed that neighborhoods, and the processes that influence them, must play a significant role in shaping individual development. But without substantive evidence, it remained a topic of contention among experts.
Providing the evidence would require a program of broad scope. It would demand not only breadth and depth of expertise but innovative research techniques, along with new tools and instruments. Ultimately, the Project comprised eight years of field research. Dozens of trained research assistants collected information at multiple levels, covering hundreds of neighborhoods and thousands of individuals over large spans of time. Unraveling this interconnected web of influences and outcomes has in turn demanded the creation of new, more powerful methods of analysis.
- Download INFO_CHICAGO_NEIGHBORHOODS.PDF (213.3 KB)
