Do we really wish to live in a communitarian city? Communitarian thinking and the redevelopment of Chicago's Cabrini-Green public housing complex

Communitarianism is a movement of academic intellectuals, policy experts, and public figures seeking to redefine the relations among individuals, communities, and governments. This article examines two important communitarian texts, Amitai Etzioni's The Spirit of Community and Alan Ehrenhalt's The Lost City, and further links communitarian principles to particular features of William Julius Wilson's "ghetto underclass" analysis. The article concludes with a discussion of current proposals to redevelop the Cabrini-Green complex, a large public housing site on Chicago's Near North Side-noting the communitarian rationales that have animated the redevelopment proposals and questioning whether or not a truly "communitarian city" will result from the public-private partnership seeking to rebuild Cabrini-Green.