ABSTRACT
This paper is one of the earliest works highlighting what was then the newly forming movement for “human renewal” or what is more widely known now as community development. Gans gives a thorough overview of the history of the planning movement as a force to battle urban poverty, as well as outlining the development of social work programs that were just occurring in many American cities, such as juvenile-delinquency prevention and programs for low-income residents. He then discusses the nature of the “contemporary” urban poverty of the 1960s, an analysis of the programs he refers to as “guided mobility” planning, a discussion of the compatibility of traditional city planning with the social planning movement, and an assessment of the merit of the latter movement to both local and the federal government.
