BUILDING FOR SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY - Kennedy Bibliothek

communication between the central decision-making body and the local
school is close, e.g. two of the oldest community-school areas: Flint,
Michigan and New Haven, Connecticut. A third more recent example of
community education exists in one of the few still growing communities
in the country, East Windsor, New Jersey. One common trait of all three
examples is a long standing history of co-operation between various
agencies which, in the first two cases, have led to an early use of
schools for community services and, in the latter, to a more recent move
towards the integrated provision of services. Another characteristic is
the dominance of educational and recreational uses as evidenced in the
various program brochures. As was found in Part One, the acceptability
of integrating education and recreation eliminates the conflicts which
arise in the co-ordination of traditionally less compatible uses. Included
in the latter category are health, welfare and judicial agencies which
have been co-ordinated in the larger urban areas and metropolitan regions
through the interventionist approach.
100. Both Hartford and Ann Arbor count among the interventionist examples,
as they offer community school models which have come into being as part
of larger urban planning processes. In both cases the co-ordination of
school and community facilities is seen as one important way of upgrading
the urban environment. In both, citizens have been involved in the
planning processes, and new organisational and architectural models have
been developed. Another characteristic, common to both, has been the
eruption of deep rooted conflicts during the planning processes.
101. The "Greater Hartford Process", a guideline report for the coordination
of resources and needs in the greater Hartford region, states the
initial problem In the following way:
"American cities have traditionally lacked a way to deal with their
problems. Public and private interests have been locked into their
separate jurisdictions, powerless to attack the problems that respect
no such boundary. We have lacked a process enabling us to work
together across all boundaries - public and private, town and city,
black and white, rich and poor. No group can do the job alone,
although any group can stop it. Nothing good will happen unless
people want it to happen and believe it can happen."(1)
102. Hartford and Ann Arbor began to attack the problems of co-ordination
by developing comprehensive master plans for urban and educational development
in the late 60's and early 70's. In 1976, when the present study
1) "The Greater Hartford Process", a report by the American City Corporation,
a subsidiary of the Rouse Company, April 1972, page 11.
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