Neighborhood Planning and Community-Based Development: The Potential and Limits of Grassroots Action William Peterman is a cultural geographer and planner from the US. He has considerable experience with ’neighborhood planning’ and ’community-based development.’ Among other things, he has been director of the Voorhes Centre for Neighborhood and Community Improvement, which began as part of the College of Architecture, Art, and Urban Planning. He is currently a Professor Emeritus at Chicago State University and have been coordinator for Urban Planning, Neighborhood Development, Housing, and Quantitative Methods.

In his book entitled Neighborhood Planning and Community-Based Development: The Potential and Limits of Grassroots Action (2000), he describes the North American context, with examples from projects in poor housing areas in Chicago during the 1980s and 90s. Peterman is not a ‘local action romanticist’ who believes residents in an area could solve all their problems themselves if only they could discover their innate capacity to realize positive change. Instead he explains why he does not believe in these kinds of recipes for revitalizing vulnerable neighborhoods. 

 Download a poster about a lecture Peterman held in Sweden.