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Despite the first scheme's emphasis on the great cube of open space, it is possible to trace Lake Meadows's landscaping strategy of defining these semi-public zones as early as the project's conception. In several letters to SOM in 1949, General Otto Nelson, NYLIC's Vice President in Charge of Housing (and army buddy of South Side Planning Board member Fred Kramer, who was instrumental in attracting NYLIC to invest in Lake Meadows and whose real estate firm, Draper and Kramer were—and still are—the project's rental agents) consistently underscored the value that landscape brought to the project. Recognizing that the site was especially well located near Chicago's greatest natural asset—Lake Michigan—Nelson recommended "pulling in the lake front to bring its influence to bear on every part of the project." Nelson also judiciously understood that the project was ground breaking as the first redevelopment project and that it was important to set a good precedent, Nelson stressed that the project be understood as semi-public; by welcoming public access, it could become a community-wide asset and have an even greater and more rapid influence on the whole Near South Side. Nelson suggested that landscaping be employed to create more private (and controlled) areas, such as children's play areas: "This can probably be accomplished by the judicious use of grading features, berms, landscaping, fencing, placement of buildings and visual control by project staff." In a letter a year later, Ambrose Richardson took Nelson's implication even further, suggesting that landfill could help the row houses gain desirable lake front views, and would, more importantly, also "serve as a psychological fence from the casual nuisances."(7) But the five twelve-story buildings, which were the first to be completed, have no articulation to their facades and little variation in the green spaces that separate them, suggesting that either a change in design attitude at SOM (as documented by Nicholas Adams in his study of SOM, the project changed hands several times over the course of its design and construction), or a client reaction to the urban effect of the first cluster of buildings led to the fulfillment of Nelson's early vision of a semi-public project.(8)

In addition to entwining a series of designers at SOM—among others, Ambrose Richardson, Walter Netsch, James Scheeler, and Gertrude Kerbis—the story threads of both Lake Meadows versions interweave architecture, urbanism, legislation, public relations, personalities, and—to quote British architectural historian Christopher Woodward—some "creepy social engineering" that worked to obscure the project from history's limelight.(9) Lake Meadows's history stretches back to June, 1946 when two institutions—the Illinois Institute of Technology and Michael Reese Hospital—joined forces to spur the redevelopment of the Near South Side of Chicago by founding the South Side Planning Board (SSPB), an unofficial group of citizen planners that also included Chicago businessmen, academics, and community leaders. Astonishingly well structured, ambitious, and productive—especially given that it was a volunteer organization—the SSPB put forth a comprehensive vision for the redevelopment of a seven-square-mile area and became a significant liaison between the city and the entire South Side.(10)

Exactly one year after the founding of the SSPB, Illinois passed the Blighted Areas Redevelopment and Relocation Acts, which paved the way for the federal Housing Act of 1949 by legislating measures for slum clearance and urban renewal. Attesting that "neither the demolition nor repair of an occasional building changes the character of a blighted neighborhood," these Illinois Acts made the acquisition of large parcels of land available through purchase by the Chicago Land Clearance Commission, the powers of eminent domain, and "the use of public funds to squeeze the water out of the inflated values of land and structures."(11) This legislation thoroughly transformed the dynamics of urban development in Chicago and ultimately served as a model for subsequent federal legislation that would enable large-scale urban-renewal projects throughout the country during the 1950s.(12)

Within days of the passage of the Blighted Areas Acts, "six private and public organizations concerned with the rebuilding of a slum area," who were clearly anticipating the legislation's approval, published a sixty-two-page, carefully researched and professionally designed booklet entitled An Opportunity for Private and Public Investment in Rebuilding Chicago. A collaboration of IIT, Michael Reese, the South Side Planning Board, the Metropolitan Housing Council, Pace Associates, and the Chicago Housing Authority, An Opportunity laid out a redevelopment plan "at the cost of a battleship"—an appropriate analogy for the postwar economy. Organized under the guidance of Walter Blucher, Executive Director of the American Society of Planning Officials (based in Chicago) and Walter Gropius (who was then Chairman of the Department of Architecture at Harvard), the joint redevelopment plan, which called for high population densities but low land coverage, was clearly influenced by the Congress of International Architecture’s (CIAM) tower in the park ambitions. Even at this early date, the site for Lake Meadows—101 acres just south of Michael Reese Hospital along Lake Michigan—was reserved for high rise housing and a large shopping center.

Although the famously endless Chicago grid was respected in the Rebuilding Chicago proposal, it was nonetheless loosened, according to the CLCC: "redevelopment should change the outmoded street pattern and provide open spaces for grass and trees, parks and playgrounds."(13) Despite the CCLC's lack of enthusiasm for the Chicago grid, the South Side Plan demonstrated that Chicago's orthogonal street plan was hardly outmoded but was in fact elastic enough to absorb superblock planning.

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