Recently a follower sent me an interesting e-mail He said he recently re-read The Organization Man by William Whyte The suburban Chicago village of Park Forest as an example of the kind of Levittown-style suburban development that was taking America by storm at the time he found that yesterday’s model of white middle class and middle management homogeneity is now a black-majority community are there any books or articles out there that described what happened in Park Forest since The Organization Man Whyte died last week in New York City at age 81 that some residents continue to challenge as too sweeping; while others see it as merely part of the post-World War II culture A former Cook County Circuit judge and the second Park Forest village president Henry Dietch said he challenged Whyte's theory of rigid corporate conformity and sameness."I told him that his theory was not foolproof," Dietch said He insists that neither Park Forest residents nor the landscape were predominantly cookie-cutter The community has always welcomed a diverse population and embraced progressive thinking "There was some truth to it," Dietch said of Whyte's work "But Park Forest has always been more diverse than `The Organization Man.' " Park Forest did indeed embody much of what was good and bad about post-World War II suburbia at the time But Park Forest has changed dramatically since then as it’s been tossed about by a host of other social and economic forces over the last 70 years one of class: Park Forest subtly shifted from being a white-collar middle management enclave to a blue-collar skilled labor town not long after that book came out This was prompted by the development of newer suburbs with larger homes and lots than could be found in Park Forest which was dominated by small rental co-ops and starter homes Park Forest’s first residents decamped for nearby Richton Park or Matteson or Olympia Fields for larger and newer homes And one of the co-op townhouse buildings that can be found throughout the village: I recently read an article about a proposal for merging inner ring suburbs with Chicago author Ed McClelland notes that northwest suburban Niles looks as if it was "constructed over a three-week period in 1962 and not touched since." Park Forest can have that feeling This was accompanied by the growth of factories throughout south Cook County in the '60s and early '70s as manufacturers looked outside of dense Chicago neighborhoods for cheap land for expansion By the mid-'70s Park Forest was pretty much swept up in the growth of manufacturing jobs that came to Chicago's south suburbs during that time But Park Forest's homes and commercial centers became dated very quickly as other housing and shopping options developed nearby developers sought out sites that were easily accessible to the new highway network the planned community envisioned by developers Philip Klutznick and Nathan Manilow was built on a connection to Chicago’s commuter rail system and turned itself away from the interstates Park Forest Plaza initially suffered from competition from Lincoln Mall in nearby Matteson which opened in the early 1970’s; the relative lack of access to commuting shoppers meant that commercial decline accelerated pretty quickly Park Forest Plaza effectively closed in 1996 when its two anchor department stores closed The Village of Park Forest has since tried to create the former mall site as a traditional town center a cultural arts center and senior housing on site (note: Matteson's Lincoln Mall itself closed in 2015) blue-collar middle class between about 1980-2000 During that time Park Forest tried to implement that racial integration and open housing model that had been quite successful in Oak Park The village was honored as an “All-America City” for its work on integration in 1976 as much as it tried to brand itself as an integration-friendly community white flight was likely a stronger force on the town than black in-migration Park Forest was subject to global and technological changes in manufacturing The loss of manufacturing jobs throughout the Chicago area in the '90s/'00s made Park Forest's residents substantially poorer during this time an unfortunate distinction in a high-tax county I think three factors caused this: 1) an older mid-century housing stock that lost its luster and value; 2) the rapid decline of its mall and other commercial development (the mall effectively closed in 1996); and 3) almost no industrial or office development to offset the property value decreases in other areas Park Forest went all in as a mid-century bedroom community and once other options opened up the community has struggled Park Forest's rise and fall over the last 70 years is pretty consistent with what's happened in virtually all of Chicago's south Cook County suburbs over the same period and largely off the radar for the rest of the metro area This piece originally appeared on The Corner Side Yard. Pete Saunders is a Detroit native who has worked as a public and private sector urban planner in the Chicago area for more than twenty years. He is also the author of "The Corner Side Yard," an urban planning blog that focuses on the redevelopment and revitalization of Rust Belt cities Photo: The Jewel Supermarket at Park Forest Plaza This was at the height of Park Forest's popularity I clicked on the property tax link provided and selected Park Forest as the location: $11,919/year a $120K loan @ 5% gives a payment of $1,728 That homeowner would be paying 8% of the value of the home in property taxes every year And what the heck is all that money paying for NewGeography.com is a joint venture of Joel Kotkin and Praxis Strategy Group Joel Kotkin's newest book The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class is now available to order. Learn more about this title and Joel's other books Infinite Suburbia is the culmination of the MIT Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism's yearlong study of the future of suburban development. Find out more