They called him The Boss. Richard J. Daley, Chicago’s mayor from 1955 to 1976, came into office at a time when American cities like Chicago were losing population and industry to the suburbs in a phenomenon known as white flight. Daley’s answer was to build. He pulled together a team of city planners to create his 1958 Plan for the Central City of Chicago and he used it as the blueprint to build a modern downtown. But Daley's vision for a modern Chicago came with a cost. Between 1948 and 1963, nearly 168,000 people were displaced in the city of Chicago. Old neighborhoods disappeared and newly constructed areas faced increasing racial pressures.
