Childhood's changing terrain: incorporating childhood past and present into community evaluation

Abstract

Two Kentucky communities are compared to evaluate the changing quality of children's community experience since 1900: Portland, an old working-class area of Louisville, and New Castle, a rural county seat. Through a combination of oral histories, archival re search, and contemporary children's evaluations, pre- and post-World War II com munity resources for children are identified, along with the social contexts of their use. Parallel social and land-use changes in the two communities, subject to parallel econ omic policies and social trends, challenge the urban-rural dichotomy that has character ized histories ot children's lives.