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Encyclopedia Dubuque

www.encyclopediadubuque.org

"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
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Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.




GRUEN REPORT

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GRUEN REPORT. The Gruen Report was thirty-two month study conducted in 1965 of urban conditions in Dubuque. In the July the plan faced "disruption" of the report with the development of a West side shopping center. This led to the formation of the CITIZENS COMMITTEE FOR A BETTER DUBUQUE.

On January 5, 1966, the Planning and Zoning Commission adopted the report as the official plan of the City of Dubuque. Similar action was taken by the City Council on March 7, 1966.


The Gruen report placed top priority on renewal of the downtown area. In July 1970, Crawford Westbrook, project coordinator of the Gruen report, claimed that a Dubuque tendency to use, discard, and move on had caused neighborhood blight which could only be corrected with the reinvestment of private and public funds.

Many of the plan’s proposals from 1965 had been implemented by 1970 including new downtown and west-end fire stations, improvements in the water and sewer services, new airport terminal, a downtown urban renewal plan, and studies that would result in a new bridge over the MISSISSIPPI RIVER. Westbrook, however, charged that little had been done to improve the city's recreational, social, or housing needs. Benefits, he felt, would be obtained from the opening of the Julien Motor Inn, the proposed Civic Center, and the downtown mall. Westbrook believed older neighborhoods needed rehabilitation and new housing needed to be built downtown.