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making, accumulating citizens."18 This meant that much of the land in urban and near-urban areas in the United States was owned or controlled by either an "old money" elite or by wealthy tradesmen and shopkeepers.19 These persons occupied the most usable, desirable, and ultimately most e�pensive land at the center of cities. 20 Poorer persons who managed to live in the city occupied side alleys and less desirable lowlands or thoroughfares at the sufferance of the wealthy. �i Because making improvements to the built environment was often considered a private concern, the poor had little voice in the development of the cityscape and received few of the benefits of such development.22 For example, in much of nineteenth century Chicago, physical improvements were the responsibility of individual property owners, and thus landless citizens were often without amenities such as sidewalks and sewers. 23 There were no fixed, clearly articulated standards of development but rather ad hoc solutions achieved via private arrangements among land owners. B. Private Land tlse Agreements as Planning Devices Members of the urban land owning classes frequently relied in the first instance upon the implicit understandings of their class regarding land use standards. 24 If these informal agreements failed, they also had access to the formal legal tools that had long been a part of 18 Id 19 Id �o See Priscilla Ferguson Clement, Welfare and the Poor in the 19th Century City: Philadelphia isoo to iss4 z4-zs �i9ss�. 2� Id 22 Id 23 Id. 24 T.7 1 Ll E