Making a plan for urban tourism. The experience of Devon Avenue in Chicago

This paper concerns Devon Avenue, crossing the West Ridge neighborhood, in Chicago. Eight miles north of downtown, this area is inhabited by a large Jewish population with the majority of business owners coming from Pakistan and India. In order to make this neighborhood more attractive for outsiders and the uppermiddle class, Indo-Pakistan community leaders have attempted to define a strategic plan. This plan, aiming to make Devon an Indopakistan town (following on the footsteps of Chinatown), involves many cultural institutions i.e. cultural centers, museums; research institutes, historical societies, as well as the Chambers of Commerce and local professionals (architects, engineers, historians). The main aim of this paper is to analyze urban tourism governance processes and to underline the roles of cultural institutions. Cultural institutions promote agendas stimulating community involvement. The methodology, adopted to collect this information, is both qualitative (observations and 10 recorded interviews) and quantitative (statistical data collection)