Cicero’s latest Gang problem

Cicero hasn’t always had a source of pride readily at hand, so when the town recently went 14 months without a street-gang related killing, Larry Dominick, the Town President, engaged in a bit of chest thumping. “I am very proud to announce that we did not have one street gang-related killing in 2011 and not one in the past 14 months,” Dominick said. The Chicago Gangs site’s page on Cicero’s Two Two Boys helps put Dominick’s pride in some perspective.

In the above video architect Jeanne Gang outlines a number of proposed solutions to housing issues in Cicero. Her proposals are part of Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, an exhibit opening today at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

In a review of Gang’s proposal, the Tribune’s Blair Kamin comes close to a sneer, saying it’s “a vision fit for displaying on the walls of a prestigious museum. Whether it would work is a different matter.”

Watch Jeanne Gang outline her vision, and read Kamin’s entire take on Cicero’s newest Gang problem.

One has to wonder whether the market isn’t providing a solution to Cicero’s affordable housing issues: the median price of homes sold recently was in the low $50s.

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