In an effort to see how well some of the city’s mixed-income developments that are part of the Chicago Housing Authority‘s Plan for Transformation are coming along, Joe and I drove through a handful of them yesterday.
What we saw – versus what the sites for each development were marketing – was at times staggering. Many of these projects that were described as being in “exciting” new neighborhoods “right in the middle of it all,” were actually far from it. As you’ll see, many of these developments are a mere fraction of what they’re intended to be and most have plenty of undeveloped lots and unfinished construction.
The first one we hit was Parkside of Old Town, which consists of a small handful of high-rise and mid-rise buildings that have been under construction since the winter of 2006. This development is controversial because it sits on the northern edge of Cabrini-Green, one of Chicago’s most notorious housing projects. You’ll see that the development, which is planned to contain 800 homes over eight city blocks, contains just a fragment of that so far. It’s made up of mix of market value homes and CHA rental units.
Thank you for this utterly depressing driving tour.
I think this is what makes Chicago such an interesting place–when I drive around Chicago I find myself alternating emotionally between joy/excitement and despondence/disgust. You literally are in the middle of a bustling, dense, vibrant urban neighborhood and then, 2 minutes later–block upon block of urban prairie.
This is the result of a half century (and counting) of a city that tears its neighborhoods down and replaces them….as if this is some way to heal broken neighborhoods. Perhaps that would work if you want to demolish the ghetto and create market-rate housing, but if you’re planning to replace it with just another ghetto (which is exactly what Park Boulevard, Parkside of Old Town, etc are destined to become) then what’s the goddamn point?!
I have an idea: dissolve the CHA, allow these areas to be developed into market rate housing, and let the poor find their own housing. Heck, that’s what the suburbs do–and I don’t see on what basis the city has to be burdened with a moral obligation that it never asked for.
tup,
The whole point of moral obligations is that they’re unasked for – and obligations, if we want to be a civilized people.
Not to worry. This city long ago unburdened itself of any sense of obligation to its poor. That’s the tragedy of our neighborhoods and our politics.
I find myself in a state of rage in many Chicago neighborhoods, knowing what those streets do to the kids who grow up on them and are doomed to live and die on them without any genuine concern for their welfare on the part of our city’s “leaders.”
To paraphrase Bert Jenner, an old boss of mine, we have an obligation because of the privileges we have.
Joe,
The poor are always screwed, especially if they’re black. That will never change until we live in a Communist Society.
But since we’re not supposed to say the “C” word (“shhhh!”), the second best bet is to either a) sequester them and pretend they don’t exist, b) occasionally give them merciful donations to cleanse us of our guilt, or c) both.
Getting back to Chicago–I am about to say something insensitive: in the interest of the city, I would much rather NOT have poor gangbangers occupying what could be some really great real estate. I’d rather see them out in Naperville