Earlier in our driving tour, Mike Tomas said there wasn’t a single bank to be found in East Garfield Park. Here, we return to that topic, and he explains what kinds of stop-gaps the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance is trying to bring into the neighborhood.
Tomas, who heads the Conservatory Alliance’s New Communities Program, also talks here about the role the conservatory plays in East Garfield Park. We also discuss the Alliance’s quality-of-life plan (PDF), which was written and published in collaboration with LISC/Chicago.
The only way to improve the quality of life in E Garfield Park is for it to become a more affluent neighborhood than it is.
Poorer neighborhoods lack services because they are poor. That is never going to change–it has been the case for thousands of years.
Now, if we become a more Socialist society that would change. But I don’t see that happening in the United States–ever.
I think it’s had the potential to happen several times throughout history and there could certainly be some more socialist changes in the future, through the ballot box and sold along the lines of say Social Security or Medicaid/Medicare….
Or simply a national employment/industrial policy to eliminate joblessness…