The Trib today offers up a perennial article on North Lawndale, replete with facts and figures about the cash-flush revival effort that’s kept the neighborhood on the cusp of recovery for a decade or more.
North Lawndale, a rough area with plenty of bad neighborhoods, isn’t famous for its 2,000 or so historic greystones. What makes North Lawndale unusual is its history of receiving millions in government development funds and somehow ending up no better than when it started.
YoChicago has kept an eye on the goings-on in this neighborhood – both the bad news and the good.
What do you think: Is North Lawndale just a few short years away from a revival? If not, what’s it going to take to breathe new life into the neighborhood?
Brenda Palms-Barber, of the North Lawndale Employment Network, says that “fifty-seven percent of the adults in North Lawndale have a criminal background or have had some involvement with the criminal justice system.”
That’s a huge drag on any community.
Lack of funds isn’t the issue with Lawndale, Inglewood, Back of the Yards, etc. Its the people. As long as these neighborhoods are terrorized by low class ghetto trash, all the money in the world will not make them a viable place to live. When a white person can move in and walk to the corner store and come back alive and with their wallet intact, then these neighborhoods might have a chance.
I guess this could beg the question, what brings about a revival? It is people with an education (undergrad degrees) or professional jobs? Is it grants to build new housing? Though I think that’s less likely.
Shades of the long – rumoured revivals of Logan Square and Wicker Park during the 80’s – but the regentrification did eventually happen in those neighborhoods. But I always got a sense that there was a solid base of working – class folks in those locales that were still fighting the good fight – is there any evidence of that element in the case of North Lawndale?
What makes North Lawndale unusual is its history of receiving millions in government development funds and somehow ending up no better than when it started.
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Good money following bad money. You could poor millions into the WestSide and get nothing out of it.
Well, Pete, I guess Back of the Yards’ day is here, since I’m white and I’ve lived there for three years with no loss of life or wallet.
This has been a neighborhood that good people fought to get out of for years. Now, finally, they’re starting to stay, and a few white, middle-class bargain hunters are starting to take a look. But I’d rather see my “low class, ghetto trash” neighbors move from owning to renting than see too many more yuppies like myself show up here. I’m not so rich that I could keep up with the property taxes if this neighborhood really took off.