I have to admit that I couldn’t bear to watch the whole thing, although I did manage to skip about through several minutes of this relentlessly “on message” buzzword binge about the redevelopment of the Lathrop Homes.
Here’s the text that introduces the video:
The Lathrop Community in Chicago is on the brink of experiencing a momentous reshaping of its neighborhood, and the Chicago Housing Authority has assembled a prominent, comprehensive, well-respected development team.
As expected, this imminent redevelopment is a sensitive topic of conversation. Therefore, the Chicago Housing Authority has made it a priority to ensure that this paramount project is not being developed behind closed doors. Rather, residents and neighbors of the community have been invited to participate and to get involved in an extensive, open design process. And as this project continues to gain momentum, the community stakeholders will have several opportunities to engage in thoughtful commentary and to offer tactful suggestions.
The Lathrop Community Partners are sensitive to the fact that they have been invited as guests to this neighborhood, and with a project of this magnitude, it will be vitally important for all involved to remain socially, environmentally, and economically responsible. Throughout the entire process, public involvement will be guided by the Lathrop Community Partners. This team has been carefully selected as a diverse, educated, informed, and experienced group of specialists. And they are ready.
So please say hello to the individuals who are leading the way with their creative, strategic, sustainable vision for Chicago’s Lathrop Community. Because this is only the beginning…
Am I misreading this when I find the tone to be haughty and rather contemptuous of the so-called “community stakeholders” who are expected to behave themselves during the process? After all, educated expert specialists will decide which commentary is thoughtful and which suggestions tactful. No Mau-Mauing the flak catchers, folks.
The reality is that any development of this size and complexity, involving this large a cast of characters, has to be driven from the top down, with community input playing only a pro forma, largely irrelevant part, if the project is to result in a viable “community.”
The Lathrop Community Partners development group has impressive accomplishments. Would it build a better product, more economically and expeditiously, without any input from the “community stakeholders?”
I counter your Tom Wolfe reference with Screaming Jay Hawkins and the Feast of the Mau Maus.
Screaming Jay had talent. The writer of the Lathrop Partners redevelopment propaganda has a talent for BS. I mean really, that is not meant to be an insult. Really.
Somehow Joyce comes to mind.
A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what’s cheese? Corpse of milk.
James Joyce
This PR piece is delicious in its entirety and irony.
IrishPirate,
I’ll hold open the possibility that the piece was written as satire by a jaded 20-something who knew that none of his elders would get the joke. That would be even more delicious, a wilderness of mirrors.
Back at you with Eliot –
The word within a word, unable to speak a word,
Swaddled with darkness.
Joe,
I don’t know if I’ll live long enough to understand either Joyce or Eliot, but I do know that trying to comprehend both at the same time is beyond me. Unless perhaps I was taking some peyote and cocaine at the same time, washing it down with a Guinness.
Now onto this question you posed:
(“Would it build a better product, more economically and expeditiously, without any input from the “community stakeholders?”)
I think the answer is undoubtedly YES. Whether it be current/ former Lathrop residents OR nearby property owners, letting people with that kind of “stake” in the development of the property have an “input” or even “veto” is almost always a mistake. Whew, that’s a long sentence.
The LAST people who should decide on the appropriate use of a property are the people directly impacted. Virtually nothing will ever get done if that ‘s the standard for deciding on development. Most people’s default response is “No change ever, we like things as they are”.
At least the PR writer used the word “stakeholders” instead of the phrase “indigenous people”.
Although the image of the tenants of Lathrop and the nearby property owners with “stakes” may be appropriate.
If the development team truly listens to the “stakeholders” they may end up quoting Kipling:
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Change some words to Lathrop, stakeholders and bankrupt and that part of the poem may fit.
I quote Kipling since our now sentenced former Governor likes him so much.
IrishPirate,
Funny you should mention Kipling. The tone of the piece I quoted is disturbingly evocative of another of his poems.
For anyone interested in the Lathrop reviatlization process go to the Lathrop Community Partners’ website.
Here you can learn more about what’s happening and where we are at in the process. For example, right now we are in the midst of our 3-part Workshop Series which is open to the public to attend. To find out more about the upcoming Workshops this Saturday morning, December 10 and Tuesday, December 13 visit this link.