Tag: Chicago
Under Fire, Aldermanic Prerogative Is Turned to Democratic Ends
Long used to maintain segregationist and discriminatory policy, aldermanic prerogative is now being wielded in a more inclusive way.
Building Healthy Housing Through Health Action Plans
A pilot program required CDCs to collaborate with public health professionals in order to discover—and address—a community’s pressing health issues. What the collaboration uncovered were issues that the participating CDCs hadn't even considered.
Preserving Affordable Housing by Buying, Not Building
Two organizations are quietly furthering income integration in higher-income Chicago neighborhoods without new development.
Who Will Benefit From Opportunity Zones? It’s Still Unclear
Who will benefit most from these investments remains the biggest question.
Eviction Filings Hurt Tenants, Even If They Win
From Monday through Friday, 52 weeks a year, thousands of tenants, landlords, and attorneys make their way to the Daley Center in downtown Chicago....
Chicago Activist Convention Shifts Focus to Community Benefits Campaign
Standing on a truck in front of a group of several hundred protesters, Tom Gordon expressed a feeling shared often at the ONE Northside...
Shelter Shorts, The Week in Community Development—June 1
An International Housing Crisis | Adaptive Reuse in Orange | The Best Places For Bees | First TOD, Now TOG | An Incentive To Desegregate Schools | More...
Inclusionary Housing in Soft or Mixed Markets
The time to strike isn’t when the iron is hot. Cities in soft or mixed markets should adopt inclusionary housing policies before the housing market heats up and the process becomes even more challenging.
Back in the Game: CDFIs Help 1- to 4-Unit Rental Housing...
After the housing crash, Chicago’s 1- to 4-unit rentals weren’t bouncing back in many neighborhoods. Three CDFIs came together to make it happen.
Connecting Companies to Business
A Chicago organization is bringing together local businesses and large institutions to promote economic growth.
Demolishing Buildings, and Political Communities
Signs like the one above went up at Chicago's Lathrop Homes a few Fridays ago. In 1999, the Chicago Housing Authority, in step with other...
Conflict and Placemaking in Humboldt Park: La Crucifixion
It took 10 years, but a local Chicago activist managed to save a mural that portrays Pedro Albizu Campos, the leader of the movement for Puerto Rican independence.
Conflict and Placemaking in Humboldt Park: Paseo Boricua
The area surrounding Paseo Boricua is not exclusive space, but in a gentrifying part of the city, it is undeniably—and perhaps unavoidably—contested space.
Uncertain Future in the Absence of Planning
Planning Chicago, by D. Bradford Hunt and Jon B. DeVries. APA Planners Press, 2013, 352 pp. $34.95.
Can Successful Community Development Be Anything But Comprehensive?
To truly help a neighborhood you need a lead agency to organize, plan, and coordinate many actors.
Notes from the Road: High Rises and the Four Concerns of...
I'm on the road this week, with stops in Chicago, Kalamazoo, and San Antonio. I left Chicago this afternoon by train, getting a great...
Chicago: Mercy Portfolio Services, a subsidiary of Mercy Housing
“How do we knit together the capacity, whether it’s the developer, lawyers, title companies, lenders, and define the deal so that we can move...
Emerging from Chicago’s Shadow
Towns long in Chicago’s shadow have sought creative ways
to collaborate for federal funding, while building off existing
partnerships as part of a long-term approach to neighborhood,
and regional, stabilization.
IOC’s Rio Pick Could Be Good News for Chicago
My friend Hank Kalet offered a prescient look last week about the potential pitfalls of Chicago being awarded the 2016 Olympic games. The following...
Fighting Foreclosure On All Fronts
While national coverage has subsided, a handful of immigrant families in Chicago's Albany Park neighborhood are still fighting to stay in their foreclosed apartment building, and their story is simply part of a larger struggle in the country's third-largest city.