published in the New York Times on Friday, July 30.
Until last week, Christian Jurinka had never heard complaints about the stenciled advertisements his agency sprays on the sidewalks of major cities. But when neon pink-and-yellow ads for a Brazilian brand of flip-flops landed on the North Side of Chicago, they immediately drew the ire of a Lincoln Park stroller.
The pedestrian, Bruce Beavis, 51, complained to the police, his alderman, Vi Daley of the 43rd Ward, the news media and Mr. Jurinka’s business partner, who promised to send a cleaning crew to remove the advertisements the next day.
“We tell all our clients that this is an activity that some communities have no problem with, and other communities frown upon,” said Mr. Jurinka, the co-founder of Attack, a provider of guerrilla marketing services, who said they would not to stencil ads on Chicago streets again. “The law is somewhat cloudy.”
But Matt Smith, a spokesman for the Department of Streets and Sanitation, said Chicago’s policy on sidewalk stenciling was not ambiguous.
“We have zero tolerance for people who would use the public way for their promotions,” Mr. Smith said, “and will go after them any way we can.”
Companies may think they are going to gain an advantage, he said, “but instead they could be drawing a lot of negative publicity and fines.”
That is what happened to IBM in 2001, when it hired an agency that spray-painted ads across walkways in Boston, Chicago, New York and San Francisco without obtaining permits. The company was fined tens of thousands of dollars.
Russ Kellogg, director of sales for ICE Factor, another marketing agency that uses unconventional strategies, said the extensive permit process in Chicago was a disincentive to marketers.
“You either ask for permission or ask for forgiveness,” Mr. Kellogg said.
RACHEL CROMIDAS
A version of this article appeared in print on July 30, 2010, on page A17A of the National edition.
Showing posts with label the New York Times. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the New York Times. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Got Available Ground? Want Free Vegetables?
By RACHEL CROMIDAS for the Chicago News Cooperative
pub. July 16, 2010 in the New York Times
In return for vegetables rather than money, some Kenwood residents are letting their properties be used by community gardeners — many of them strangers — who are strapped for space.
This so-called urban sharecropping has also been growing in popularity in Austin, Tex., and Portland, Ore., thanks to networking Web sites.
Kenwood, known for its arts-and-crafts mansions and President Barack Obama’s house, is considered a natural place for the partnerships because thousands of square feet of lawns dot the blocks between 47th and 50th Streets.
“It’s an unusual relationship,” said Deborah Hammond, a gardener who tends to 300 square feet behind a three-story mansion. “I’m not a service provider, I’m not a friend of the family, but I have a key to the back gate.”
Her use of the land has involved negotiating with the homeowner over who would pay for topsoil (they do), and plants (she does), and what to grow.
pub. July 16, 2010 in the New York Times
In return for vegetables rather than money, some Kenwood residents are letting their properties be used by community gardeners — many of them strangers — who are strapped for space.
This so-called urban sharecropping has also been growing in popularity in Austin, Tex., and Portland, Ore., thanks to networking Web sites.
Kenwood, known for its arts-and-crafts mansions and President Barack Obama’s house, is considered a natural place for the partnerships because thousands of square feet of lawns dot the blocks between 47th and 50th Streets.
“It’s an unusual relationship,” said Deborah Hammond, a gardener who tends to 300 square feet behind a three-story mansion. “I’m not a service provider, I’m not a friend of the family, but I have a key to the back gate.”
Her use of the land has involved negotiating with the homeowner over who would pay for topsoil (they do), and plants (she does), and what to grow.
Friday, June 18, 2010
DuPage Struggles to Handle Increased Need for Public Aid
(My latest from the CNC, published in today's New York Times Chicago insert:
By DIRK JOHNSON and RACHEL CROMIDAS
Not far from million-dollar homes in DuPage County, a line of people spills through the doors of a public aid office in Villa Park, now the busiest branch of the Illinois Department of Human Services.
As many as 900 county residents come to the office every day looking for food stamps, emergency financial assistance and vouchers for medical care, said Phyllis Baxter, the site’s administrator.
The surge in suburban poverty reflects the economic collapse for people who had been solidly middle class, including former homeowners with college degrees. It also underscores the changing demographics in some older commuter cities, now home to more Spanish-speaking immigrants and working-class families fleeing tough city neighborhoods. The state’s second-busiest Human Services office is in Blue Island, just south of Chicago in Cook County.
Requests for help at the DuPage County office have soared by about 60 percent in the past five years, Ms. Baxter said. “They come through those doors,” she said, “and they’ll say, ‘I lost my job. I need food. I can’t pay my medical bills.’ ”
The state, which is some $13 billion in debt, has been unable to increase the size of the office’s 81-member staff, which leaves caseworkers scrambling to manage increasing workloads. “The stress level is off the charts,” Ms. Baxter said. “And, remember, plenty of our people have also got somebody in the family who has lost a job.”
Hue Tran has worked as a caseworker in DuPage County for 32 years. She said she had never seen anything like the overwhelming demands of the last two years.
“I just have to work faster,” Ms. Tran said. “The phones are ringing, people are lining up, they’re demanding to know why they’re not getting benefits.”
Ms. Tran and other social workers said many suburbanites, who were living comfortably not long ago, were upset that they now had to beg for help.
“Sometimes they get angry and then they apologize,” said Ms. Tran, who said she had counseled many people who had started crying. “I just tell them: ‘I understand. It’s not your fault.’ ”
Other caseworkers say they feel guilty that they cannot spend enough time on clients. Ebony Martin, 32, said that four years ago, when she came to the DuPage County office, she had a caseload of about 900. Today she has more than 2,300 cases.
“I made a color-coded chart that tells me these are the people that I must — absolutely must — get to today,” Ms. Martin said.
Kara Murphy, the executive director of Access DuPage, a nonprofit group that helps uninsured people find health care, said enrollment in the program had jumped 55 percent in the last two years, to about 11,600.
The sharp increase in the need for services has strained the social infrastructure in suburban areas like DuPage County, which for a long time served chiefly as bedroom communities for prosperous commuters and their families. DuPage County, which has nearly one million residents, is the region’s second-most-populous county, after Cook. It has the area’s highest median household income, more than $73,000, according to a 2007 report by the Heartland Alliance. The unemployment rate has grown to nearly 9 percent in 2010, nearly triple the rate of the early 1990s, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Services for the working poor and the jobless can be scarce in the suburbs. Candace King, executive director of the DuPage Federation on Human Services Reform, said cities provided more programs to address poverty, like health clinics and food pantries. Housing costs tend to be higher in the suburbs, Ms. King said, and it can be difficult to rely on the smaller mass transit system.
“It is far better to be poor in Chicago than poor in DuPage,” she said.
Human Services officials say the 60 percent growth in caseload in DuPage County in five years has far outpaced the statewide increase of about 20 percent.
At a time when the suburbs have an increased need for programs for the poor, Ms. King said the state was so broke it could not afford to offer new services in places like DuPage County. “We’re trying desperately to keep the ones that are here alive,” she said.
Ms. King estimated that 15 percent of the county’s families earned less than $44,000 but more than the federal poverty level of $22,000. She said it is within that earnings range where aid organizations see families struggle. These people have “too much to get help, but not enough to get by,” she said.
Despite the dearth of social programs in DuPage County, many poor people have been leaving the city for the suburbs, according to demographers like Kenneth Johnson, a former Loyola University sociologist now at the University of New Hampshire. In many cases, parents of small children say they left Chicago to flee gangs.
LaTanya Chase, 28, grew up on the South Side of Chicago, but moved to the Austin neighborhood before settling in Glendale Heights four years ago. Ms. Chase, who works 24 to 30 hours a week at a CVS drugstore, learned quickly that she could not depend on suburban mass transit and would need a car.
But it was still worth moving to the suburbs, she said, because she does not have to worry about her 8-year-old daughter being caught in gang cross-fire while playing in the front yard.
“I’m here because I was looking for a better place for a child to grow up,” said Ms. Chase, who goes to the Villa Park office for food stamps and a health-care voucher. “It’s as simple as that.”
The growing racial and ethnic diversity in DuPage County are changing the clichés about white havens for the country-club set. Census Bureau figures show particularly strong growth among Hispanics, about 12 percent of the county’s population in 2008, up from 9 percent in 2000.
Officials at the Human Services office in Villa Park say its caseload of people who speak Spanish as a primary language has doubled, to about 15,000, over the past five years.
Joshua Drucker, a professor of urban planning at the University of Illinois-Chicago, said the collapse of the home-building industry has hit Hispanics especially hard. Many Hispanic men do drywall and roofing work. Those jobs, Mr. Drucker said, which paid relatively well, have largely evaporated in the last two to three years.
The collapse of housing jobs sent Graciela Martinez, 37, to the Human Services waiting room with her four young children to receive food stamps. Much of the talking for the family was done by her oldest child, Amel — “I’m almost 8” — who wore a University of Wisconsin T-shirt and said he wanted to be a doctor.
Ms. Martinez said her fiancé, the father of the children, was a roofer whose work hours had shrunk to almost nothing. It became impossible to pay the rent, she said, so the family moved in with her sister in suburban West Chicago, an old railroad town with perhaps the longest-standing Mexican-American community in DuPage County.
One recent day at the Human Services office, people stood at the back of the long line on an asphalt parking lot that was baking in the sun. Later, when the skies darkened and the heavens opened, some people pushed inside to keep dry; others simply stood in the rain.
Ms. Baxter, the administrator, said the sense of despair among the clients could be heartbreaking.
“We’ve got to be able to give them some hope,” said Ms. Baxter, who sat behind a beige metal desk piled high with case forms. On the bulletin board, she had pinned the phrase, “Thy will, not mine, be done.”
“You see a lot of shame and embarrassment,” she said. “You see it with people who used to have money and now they’re maybe losing everything. And you see the shame in people who have always been dirt poor, too.”
She said she told caseworkers to give people time to work through their emotions. “I know we’re in a hurry,” she said, “but we’ve got to give them time to talk it out.”
She shook her head and lifted her eyes.
“Because they’re hurting,” she said. “And they’re so scared.”
By DIRK JOHNSON and RACHEL CROMIDAS
Not far from million-dollar homes in DuPage County, a line of people spills through the doors of a public aid office in Villa Park, now the busiest branch of the Illinois Department of Human Services.
As many as 900 county residents come to the office every day looking for food stamps, emergency financial assistance and vouchers for medical care, said Phyllis Baxter, the site’s administrator.
The surge in suburban poverty reflects the economic collapse for people who had been solidly middle class, including former homeowners with college degrees. It also underscores the changing demographics in some older commuter cities, now home to more Spanish-speaking immigrants and working-class families fleeing tough city neighborhoods. The state’s second-busiest Human Services office is in Blue Island, just south of Chicago in Cook County.
Requests for help at the DuPage County office have soared by about 60 percent in the past five years, Ms. Baxter said. “They come through those doors,” she said, “and they’ll say, ‘I lost my job. I need food. I can’t pay my medical bills.’ ”
The state, which is some $13 billion in debt, has been unable to increase the size of the office’s 81-member staff, which leaves caseworkers scrambling to manage increasing workloads. “The stress level is off the charts,” Ms. Baxter said. “And, remember, plenty of our people have also got somebody in the family who has lost a job.”
Hue Tran has worked as a caseworker in DuPage County for 32 years. She said she had never seen anything like the overwhelming demands of the last two years.
“I just have to work faster,” Ms. Tran said. “The phones are ringing, people are lining up, they’re demanding to know why they’re not getting benefits.”
Ms. Tran and other social workers said many suburbanites, who were living comfortably not long ago, were upset that they now had to beg for help.
“Sometimes they get angry and then they apologize,” said Ms. Tran, who said she had counseled many people who had started crying. “I just tell them: ‘I understand. It’s not your fault.’ ”
Other caseworkers say they feel guilty that they cannot spend enough time on clients. Ebony Martin, 32, said that four years ago, when she came to the DuPage County office, she had a caseload of about 900. Today she has more than 2,300 cases.
“I made a color-coded chart that tells me these are the people that I must — absolutely must — get to today,” Ms. Martin said.
Kara Murphy, the executive director of Access DuPage, a nonprofit group that helps uninsured people find health care, said enrollment in the program had jumped 55 percent in the last two years, to about 11,600.
The sharp increase in the need for services has strained the social infrastructure in suburban areas like DuPage County, which for a long time served chiefly as bedroom communities for prosperous commuters and their families. DuPage County, which has nearly one million residents, is the region’s second-most-populous county, after Cook. It has the area’s highest median household income, more than $73,000, according to a 2007 report by the Heartland Alliance. The unemployment rate has grown to nearly 9 percent in 2010, nearly triple the rate of the early 1990s, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Services for the working poor and the jobless can be scarce in the suburbs. Candace King, executive director of the DuPage Federation on Human Services Reform, said cities provided more programs to address poverty, like health clinics and food pantries. Housing costs tend to be higher in the suburbs, Ms. King said, and it can be difficult to rely on the smaller mass transit system.
“It is far better to be poor in Chicago than poor in DuPage,” she said.
Human Services officials say the 60 percent growth in caseload in DuPage County in five years has far outpaced the statewide increase of about 20 percent.
At a time when the suburbs have an increased need for programs for the poor, Ms. King said the state was so broke it could not afford to offer new services in places like DuPage County. “We’re trying desperately to keep the ones that are here alive,” she said.
Ms. King estimated that 15 percent of the county’s families earned less than $44,000 but more than the federal poverty level of $22,000. She said it is within that earnings range where aid organizations see families struggle. These people have “too much to get help, but not enough to get by,” she said.
Despite the dearth of social programs in DuPage County, many poor people have been leaving the city for the suburbs, according to demographers like Kenneth Johnson, a former Loyola University sociologist now at the University of New Hampshire. In many cases, parents of small children say they left Chicago to flee gangs.
LaTanya Chase, 28, grew up on the South Side of Chicago, but moved to the Austin neighborhood before settling in Glendale Heights four years ago. Ms. Chase, who works 24 to 30 hours a week at a CVS drugstore, learned quickly that she could not depend on suburban mass transit and would need a car.
But it was still worth moving to the suburbs, she said, because she does not have to worry about her 8-year-old daughter being caught in gang cross-fire while playing in the front yard.
“I’m here because I was looking for a better place for a child to grow up,” said Ms. Chase, who goes to the Villa Park office for food stamps and a health-care voucher. “It’s as simple as that.”
The growing racial and ethnic diversity in DuPage County are changing the clichés about white havens for the country-club set. Census Bureau figures show particularly strong growth among Hispanics, about 12 percent of the county’s population in 2008, up from 9 percent in 2000.
Officials at the Human Services office in Villa Park say its caseload of people who speak Spanish as a primary language has doubled, to about 15,000, over the past five years.
Joshua Drucker, a professor of urban planning at the University of Illinois-Chicago, said the collapse of the home-building industry has hit Hispanics especially hard. Many Hispanic men do drywall and roofing work. Those jobs, Mr. Drucker said, which paid relatively well, have largely evaporated in the last two to three years.
The collapse of housing jobs sent Graciela Martinez, 37, to the Human Services waiting room with her four young children to receive food stamps. Much of the talking for the family was done by her oldest child, Amel — “I’m almost 8” — who wore a University of Wisconsin T-shirt and said he wanted to be a doctor.
Ms. Martinez said her fiancé, the father of the children, was a roofer whose work hours had shrunk to almost nothing. It became impossible to pay the rent, she said, so the family moved in with her sister in suburban West Chicago, an old railroad town with perhaps the longest-standing Mexican-American community in DuPage County.
One recent day at the Human Services office, people stood at the back of the long line on an asphalt parking lot that was baking in the sun. Later, when the skies darkened and the heavens opened, some people pushed inside to keep dry; others simply stood in the rain.
Ms. Baxter, the administrator, said the sense of despair among the clients could be heartbreaking.
“We’ve got to be able to give them some hope,” said Ms. Baxter, who sat behind a beige metal desk piled high with case forms. On the bulletin board, she had pinned the phrase, “Thy will, not mine, be done.”
“You see a lot of shame and embarrassment,” she said. “You see it with people who used to have money and now they’re maybe losing everything. And you see the shame in people who have always been dirt poor, too.”
She said she told caseworkers to give people time to work through their emotions. “I know we’re in a hurry,” she said, “but we’ve got to give them time to talk it out.”
She shook her head and lifted her eyes.
“Because they’re hurting,” she said. “And they’re so scared.”
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
A Fresh Oasis Thrives in a Chicago Food Desert
My latest article at the Chicago News Cooperative, published in Sunday's New York Times.
Willie Montgomery and his well-worn Ford Crown Victoria have become an unlikely sign of progress in solving Chicago’s long-standing problem of so-called food deserts.
Mr. Montgomery charges grocery shoppers up to $8 for rides home from the Food 4 Less, a full-service grocery store that opened four years ago in Englewood. He rests on a handicap cart at the front of the store, waiting for cashiers to send him shoppers who traveled there without a car.
Mr. Montgomery, a retiree who will not give his age, said patrons rode with him because they did not want to worry about having their grocery bags stolen on the bus, and because they couldn’t buy what they needed from corner stores closer to home. They live in food deserts, poor areas that are dotted with vacant lots, dollar stores, and liquor marts, but bereft of fresh-food grocers.
“Shopping at a corner store is too expensive,” said Shirley Slatton, a student at nearby Kennedy-King College, who had piled a half-dozen bags of food and toiletries into the trunk of Mr. Montgomery’s car. “And they don’t sell stuff every day, so you have to check the dates on the cans to make sure you get fresh items.”
When food deserts became a public-policy issue five years ago, few retailers had developed big stores in poor neighborhoods. Chad Broughton, a researcher at the University of Chicago, said shoppers felt getting to the stores would take too long and be unsafe. Although a few grocers have opened in city food deserts, it is still common for Chicagoans in some rough neighborhoods to travel several miles to buy produce.
But steady traffic and revenues at the 63,000-square-foot Food 4 Less at 7030 South Ashland Avenue — as well as Mr. Montgomery’s thriving transportation business — are providing city officials and researchers with new clues about how far residents are willing to travel to stores and how much grocery chains are willing to spend to do business in poor neighborhoods.
Food 4 Less’s foray into Englewood also adds a new dimension to the political debate surrounding Wal-Mart’s effort to build a second store within city limits. The giant retailer has submitted proposals for stores in Pullman Park and Chatham on the South Side, but those efforts have been stalled by negotiations with labor unions, which want workers to be paid more than the minimum wage.
Mr. Broughton, a senior lecturer at the university who just released a survey of food access in four South Side neighborhoods, including Englewood, said that the ideal grocery store for food-desert residents is a large, chain supermarket, because such stores can stock fresh food more readily than corner stores, and at lower prices.
“For residents the obvious answer is a big supermarket with inexpensive items and more variety,” he said. If fresh produce does not sell before it rots, he added, “then it’s not profitable, and there isn’t much incentive for corner stores to stock it.”
But some community organizers balk at seeing profits and better-paying jobs leave their neighborhoods.
“To get into the grocery industry is probably one of the hardest things to do,” said LaDonna Redmond, an urban farmer and founder of the Graffiti and Grub restaurant and community center in East Englewood. “Aldi can purchase food and sell it for pennies on the dollar. Myself, if I open a grocery store, I can’t move that kind of volume.”
Ms. Redmond is a proponent of efforts to make fresh food more available, like accepting food stamps at farmers’ markets and providing grants to help corner stores stock fresh produce.
“If we have entrepreneurs from the community working with the community, I think we’d see something a little bit different,” Ms. Redmond said.
As one of only two full-service grocery stores within the nine square miles of greater Englewood — whose borders extend from 55th Street south to 75th Street, and from Western Avenue east to State Street — the Food 4 Less benefits and suffers from doing business in a food and retail desert. The store boasts the third-highest profit margin of the 15 Food 4 Less outlets in the Chicago region, but also has the highest security expenses, said Carrie Cole, the store director.
Englewood is one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. In East Englewood, 43.8 percent of residents live below the federal poverty level, according to the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission. In West Englewood, 32.1 percent live below the poverty level. The Chicago Police Department ranks East Englewood sixth and West Englewood eighth in robberies among city community areas.
Safety concerns “limit the window in which people can feel comfortable going out and getting food if they don’t have a car,” Mr. Broughton said. “People will re-arrange their work schedules just so that they can have a window during a safe time of day to get food.”
But Ms. Cole said the relative success of the store sends a message that it can pay to develop in Chicago’s low-income communities, which generally suffer most from a lack of fresh-food grocers. The store opened almost four years ago, and was followed by an Aldi store at 76th Street and Western Avenue.
“A lot of these stores do quite well because there’s not a lot of competition,” said Mari Gallagher, a food policy consultant and researcher who wrote a landmark study on Chicago food access in 2006 and a follow-up study in 2009. But the majority of areas labeled as food deserts by Ms. Gallagher’s study do not mirror Englewood’s growth.
“These stores are really important for public health,” Ms. Gallagher said, particularly because residents of communities without green grocers have higher risks of developing heart disease, cancer and kidney failure. “But the grocer has to make a profit, too.” She said the key for the city will be understanding what is going to help make the market place stronger and attract other types of stores.
The Englewood Food 4 Less sees close to 19,000 customers per week, Ms. Cole said, and each spends an average of $30 per visit. Those numbers have remained steady despite the recession. Although the company’s corporate office did not respond to questions about average store traffic in the Chicago area, four other Food 4 Less outlets in various city neighborhoods said they attracted between 16,000 and 20,000 customers a week.
Ms. Cole said that her store had done well because more people shop at discount food marts in hard times. “The recession has done us a lot of justice,” she said. “We’re probably one of the only chains to have seen an increase in sales.”
That is encouraging for the city, which has been financing new programs to increase fresh-food options in food deserts since Ms. Gallagher’s research group released its study on the correlation between residents’ health risks and distance from grocery stores, said Chris Raguso, acting commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Community Development.
The department has been giving grocers “every incentive we possibly can,” she said, to develop in these blighted areas by waiving required commercial inspections and streamlining the process for them to request building permits.
“It’s no secret that it’s an economic issue for grocery stores,” she said, “and it takes a long time to bring these large-scale developments into order.”
Willie Montgomery and his well-worn Ford Crown Victoria have become an unlikely sign of progress in solving Chicago’s long-standing problem of so-called food deserts.
Mr. Montgomery charges grocery shoppers up to $8 for rides home from the Food 4 Less, a full-service grocery store that opened four years ago in Englewood. He rests on a handicap cart at the front of the store, waiting for cashiers to send him shoppers who traveled there without a car.
Mr. Montgomery, a retiree who will not give his age, said patrons rode with him because they did not want to worry about having their grocery bags stolen on the bus, and because they couldn’t buy what they needed from corner stores closer to home. They live in food deserts, poor areas that are dotted with vacant lots, dollar stores, and liquor marts, but bereft of fresh-food grocers.
“Shopping at a corner store is too expensive,” said Shirley Slatton, a student at nearby Kennedy-King College, who had piled a half-dozen bags of food and toiletries into the trunk of Mr. Montgomery’s car. “And they don’t sell stuff every day, so you have to check the dates on the cans to make sure you get fresh items.”
When food deserts became a public-policy issue five years ago, few retailers had developed big stores in poor neighborhoods. Chad Broughton, a researcher at the University of Chicago, said shoppers felt getting to the stores would take too long and be unsafe. Although a few grocers have opened in city food deserts, it is still common for Chicagoans in some rough neighborhoods to travel several miles to buy produce.
But steady traffic and revenues at the 63,000-square-foot Food 4 Less at 7030 South Ashland Avenue — as well as Mr. Montgomery’s thriving transportation business — are providing city officials and researchers with new clues about how far residents are willing to travel to stores and how much grocery chains are willing to spend to do business in poor neighborhoods.
Food 4 Less’s foray into Englewood also adds a new dimension to the political debate surrounding Wal-Mart’s effort to build a second store within city limits. The giant retailer has submitted proposals for stores in Pullman Park and Chatham on the South Side, but those efforts have been stalled by negotiations with labor unions, which want workers to be paid more than the minimum wage.
Mr. Broughton, a senior lecturer at the university who just released a survey of food access in four South Side neighborhoods, including Englewood, said that the ideal grocery store for food-desert residents is a large, chain supermarket, because such stores can stock fresh food more readily than corner stores, and at lower prices.
“For residents the obvious answer is a big supermarket with inexpensive items and more variety,” he said. If fresh produce does not sell before it rots, he added, “then it’s not profitable, and there isn’t much incentive for corner stores to stock it.”
But some community organizers balk at seeing profits and better-paying jobs leave their neighborhoods.
“To get into the grocery industry is probably one of the hardest things to do,” said LaDonna Redmond, an urban farmer and founder of the Graffiti and Grub restaurant and community center in East Englewood. “Aldi can purchase food and sell it for pennies on the dollar. Myself, if I open a grocery store, I can’t move that kind of volume.”
Ms. Redmond is a proponent of efforts to make fresh food more available, like accepting food stamps at farmers’ markets and providing grants to help corner stores stock fresh produce.
“If we have entrepreneurs from the community working with the community, I think we’d see something a little bit different,” Ms. Redmond said.
As one of only two full-service grocery stores within the nine square miles of greater Englewood — whose borders extend from 55th Street south to 75th Street, and from Western Avenue east to State Street — the Food 4 Less benefits and suffers from doing business in a food and retail desert. The store boasts the third-highest profit margin of the 15 Food 4 Less outlets in the Chicago region, but also has the highest security expenses, said Carrie Cole, the store director.
Englewood is one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. In East Englewood, 43.8 percent of residents live below the federal poverty level, according to the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission. In West Englewood, 32.1 percent live below the poverty level. The Chicago Police Department ranks East Englewood sixth and West Englewood eighth in robberies among city community areas.
Safety concerns “limit the window in which people can feel comfortable going out and getting food if they don’t have a car,” Mr. Broughton said. “People will re-arrange their work schedules just so that they can have a window during a safe time of day to get food.”
But Ms. Cole said the relative success of the store sends a message that it can pay to develop in Chicago’s low-income communities, which generally suffer most from a lack of fresh-food grocers. The store opened almost four years ago, and was followed by an Aldi store at 76th Street and Western Avenue.
“A lot of these stores do quite well because there’s not a lot of competition,” said Mari Gallagher, a food policy consultant and researcher who wrote a landmark study on Chicago food access in 2006 and a follow-up study in 2009. But the majority of areas labeled as food deserts by Ms. Gallagher’s study do not mirror Englewood’s growth.
“These stores are really important for public health,” Ms. Gallagher said, particularly because residents of communities without green grocers have higher risks of developing heart disease, cancer and kidney failure. “But the grocer has to make a profit, too.” She said the key for the city will be understanding what is going to help make the market place stronger and attract other types of stores.
The Englewood Food 4 Less sees close to 19,000 customers per week, Ms. Cole said, and each spends an average of $30 per visit. Those numbers have remained steady despite the recession. Although the company’s corporate office did not respond to questions about average store traffic in the Chicago area, four other Food 4 Less outlets in various city neighborhoods said they attracted between 16,000 and 20,000 customers a week.
Ms. Cole said that her store had done well because more people shop at discount food marts in hard times. “The recession has done us a lot of justice,” she said. “We’re probably one of the only chains to have seen an increase in sales.”
That is encouraging for the city, which has been financing new programs to increase fresh-food options in food deserts since Ms. Gallagher’s research group released its study on the correlation between residents’ health risks and distance from grocery stores, said Chris Raguso, acting commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Community Development.
The department has been giving grocers “every incentive we possibly can,” she said, to develop in these blighted areas by waiving required commercial inspections and streamlining the process for them to request building permits.
“It’s no secret that it’s an economic issue for grocery stores,” she said, “and it takes a long time to bring these large-scale developments into order.”
Monday, May 24, 2010
At Museum, ‘RoboSue’ Roars to Life
Up now on NYTimes.com, a story I helped my Chicago News Cooperative co-worker write. He's going to have an awesome TV piece tonight on WTTW about it!
By ASH-HAR QURAISHI and RACHEL CROMIDAS
The Field Museum of Natural History this week will open an exhibit that features a reincarnated Sue — the museum’s iconic Tyrannosaurus rex — as a lifelike animatronic creature that turns its head to track visitors’ movements and lets out a loud roar.
The exhibit, which opens Wednesday and runs through Sept. 6, celebrates the 10th anniversary of the museum’s debut of Sue, the largest and most complete T. rex fossil yet discovered. The imposing, and somewhat unsettling, replica was created by Kokoro, an animatronics company based in Tokyo, and KumoTek, a robotics company, based in Texas. (John Canning Jr., chairman of the board of the Chicago News Cooperative, is also the chairman of the board of the Field Museum.)
Hilary Sanders, the museum’s project manager for exhibitions, said that when she first saw the robotic dinosaur, called RoboSue, it “made my skin crawl.” Ms. Sanders said she was eager to see how children, only those 4 and older will be admitted, would react.
Matthew Fisher, the founder of KumoTek, said that when there is no one around, the robots are doing what appear to be random behaviors. “But once the target or the human comes into play,” he said, “then the robot immediately engages that person.”
Establishing how dinosaurs would move and react to humans was tricky, said Pete Makovicky, the curator for the Sue exhibit.
“It’s really hard to decipher behavior from the fossil record because behavior doesn’t usually leave a trace,” Mr. Makovicky said. “So when it comes to the individual actions of the dinosaurs in the exhibit, a lot more of that is based on the general study of how animals react — what is plausible given what we know about the anatomy and frame of a T. rex.”
Gabe Lyon, whose foundation teaches paleontology to students, said that the scientific accuracy of the animatronic model is doubtful. “They’re not going to tell us anything real about how dinosaurs behaved, any more than ‘Jurassic Park’ is going to tell us that dinosaurs hunted in packs,” he said.
Monica Post, the director of MPR Museum Consulting, said the “wow” factor of RoboSue may help draw more people into the learning experience that museums offer. “Today, we expect so much more. We are the X-Box generation,” Ms. Post said.
RoboSue is scaled to three-quarters the size of an adult T. Rex, which in Sue’s case is more than 40 feet long and 13 feet tall at the hip.
Sue, a 67-million year-old fossil discovered in 1990 near Faith, S.D., was purchased at a Sotheby’s auction in 1997 for $8.4 million.
By ASH-HAR QURAISHI and RACHEL CROMIDAS
The Field Museum of Natural History this week will open an exhibit that features a reincarnated Sue — the museum’s iconic Tyrannosaurus rex — as a lifelike animatronic creature that turns its head to track visitors’ movements and lets out a loud roar.
The exhibit, which opens Wednesday and runs through Sept. 6, celebrates the 10th anniversary of the museum’s debut of Sue, the largest and most complete T. rex fossil yet discovered. The imposing, and somewhat unsettling, replica was created by Kokoro, an animatronics company based in Tokyo, and KumoTek, a robotics company, based in Texas. (John Canning Jr., chairman of the board of the Chicago News Cooperative, is also the chairman of the board of the Field Museum.)
Hilary Sanders, the museum’s project manager for exhibitions, said that when she first saw the robotic dinosaur, called RoboSue, it “made my skin crawl.” Ms. Sanders said she was eager to see how children, only those 4 and older will be admitted, would react.
Matthew Fisher, the founder of KumoTek, said that when there is no one around, the robots are doing what appear to be random behaviors. “But once the target or the human comes into play,” he said, “then the robot immediately engages that person.”
Establishing how dinosaurs would move and react to humans was tricky, said Pete Makovicky, the curator for the Sue exhibit.
“It’s really hard to decipher behavior from the fossil record because behavior doesn’t usually leave a trace,” Mr. Makovicky said. “So when it comes to the individual actions of the dinosaurs in the exhibit, a lot more of that is based on the general study of how animals react — what is plausible given what we know about the anatomy and frame of a T. rex.”
Gabe Lyon, whose foundation teaches paleontology to students, said that the scientific accuracy of the animatronic model is doubtful. “They’re not going to tell us anything real about how dinosaurs behaved, any more than ‘Jurassic Park’ is going to tell us that dinosaurs hunted in packs,” he said.
Monica Post, the director of MPR Museum Consulting, said the “wow” factor of RoboSue may help draw more people into the learning experience that museums offer. “Today, we expect so much more. We are the X-Box generation,” Ms. Post said.
RoboSue is scaled to three-quarters the size of an adult T. Rex, which in Sue’s case is more than 40 feet long and 13 feet tall at the hip.
Sue, a 67-million year-old fossil discovered in 1990 near Faith, S.D., was purchased at a Sotheby’s auction in 1997 for $8.4 million.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Pilsen Railroad Strike Will Be Re-Enacted
By RACHEL CROMIDAS
Published: May 2, 2010 in the New York Times
Paul Durica wears many guises as a historical tour guide to such places as Haymarket Square and the Kenwood haunts of the 1924 thrill killers Leopold and Loeb. On Sunday he and a group of historians-turned-artists will re-enact the 1877 scene of a Pilsen railroad strike and a clash between laborers and the Chicago police.
Related
A staging of the Battle of the Halsted Viaduct will take place at 3 p.m. on the corner of South Halsted and West 16th Streets. Attendees will be invited to participate as mobsters and policemen, said Mr. Durica, the founder of the irreverent Pocket Guide to Hell Tours and a graduate student at the University of Chicago.
Period dress is encouraged, and a horse-drawn carriage, live music and foam bricks - in case the audience gets rowdy - will be provided, Mr. Durica said. The free event concludes the Version Festival, a springtime convergence of local artists and musicians that is in its 10th year.
Published: May 2, 2010 in the New York Times
Paul Durica wears many guises as a historical tour guide to such places as Haymarket Square and the Kenwood haunts of the 1924 thrill killers Leopold and Loeb. On Sunday he and a group of historians-turned-artists will re-enact the 1877 scene of a Pilsen railroad strike and a clash between laborers and the Chicago police.
Related
A staging of the Battle of the Halsted Viaduct will take place at 3 p.m. on the corner of South Halsted and West 16th Streets. Attendees will be invited to participate as mobsters and policemen, said Mr. Durica, the founder of the irreverent Pocket Guide to Hell Tours and a graduate student at the University of Chicago.
Period dress is encouraged, and a horse-drawn carriage, live music and foam bricks - in case the audience gets rowdy - will be provided, Mr. Durica said. The free event concludes the Version Festival, a springtime convergence of local artists and musicians that is in its 10th year.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
The Pulse: Making Farmers’ Markets More Accessible
By RACHEL CROMIDAS
Published: April 10, 2010 in the New York Times.
A Woodlawn farmers' market has been accepting Illinois food stamps for double their value, and now it is helping three more markets to do the same.
Related
Only 3 of Chicago's 39 farmers' markets had the system needed to process the stamps, which in Illinois are redeemed using debit cards called LINK cards, because most of the markets accept only cash. The Woodlawn market at 61st Street and Dorchester Avenue was the only one to double the cardholders' buying power, said David Rand, a farm forager for the city and the Green City Market.
Dennis Ryan, the Woodlawn market's manager, is taking his LINK system to the Englewood, Lawndale and Bronzeville farmers' markets for their May openings. The program at all four markets is being paid for by a grant from the Wholesome Wave Foundation.
For these South Side neighborhoods, "there are very few if any options to purchase fresh produce," Mr. Ryan said. "We have to make sure it's financially accessible to everyone."
Published: April 10, 2010 in the New York Times.
A Woodlawn farmers' market has been accepting Illinois food stamps for double their value, and now it is helping three more markets to do the same.
Related
Only 3 of Chicago's 39 farmers' markets had the system needed to process the stamps, which in Illinois are redeemed using debit cards called LINK cards, because most of the markets accept only cash. The Woodlawn market at 61st Street and Dorchester Avenue was the only one to double the cardholders' buying power, said David Rand, a farm forager for the city and the Green City Market.
Dennis Ryan, the Woodlawn market's manager, is taking his LINK system to the Englewood, Lawndale and Bronzeville farmers' markets for their May openings. The program at all four markets is being paid for by a grant from the Wholesome Wave Foundation.
For these South Side neighborhoods, "there are very few if any options to purchase fresh produce," Mr. Ryan said. "We have to make sure it's financially accessible to everyone."
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
What I learned in 2009
2009 has been a truly transforming year for me. I realized this when the boyfriend and I stepped off the University's free shuttles to downtown (meant to take students to Taking the Next Step, an alumni networking and career preparation event) and took several steps away from the event to spend the day together running errands instead. A year ago I was in those Marriott conferences rooms, begging alumni for some shred of hope that the financial crisis hadn't dealt any fatal blows to my future in journalism, and Washington Post columnist Bob Levy first told me about the Alicia Paterson Foundation, and the general notion that one could fund investigative projects via independent grants.
Like the Summer Action Grant, which I went on to apply for and receive later that year, and used to run, jump, throw myself into (and many other sports metaphors apply here) covering Chicago's Olympic Bid. Now I'm 20, and have my first byline in the New York Times. Damn things change; this much I am thrilled with. But how can I not be overwhelmed by the notion that I really am as capable as people say I am, that maybe I don't have any excuses not to be doing exactly what I want to do with my life, starting now. So I'm 12 days late in the New Years reflection department, but how's that for making up for lost time?
Without further ado, I give you What I Learned in 2009. Some of it's frivolously cosmetic, some of it has completely changed the way I view my place in this world:
1) Life always looks better after you’ve been on a jog and written a blog post, article or journal entry.
2) When I was in third grade I decided that I looked chubby with shoulder length hair, and demanded my parents allow me to grow it out. This summer, I hacked half of it off. The verdict? Short hair does not make you look fat. And I'm cutting it even shorter—will report back with more not-fat results next year.
3) When in doubt, go out. There is more to be accomplished outdoors, with friends, up late, on the North Side, than there ever could be at home in bed with an orange and the books (no, not all the books at once). Though the latter is a comforting prospect...
4) The only way to get real work done is to do so in isolation. But the time you spend not getting working done with friends is much more valuable.
5) Writing the way I do is never a bad idea, though some people will try to tell you it is.
6) The only time people are willing to tell you about themselves is at 11 pm after pancakes. Be prepared.
7) Physics majors are like football players for the least disenchanted of UChicago nerds. So don't hesitate to ask them to move your furniture/suitcases, etc.
8) Sometimes you may feel overwhelmed; your life may seem to hectic; your internal monologue may start to sound like one of those TV sleeping pill ads. You will fall asleep, give it time.
9) Not every ache and pain is the downfall of civilization in your brain. You have no Achilles toenail, tooth, etc.
10) You can count on Ben for much more than you’d ever believed.
Like the Summer Action Grant, which I went on to apply for and receive later that year, and used to run, jump, throw myself into (and many other sports metaphors apply here) covering Chicago's Olympic Bid. Now I'm 20, and have my first byline in the New York Times. Damn things change; this much I am thrilled with. But how can I not be overwhelmed by the notion that I really am as capable as people say I am, that maybe I don't have any excuses not to be doing exactly what I want to do with my life, starting now. So I'm 12 days late in the New Years reflection department, but how's that for making up for lost time?
Without further ado, I give you What I Learned in 2009. Some of it's frivolously cosmetic, some of it has completely changed the way I view my place in this world:
1) Life always looks better after you’ve been on a jog and written a blog post, article or journal entry.
2) When I was in third grade I decided that I looked chubby with shoulder length hair, and demanded my parents allow me to grow it out. This summer, I hacked half of it off. The verdict? Short hair does not make you look fat. And I'm cutting it even shorter—will report back with more not-fat results next year.
3) When in doubt, go out. There is more to be accomplished outdoors, with friends, up late, on the North Side, than there ever could be at home in bed with an orange and the books (no, not all the books at once). Though the latter is a comforting prospect...
4) The only way to get real work done is to do so in isolation. But the time you spend not getting working done with friends is much more valuable.
5) Writing the way I do is never a bad idea, though some people will try to tell you it is.
6) The only time people are willing to tell you about themselves is at 11 pm after pancakes. Be prepared.
7) Physics majors are like football players for the least disenchanted of UChicago nerds. So don't hesitate to ask them to move your furniture/suitcases, etc.
8) Sometimes you may feel overwhelmed; your life may seem to hectic; your internal monologue may start to sound like one of those TV sleeping pill ads. You will fall asleep, give it time.
9) Not every ache and pain is the downfall of civilization in your brain. You have no Achilles toenail, tooth, etc.
10) You can count on Ben for much more than you’d ever believed.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Failed Olympics Bid Leaves Neighborhood in Flux
The secret's out! Through that special combination of luck/busting my ass, I wrote a story for the Chicago edition of the New York Times—specifically, for the Chicago News Cooperative.
Chicago News Cooperative
By RACHEL CROMIDAS
For much of Shannon Fischer’s 20 years, community change in her Bronzeville neighborhood has come in the form of a wrecking ball.
First, the Ida B. Wells housing projects fell, then the Robert Taylor homes, and now, within view of her apartment at 33rd Street and Cottage Grove, Michael Reese Hospital is coming down. Destruction can often lead to reconstruction, but hopes that Bronzeville might be revitalized as the site of an Olympic Village died in October when Chicago lost its bid for the 2016 Summer Games.
The neighborhood’s residential market took a severe hit, and developers have put off major investments. Few developers, it seems, can get serious about new projects in Bronzeville until the City of Chicago reveals plans for the landmark Michael Reese site, 37 acres at the heart of a potentially promising lakefront neighborhood.
Ms. Fischer remains optimistic. Even though the blocks in her neighborhood alternate between new condominiums and empty lots, foot traffic is sparse — and the only shopping center consists mostly of convenience stores and an auto repair shop — she believes greater Bronzeville will have its day.
“I think the neighborhood will continue to grow, considering there’s different people, different races and age groups moving in,” Ms. Fischer said.
Bronzeville was once a thriving “black metropolis” with hundreds of black-owned businesses and a booming night life. Its population swelled during the great migration of Southern blacks seeking jobs after World War I.
The poet Gwendolyn Brooks lived there, and in 1945, her first book of poetry — “A Street in Bronzeville” — brought her instant critical acclaim. Other notable residents included Richard Wright, the author of “Native Son,” and the jazz pioneer Louis Armstrong.
The area’s decline began in the 1950s as it gradually lost its middle class and businesses started to close. Though Bronzeville is unlikely to reclaim its golden era, developers like Keith Giles see the potential for new growth, only he does not expect to reach it any time soon.
Last year, Mr. Giles’s firm, Kargil Development, told the city that it was interested in developing the Olympic Village. The project would have helped Olympics promoters realize their vision of a new neighborhood that could bridge the gap between the resurgent Bronzeville community and the South Loop.
“It was an exciting development opportunity for an international event,” Mr. Giles said.
But with the Olympics impetus gone, banks not lending and no other financing in sight, Mr. Giles does not expect action soon on a Michael Reese site that might cost $1 billion to redevelop.
“The development business right now is on sabbatical,” he said.
While Mr. Giles’s company considers another project nearby, it doesn’t expect to see change soon.. “Unfortunately, most everything has stopped,” Mr. Giles said. “There’s new developments on one block, and you go across the street and there’s a burned-out building.”
Alderman Toni Preckwinkle, whose Fourth Ward includes the Reese campus, expects the city to release its plan for the site early this year. She said that a developer might be selected by the end of the year, but that the first buildings would most likely not be completed until 2012.
Ms. Preckwinkle also said developers would “prefer a clear site” around Michael Reese, casting further doubt on the efforts of preservationists who are fighting to save nearby buildings designed in consultation with the architect Walter Gropius, founder of the influential Bauhaus School.
Bernita Johnson-Gabriel, executive director of the Quad Communities Development Corporation, a neighborhood group that serves the Kenwood, Oakland and Douglas neighborhoods that make up greater Bronzeville, said hurdles to development included concerns about crime that are rooted in racial stereotypes.
“We are a neighborhood of color,” Ms. Johnson-Gabriel said. “There’s a perception of crime that obviously doesn’t quite exist here the way it is portrayed.”
Indeed, crime in the Douglas and neighboring Oakland neighborhoods fell steadily over the past decade, according to Chicago Police Department reports. Statistics show a 67 percent decline for Douglas — to 1,074 crimes in 2009 from 3,290 in 1999 — while Oakland’s number fell by more than half, to fewer than 300 from 611.
Some of the city’s larger development groups are pushing ahead despite a lack of clarity about the city’s plans. One, Draper and Kramer, is proceeding on a 70-acre development just south of Michael Reese that it began planning three years ago. In addition to 2,000 high-rise apartment units, the Lake Meadows project will feature renovation of existing rental units and condominiums, construction of single-family town homes and expansion of a small shopping center on the corner of 35th Street and Cottage Grove.
The firm will keep a close eye on the city’s plan for the Michael Reese site.
“We are very interested because it’s a large development and right next door to our property,” said Donald Vitek, vice president of acquisitions and development for Draper and Kramer.
While some residents and developers want officials to move quickly on the city’s plans for the Reese site, Mr. Vitek said a slower pace made sense. It will allow time to survey current community needs, he said, and possibly wait out a soured housing market.
The Douglas neighborhood’s new condos and town homes are selling for as little as $125 a square foot, a steep discount from similar South Loop properties. But Mr. Vitek predicted a steady increase in demand once the market improves.
An Olympics aftershock is hitting the market for existing homes in the neighborhood, too. Pam Dempsey, a real estate broker for Bronzeville Properties, said home sales came to a standstill during the Olympics bidding process, as property owners waited for the decision on a site. Only after the bid failed did they look to sell.
“They’re now entering into a down market,” Ms. Dempsey said. Prices for single-family homes in the area have declined to $100,000 to $200,000 now from $200,000 to $400,000 in mid-2007, she said. A high foreclosure rate has made the Bronzeville downturn worse than what has hit the South Loop or Hyde Park.
“We’ve experienced a lot of really, really deeply discounted foreclosures,” Ms. Dempsey said. “You’ll have a house that needs a ton of work going for maybe $35,000.”
When development does come, she said, Bronzeville will benefit most if the retail part appeals to the same kind of newly affluent residents as those who have moved into the South Loop and Hyde Park.
“Not the fast-food stuff we already have around here,” Ms. Dempsey said, “but nicer retail, like the stuff that came to the South Loop over the past 5 to 10 years. A wine shop or a cafe or bookstores — these things will keep people in the neighborhood.”
Joseph Schwietermann, director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University, warned against easy comparisons between Bronzeville and the Hyde Park and South Loop neighborhoods. He attributes a combination of poor post-World War II urban planning and Bronzeville’s history of slow growth as factors that have made Bronzeville less successful.
“It’s easier to invest in housing with the hopes that retail will follow,” Mr. Schwietermann said. But, he added, “you can’t assume that if you build it, they will come.”
In October, contractors hired by the city began tearing down the first of seven buildings on the Michael Reese campus slated for demolition. The timeline for development is not urgent, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Community Development said, because the city will not begin making mortgage payments on the property until 2014.
The department envisions a large-scale residential and retail complex with a mixture of affordable and market-rate housing, in addition to dry cleaners, coffee shops and other staple businesses of neighborhood life. Its stated goal is “to build a community from scratch,” and stimulate redevelopment on the lakefront south of McCormick Place.
Byron Lindsey, manager of an auto repair shop, has seen little retail growth around the garage he has managed for nearly 20 years in what is now the Lake Meadows shopping center.
But his business is down only slightly despite the slow economy, Mr. Lindsey said as he juggled a phone in each hand and spoke to customers from behind the counter. He has perceived an influx of higher-income residents over the past five years, which he expects will contribute to a comeback once the economy recovers.
Redevelopment of the Michael Reese property could be the key.
“It could really determine whether the community gets a kick-start on its way back,” Mr. Lindsey said.
Rachel Cromidas is a Chicago freelance writer. Ben Goldberger contributed reporting.
Chicago News Cooperative
By RACHEL CROMIDAS
For much of Shannon Fischer’s 20 years, community change in her Bronzeville neighborhood has come in the form of a wrecking ball.
First, the Ida B. Wells housing projects fell, then the Robert Taylor homes, and now, within view of her apartment at 33rd Street and Cottage Grove, Michael Reese Hospital is coming down. Destruction can often lead to reconstruction, but hopes that Bronzeville might be revitalized as the site of an Olympic Village died in October when Chicago lost its bid for the 2016 Summer Games.
The neighborhood’s residential market took a severe hit, and developers have put off major investments. Few developers, it seems, can get serious about new projects in Bronzeville until the City of Chicago reveals plans for the landmark Michael Reese site, 37 acres at the heart of a potentially promising lakefront neighborhood.
Ms. Fischer remains optimistic. Even though the blocks in her neighborhood alternate between new condominiums and empty lots, foot traffic is sparse — and the only shopping center consists mostly of convenience stores and an auto repair shop — she believes greater Bronzeville will have its day.
“I think the neighborhood will continue to grow, considering there’s different people, different races and age groups moving in,” Ms. Fischer said.
Bronzeville was once a thriving “black metropolis” with hundreds of black-owned businesses and a booming night life. Its population swelled during the great migration of Southern blacks seeking jobs after World War I.
The poet Gwendolyn Brooks lived there, and in 1945, her first book of poetry — “A Street in Bronzeville” — brought her instant critical acclaim. Other notable residents included Richard Wright, the author of “Native Son,” and the jazz pioneer Louis Armstrong.
The area’s decline began in the 1950s as it gradually lost its middle class and businesses started to close. Though Bronzeville is unlikely to reclaim its golden era, developers like Keith Giles see the potential for new growth, only he does not expect to reach it any time soon.
Last year, Mr. Giles’s firm, Kargil Development, told the city that it was interested in developing the Olympic Village. The project would have helped Olympics promoters realize their vision of a new neighborhood that could bridge the gap between the resurgent Bronzeville community and the South Loop.
“It was an exciting development opportunity for an international event,” Mr. Giles said.
But with the Olympics impetus gone, banks not lending and no other financing in sight, Mr. Giles does not expect action soon on a Michael Reese site that might cost $1 billion to redevelop.
“The development business right now is on sabbatical,” he said.
While Mr. Giles’s company considers another project nearby, it doesn’t expect to see change soon.. “Unfortunately, most everything has stopped,” Mr. Giles said. “There’s new developments on one block, and you go across the street and there’s a burned-out building.”
Alderman Toni Preckwinkle, whose Fourth Ward includes the Reese campus, expects the city to release its plan for the site early this year. She said that a developer might be selected by the end of the year, but that the first buildings would most likely not be completed until 2012.
Ms. Preckwinkle also said developers would “prefer a clear site” around Michael Reese, casting further doubt on the efforts of preservationists who are fighting to save nearby buildings designed in consultation with the architect Walter Gropius, founder of the influential Bauhaus School.
Bernita Johnson-Gabriel, executive director of the Quad Communities Development Corporation, a neighborhood group that serves the Kenwood, Oakland and Douglas neighborhoods that make up greater Bronzeville, said hurdles to development included concerns about crime that are rooted in racial stereotypes.
“We are a neighborhood of color,” Ms. Johnson-Gabriel said. “There’s a perception of crime that obviously doesn’t quite exist here the way it is portrayed.”
Indeed, crime in the Douglas and neighboring Oakland neighborhoods fell steadily over the past decade, according to Chicago Police Department reports. Statistics show a 67 percent decline for Douglas — to 1,074 crimes in 2009 from 3,290 in 1999 — while Oakland’s number fell by more than half, to fewer than 300 from 611.
Some of the city’s larger development groups are pushing ahead despite a lack of clarity about the city’s plans. One, Draper and Kramer, is proceeding on a 70-acre development just south of Michael Reese that it began planning three years ago. In addition to 2,000 high-rise apartment units, the Lake Meadows project will feature renovation of existing rental units and condominiums, construction of single-family town homes and expansion of a small shopping center on the corner of 35th Street and Cottage Grove.
The firm will keep a close eye on the city’s plan for the Michael Reese site.
“We are very interested because it’s a large development and right next door to our property,” said Donald Vitek, vice president of acquisitions and development for Draper and Kramer.
While some residents and developers want officials to move quickly on the city’s plans for the Reese site, Mr. Vitek said a slower pace made sense. It will allow time to survey current community needs, he said, and possibly wait out a soured housing market.
The Douglas neighborhood’s new condos and town homes are selling for as little as $125 a square foot, a steep discount from similar South Loop properties. But Mr. Vitek predicted a steady increase in demand once the market improves.
An Olympics aftershock is hitting the market for existing homes in the neighborhood, too. Pam Dempsey, a real estate broker for Bronzeville Properties, said home sales came to a standstill during the Olympics bidding process, as property owners waited for the decision on a site. Only after the bid failed did they look to sell.
“They’re now entering into a down market,” Ms. Dempsey said. Prices for single-family homes in the area have declined to $100,000 to $200,000 now from $200,000 to $400,000 in mid-2007, she said. A high foreclosure rate has made the Bronzeville downturn worse than what has hit the South Loop or Hyde Park.
“We’ve experienced a lot of really, really deeply discounted foreclosures,” Ms. Dempsey said. “You’ll have a house that needs a ton of work going for maybe $35,000.”
When development does come, she said, Bronzeville will benefit most if the retail part appeals to the same kind of newly affluent residents as those who have moved into the South Loop and Hyde Park.
“Not the fast-food stuff we already have around here,” Ms. Dempsey said, “but nicer retail, like the stuff that came to the South Loop over the past 5 to 10 years. A wine shop or a cafe or bookstores — these things will keep people in the neighborhood.”
Joseph Schwietermann, director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University, warned against easy comparisons between Bronzeville and the Hyde Park and South Loop neighborhoods. He attributes a combination of poor post-World War II urban planning and Bronzeville’s history of slow growth as factors that have made Bronzeville less successful.
“It’s easier to invest in housing with the hopes that retail will follow,” Mr. Schwietermann said. But, he added, “you can’t assume that if you build it, they will come.”
In October, contractors hired by the city began tearing down the first of seven buildings on the Michael Reese campus slated for demolition. The timeline for development is not urgent, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Community Development said, because the city will not begin making mortgage payments on the property until 2014.
The department envisions a large-scale residential and retail complex with a mixture of affordable and market-rate housing, in addition to dry cleaners, coffee shops and other staple businesses of neighborhood life. Its stated goal is “to build a community from scratch,” and stimulate redevelopment on the lakefront south of McCormick Place.
Byron Lindsey, manager of an auto repair shop, has seen little retail growth around the garage he has managed for nearly 20 years in what is now the Lake Meadows shopping center.
But his business is down only slightly despite the slow economy, Mr. Lindsey said as he juggled a phone in each hand and spoke to customers from behind the counter. He has perceived an influx of higher-income residents over the past five years, which he expects will contribute to a comeback once the economy recovers.
Redevelopment of the Michael Reese property could be the key.
“It could really determine whether the community gets a kick-start on its way back,” Mr. Lindsey said.
Rachel Cromidas is a Chicago freelance writer. Ben Goldberger contributed reporting.
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