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Cook County wants to make biking, walking and using scooters safer and easier for those who live in parts of southern Cook County. Therefore, the Lake Calumet Bike Network Study will help bring improvements for those who use the aforementioned forms of “active transportation” in the area. This includes Chicago neighborhoods around Lake Calumet and the suburban communities of Burnham, Dolton, Calumet City, South Holland and Riverdale. This effort will evaluate, plan and identify opportunities to create a more connected bikeway network through enhancements to current and planned on and off-street facilities.
Please provide your input now to help Cook County Department of Transportation and Highways better understand how to enhance the quality of life for those who live and work around Lake Calumet.
The feedback you provide will guide and help the department with their mission for the Lake Calumet Bike Network Study.
Mujeres Latinas en Acción (Mujeres) officially launched their first ever position paper, ¡Actívate! A community-data driven plan to help Latinas and their families thrive.
Founded in 1973, Mujeres is the longest-standing Latina-led organization in the country. With its headquarters based in Pilsen in Chicago, Illinois, it has grown from a volunteer-led group of dedicated Latinas that it once was to over 60 employees with satellite locations in North Riverside and Brighton Park.
In partnership with Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois Chicago, ¡Actívate! is a community-based project which gathered data and lived experiences of Mujeres’ community members, ultimately informing the advocacy priorities of Mujeres. Data was gathered through focus groups, interviews, and a community needs assessment surveys on the following issues: immigrant justice, economic justice, women’s health, and gender-based violence. This project involves contributions from Mujeres’ leadership and staff, community members, partner organizations, and Great Cities Institute (GCI).
Mujeres publishes ¡Actívate! A community-data driven plan to help Latinas and their families thrive – CISION PR Newswire
The annual event brought together leaders from the city’s top foundations with their counterparts at more than 20 Chicago Latino nonprofit arts organizations.
The group, more than 50 strong, spent a full day participating in group dialogue, Q&As, breakout sessions, mentoring, and one-on-one introductions. The topic: developing new strategies and solutions to address the funding gap in Latino arts.
Carlos Tortolero, President and CEO, National Museum of Mexican Art, shared statistics provided by Dr. Teresa Córdova, Director of the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
Matthew Wilson, the associate director for economic and workforce development at UIC’s Great Cities Institute, discusses a new UIC study that reveals how crime goes up when youth unemployment spikes on WTTW News.
“There’s been a lot of evaluations of summer youth employment programs and very robust research designs that have tried to get towards causation,” said Matthew Wilson, associate director for economic and workforce development at UIC’s Great Cities Institute. “And they’ve found that when program participants are working and they’re a part of programs that provide their mentors and counseling, that crime actually drops 50%. If they’re not engaged in those types of programs, there actually is no more effect of that program. … So there’s, I think, a very strong correlation. But I think even we can say from these types of research designs that there actually is a cause of having a job and being enrolled in these types of programs and them reducing crime.”
This groundbreaking study, commissioned by Grand Victoria Foundation (GVF) and the Great Cities Institute (GCI), seeks to shed light on the challenges faced by Black communities across Illinois, with a specific focus on 81 “Black population centers” throughout the state where 30% or more of the residents identify as Black, outside of Chicago and Cook County.
The study represents a crucial step in GVF’s strategic shift towards racial equity and justice grantmaking, recognizing that significant concentrations of Black populations in Illinois outside of Chicago and Cook County often receive little attention, despite their unique predicaments. With a mission-driven approach, GVF and GCI aim to use this research to understand the lived experiences, aspirations, and challenges of these communities, and to identify ways to support their efforts towards equity and justice.
The “Illinois Racial Justice & Equity Landscape Study” is a comprehensive research endeavor that encompasses both quantitative and qualitative data. Through extensive data collection and analysis, including demographic information, socioeconomic indicators, and community input, the study paints a nuanced picture of the current state of Black populations in these areas. The study also identifies over 1500 organizations that are actively working to improve outcomes within these communities, showcasing the resilience and determination of local stakeholders.
The findings of the study provide invaluable insights into the racial justice and equity landscape in Illinois, highlighting the unique issues faced by Black populations outside of major metropolitan areas. The study aims to go beyond mere data and statistics, by elevating the voices and stories of community members, and by recognizing their aspirations for a more equitable and just future.
Based on the research findings, GVF and GCI provide recommendations on how philanthropic, civic, and corporate entities can support these communities in achieving their desired outcomes. These recommendations are rooted in a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities present in these communities, and aim to foster meaningful and sustainable change through grantmaking, strategic support, and collaborative efforts.
This study identifies demographic and socio-economic changes in the Lower West Side and its
subareas. In 1990, according to U.S. Census data, the Lower West Side, the Chicago community area
in which Pilsen is located, was 88% Hispanic or Latino. By 2020, the percentage decreased to 71%.
While still a majority Latino neighborhood today, this report confirms that in the last two decades,
gentrification solidified in the Eastern Edge of Pilsen, intensified in Central Pilsen, and has spread
throughout the Lower West Side. The demographic trends from 2000 to 2020 make it clear that the
Lower West Side’s population has declined, with the foreign-born population, Hispanic or Latino
family households, and the 18 years and under population being a significant source of this
population loss. The findings also show that the Lower West Side is becoming more educated with
an increasing median household income comparable to that of the City of Chicago. While Hispanic
or Latino household income and educational attainment increased in the Lower West Side, it is still
lower when compared to other race and ethnic groups. The Lower West Side also had a substantial
increase in the share of the employed population working professional jobs. From 2005-2009 to
2016-2020, the Management, Business, Science, and Arts occupational category increased by
151.4%, over 5 times the rate for the City of Chicago. Gross rents, meanwhile, increased from 2005-
2009 to 2016-2020 splitting the Lower West Side between households paying more than $1,000 in
rent and those paying below $1,000 in rent.
If these trends continue, Pilsen is in danger of losing its remaining working-class families,
particularly, if nothing is done to maintain the affordability of the neighborhood. For this reason,
development projects such as the current 18th and Peoria site can play a crucial role – and provide
an example – in helping to alleviate rental housing cost burden to risk further population loss of
working-class Mexican families in the Pilsen neighborhood.
This report was initiated by UIC’s Professor John J. Betancur, whose interest in Pilsen and
gentrification more generally, goes back several decades. GCI compiled the data in this report in
response to a request by Professor Betancur to document, who currently lives in Pilsen.
John J Betancur,
Professor of Urban Planning and Policy, University of Illinois Chicago.
Alexander Linares,
Economic Development Planner, the Great Cities Institute.
As Brandon Johnson is sworn in today as Chicago’s New Mayor, staff of the Great Cities Institute are serving on his transition committees. Juan González, Senior Fellow at GCI, is serving on the Transition Committee while GCI Director, Teresa Córdova, is serving on the Subcommittee on Economic Vitality and Equity, and Kathryn Bocanegra, Faculty Fellow at GCI, is serving as Co-Chair of the Public Safety Subcommittee.
Other UIC faculty on various committees include Barbara Ransby (Co-Chair, Transition Committee); Renee Hatcher (Economic Vitality and Equity); Elizabeth Todd-Breland (Education); April Jackson (Housing); Liat Ben-Moshe (Human Rights, Equity, and Inclusion).
There are many challenges facing Chicago and other larger metropolitan areas. We look forward to making contributions to the efforts to find solutions and avenues for creating a city that works for everyone.
Chalkbeat Chicago reporter
Matthew Wilson, an associate director at the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois and one of the report’s authors, said the increase in the jobless rate for Black women aged 20 to 24 — from 32% in 2019 to almost 60% in 2021 — was the study’s most staggering finding.
As previously documented, youth joblessness and disconnection from school and work are ongoing systemic issues in Chicago, with higher rates of violence in areas of concentrated youth joblessness (Córdova and Wilson, 2017a). In this data brief, we seek to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted those rates and what has been the pace, if any, of recovery.
The brief quantifies the pandemic’s impact on jobless, and jobless and out of school rates for young people, breaking down the data by race/ethnicity, and sex for Chicago, Illinois and the U.S. We examine data for 16- to 19- and 20- to 24-year-olds, breaking down the data by race/ethnicity and sex for Chicago, Illinois, and the U.S.
Matthew D. Wilson, Ph.D.,
Associate Director for Economic and Workforce Development, Great Cities Institute.
Brandon Patterson,
James J. Stukel Student Fellow, Great Cities Institute.
