Celebrating our Partners & Marking 10 Years of Leadership

Video from Event

 

Event Description

We are hosting our special event titled “Celebrating our Partners & Marking 10 Years of Leadership.”

Speakers included Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton, Interim Chancellor Javier Reyes, Juan González of Democracy Now, Teresa Córdova, and a panel on democracy led by Kathleen Yang-Clayton.

The panel included four brilliant professionals in the public and advocacy fields and was moderated by Kathleen Yang-Clayton, one of our Senior Research Fellows at Great Cities Institute.

Agenda

4:00 p.m.         Welcome, Teresa Córdova, Director, Great Cities Institute

4:15 p.m.         Democracy Now – More than Ever, Juan González, Co-Host, Democracy Now!

4:45 p.m.         Panel Conversation, Moderated by Professor Kathleen Yang Clayton:

Maria Hadden, Alderwoman, 49th Ward

Cristina Pacione-Zayas, Illinois State Senator, 20th District

Erica Swinney Staley, Executive Director, Manufacturing Renaissance

Heather Van Benthuysen, Executive Director, CPS Student Voice and Engagement Department

5:30 p.m.         Greetings, Chancellor Javier Reyes

5:40 p.m.         Closing Remarks, Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton

6:00 p.m.         Reception

Categories:

Ten-Year Legacy of the Fight for $15 and a Union Movement: Reducing the Racial Wealth Gap and Generating Tens of Billions in Additional Economic Activity

Authors

Yannet Lathrop

Matthew D. Wilson

William Lester

Introduction and Executive Summary
Ten years ago, on November 29, 2012, a group of 200 fast-food workers in New York City— fed up with low pay and roadblocks to organizing—walked out of their jobs demanding a $15 hourly wage and a union. At the time, the New York Times described the strike as “the biggest wave of job actions in the history of America’s fast-food industry.”

That “biggest wave of job actions,” led by Black workers and other workers of color, would not stay contained to the fast-food industry for long. Over the course of the decade that followed, the Fight for $15—as the movement inspired by the strikes would come to be known—spread from coast to coast, animating workers across industries to join the demand for higher wages. To date, 29 states and nearly five dozen cities and counties have raised their wage floors since 2012—many to $15 an hour or more. In addition, employers of all sizes—including some of the world’s largest corporations employing tens of millions of workers—have been inspired or compelled to raise their pay scales. As a result, since 2012, more than 26 million workers have won higher pay to the tune of $150 billion. 2 Nearly half (46 percent) of the benefiting workers are workers of color, whose additional earnings amount to slightly over 50 percent ($76 billion) of the estimated higher pay.

Full Text PDF

A 10-year fight to raise the minimum wage has slashed the Black-White wealth gap in half in some states. The South still has a long way to go.

Associate Director, Matthew Wilson, assisted with a research report on the fight to raise minimum wage. Authors Juliana Kaplan and Madison Hoff  write about the report in their Business Insider article:

“The biggest finding is the equity impact of the fight for 15 raises,” Yannet Lathrop, a senior researcher and policy analyst for the National Employment Law Project and one of the report’s authors, told Insider. “We find that between 2013 and 2019, in general, worker wealth grew, but it was faster in states that adopted higher wages than those that didn’t adopt higher wages.”

Read the Full Article Here at Business Insider

Read the Research Report Here

 

South Chicago Set To Get Raised Bike Lanes, Markers Honoring History To Make Streets ‘Vibrant And Accessible,’ Leaders Say

Great Cities is featured in another Block Club Chicago article!

The project has its roots in a community revitalization plan led by Special Service Area No. 5 and the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Great Cities Institute, Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza (10th) said.

Neighbors identified a need for “a more pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly Commercial Avenue, with improved lighting and a more aesthetically pleasing streetscape,” Sadlowski Garza said.

Special Service Area No. 5 also brought permanent public art, vendor stalls and other upgrades to Commercial Avenue through the Chicago Alfresco program last year.

See the Full Article Here.

 

Participatory budgeting allows community members who can’t legally vote to still have a voice

Associate Director Thea Crum is interviewed by ABC 7 on Great Cities Institute’s work on participatory budgeting.

Through participatory budgeting, community members get a voice. They can propose neighborhood infrastructure projects in their wards, such as road or park improvements, and those projects then go up for a vote in the community.

“So, you’re seeing this beautiful co-creative process between residents and local government where they’re really working together to actualize real community needs on the ground,” said Thea Crum, associate director at Great Cities Institute at UIC.

The institute has taken the lead on spreading the word about participatory budgeting in Chicago, and that includes targeting populations who can’t legally vote.

Read the Full Story on ABC 7

 

City/Cité Chicago x Paris Symposium

Designed in 2015 and first implemented in Chicago and San Francisco, CITY CITÉ is a transatlantic cooperation and exchange program on urban issues and city making, initiated by Villa Albertine. The 3rd Chicago edition entitled ” Re/Inventing City Planning to Address Contemporary Issues ” will be a two days of professional conference and visits on the renewal of the urban fabric and territorial planning in both cities.

Thursday, October 13 – 8.30 am – 5 pm @ Studio Gang – Conferences

9.00 am | Introduction

9.15 am – 10.45 am | Session 1: Panorama and Perspectives from Paris and Chicago: New Scales and Approaches for Planning

Moderation: Teresa Córdova (UIC- Great Cities Institute)

We Will Chicago Plan

  • Erin Aleman (Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning)

ON TO 2050 Strategy

  • Science Po Paris students – master of urban planning

City Planning in Paris (PLU, SCOT, SDRIF…)

New Methods and Approaches to Planning with We Will Chicago

The New Flexible Models of Planning: Call for Projects and Temporary Urbanism

  • Marcus ZEPF (Université Paris Est-Créteil, Paris School of Urban Planning and Lab’Urba)

Temporalities and Uncertainties in Urban Planning: towards “permanent autopoetic processes”

11.00 am – 12.30 am | Session 2: Planning for Social and Spatial Justice

Moderation: Monica Chadha (Civic Projects Architecture)

Invest South-West

  • Frédéric Chartier (Chartier / Dalix agency) and 2023 resident at Villa Albertine in Chicago

Thinking Communal Space : A Vehicle for Social Equity

Planning for Equity with Stakeholders and Communities

GROWSS in sync, Quality of Life Plan for North Lawndale

Neighborhood Activation, A Process to Improve Public Safety Through Community-Led Design

2 pm – 3.30 pm | Session 3: Planning for Transitions

Moderation: Odile Compagnon (Odile Compagnon Architect)

The Natural History of Chicago — and its Implications

Ecological Transition and the Place of Life / Wildlife in Planning

  • Nadine Roudil (Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture Paris Val de Seine)

Institutional Narratives of Energy and Youth Awareness of Climate Issues

Advancing Equity by Investing in Urban Green Infrastructure

Towards Pluralist Engagement in Cultural Infrastructure Design

3.45 pm – 5.15 pm | Session 4: Future of Housing & Offices

Moderation: Kathleen Day (Preservation of Affordable Housing)

What kind of Housing will be Built in Chicago in the 2020s? Effects of Recent Reforms

  • Ingrid Nappi (École des Ponts Paris Tech – Observatory of the Economy of Architecture / Ministry of Culture)

Which Future for Business Districts in an Area of Environmental and Social Transformation?

How Cities Support Urban Manufacturing? Old and New Forms of Production Spaces

  • Francesca Artioli (Université Paris Est-Créteil, Paris School of Urban Planning and Lab’Urba )

Short-Term Rental Platforms and the Transformation of Housing: the Challenges of Regulation

Aspirational Housing – What is Architect and Developer’s Responsibility? How can we Create Better Places to Live for Everyone?

Friday, October 14 | On-site visits

9.00 am – 10.20 am: Woodlawn Resource Center 

10.35 am – 11.40 am: Stony Island Arts Bank 

12.10 am – 2.00 pm: Fulton East

2.15 pm – 3.25 pm: North Lawndale Love Blooms Here Plaza 

3.40 pm – 5.00 pm: Humboldt Park 

Categories:

Organizing Knowledge to Challenge Inequality

Join us for a talk by Professor Ananya Roy!

Professor Ananya Roy is a scholar of global racial capitalism and postcolonial development whose research is concerned with the political economy and politics of dispossession and displacement. At the very heart of her work is an insistence on the transformation of the public university – through teaching, public scholarship, and community engagement – so that it can be a force for social justice.

She is the author of numerous books, including: City Requiem, Calcutta: Gender and the Politics of Poverty; Encountering Poverty: Thinking and Acting in an Unequal World, and Poverty Capital: Microfinance and the Making of Development. Dr. Roy currently leads a National Science Foundation Research Coordination Network on Housing Justice in Unequal Cities.
Talk sponsored by Social Justice Initiative, Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, The Great Cities Institute and Center for Urban Economic Development

RSVP online:
https://OrganizingKnowledge.eventbrite.com

Categories:

Chicago’s Decades of Segregation Feed South and West Side Hardships

Authors Shruti Singh and Isis Almeida discuss issues caused by historical segregation in their Bloomberg article. Great Cities Institute’s Matt Wilson is interviewed and highlights the economic inequalities in Chicago.

Many of these same neighborhoods continue to face the highest levels of joblessness, poverty and inadequate housing, according to a study by the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois Chicago.

“These places of concentrated disadvantages are where unemployment is most concentrated and crime is most concentrated, and there is an interplay,” said Matthew Wilson, associate director for economic and workforce development at the institute. “They play off each other to create the inequities we see in the city.”

Read the Full Story at Bloomberg

 

Report Release: 2023 Chicago Budget Community Engagement Report

On October 3, 2022 Mayor Lori Lightfoot delivered her $16.4 billion budget for the City of Chicago to City Council. In July, the City conducted a community engagement process and partnered with UIC’s Neighborhoods Initiative (UICNI) at the Great Cities Institute to design and engagement activities around the City’s 2023 budget. The “2023 Chicago Budget Community Engagement Report” documents the 2023 Budget Engagement process and provides key results from the engagement activities.

2023 budget engagement activities were built upon community-identified investment needs derived from the 2022 budget engagement process and findings that the City of Chicago refers to as “Responsive Initiatives.” To create meaningful engagement, the 2023 budget engagement process focused on establishing and reinforcing a feedback loop between City leaders and residents that:

  • Provided residents with progress updates on the implementation of the City’s 2022 Responsive Initiatives and related programs and services.
  • Created space for dialogue and discussions between department leaders and residents to share information and priorities, and to ask and answer any questions.
  • Gathered feedback and input from residents on their priorities for programs and services, their definitions of success and progress for programs and services, and other comments and suggestions.

Data was collected across all engagement activities, from conversations with City leaders and from tabletop notes during roundtable discussions, written comment cards, surveys, filled-out forms about Responsive Initiatives, and verbal public comment from community members. The UIC team analyzed the data to report findings as reflected by participant responses to the survey, filled-out forms about Responsive Initiatives, written comment cards, and transcribed public comments are provided in the appendix.

This report includes engagement findings as related to the entire budget process, as well as across four budget topic areas: Affordable Housing and Services to People At Risk of or Experiencing Homelessness, Community Safety and Youth, Public Health and Services and Mental Health, and Neighborhood/Community Development and Arts and Culture. In terms of overall feedback, participants throughout the community engagement process and across all City programs and services raised the issue of needing:

  • Better communication and marketing of existing programs and services to help make more residents aware of what is available and to connect residents to the services they need.
  • Improved access, specifically language access and access for those with disabilities across all digital and in-person programs and services so that all City programs and services can be truly available to all residents.
  • Increased transparency on decision-making processes, explanations about program and service delivery (e.g., why a program has a backlog, why implementation is delayed), and publicly shared progress on the performance of programs and services.

For topic area–specific feedback, participants were asked to prioritize programs and services that they thought were most important to their community. Participant responses in areas of success and progress corresponded generally to three themes:

  • Investments, participant feedback involved statements and ideas on how to expand, improve, and/or enhance programs or services.
  • Specific changes that represent success/progress (performance metrics), participant feedback involved ideas about specific changes or impacts that demonstrated success or progress.
  • Policy recommendations, participant recommendations include requests for implementation of a specific policy or a change to existing policy.

The Office of Budget and Management (OBM) used participant feedback and the analysis of participant feedback provided in the 2023 Chicago Budget Community Engagement Report to create the 2023 Responsive Initiatives as part of the budget decision making process. The Responsive Initiatives are tied to specific departments and programs and services proposed for funding. As mentioned above, as part of the engagement activities participants identified performance metrics (specific changes that represent success or progress) against which the City’s progress and performance on the 2023 Responsive Initiatives can be measured. OBM has selected 16 of these performance metrics that are measurable and align well with one or several specific 2023 Responsive Initiatives to track progress. The City released the 2023 Budget Engagement Responsive Initiatives Report that includes both the 2023 Responsive Initiatives and corresponding engagement performance metrics on the 2023 Budget Engagement microsite.

View the Full Report Here.