Public Space, Rivers, and Climate Change

Don’t miss this conversation on public space, rivers and climate change at Studio Gang with urban planner and architect Jennifer Buyck, a resident of Villa Albertine Chicago.

Studio Gang
3rd Floor Treehouse
1520 West Division Street
Chicago, US 60642
April 26, 2022 | 6pm

By following the course of rivers from Chicago to New Orleans, this conversation will address the issues of transformation of the urban environment in general, and of urban design and landscapes in particular. By placing her camera and her regard on the public spaces traversed by these rivers, Jennifer Buyck questions the urban transition by paying particular attention to the links between urban forms and forms of social life. By questioning the notion of public space from singular and often paradigmatic situations, Jennifer Buyck’s work aims to account for the possibility of ecological experiments in urban planning, while taking seriously the difficulties of the discipline to think them. Indeed, in the context of urban planning, a discipline intrinsically linked to action, both the status of the living and the way in which it is experienced appear problematic: the scale of the ecological and climatic crisis questions the preconceptions of the livable, and political ecology questions those of the planning design. Urban planning, in search of ecological and social justice, takes a break here, a freeze frame, to think itself into the field of environmental humanities. What does it mean, or could it mean, to open up the urban design to its ecological dimension?

Moderated by Professor Teresa Córdova at the University of Illinois Chicago with the participation of architects from Studio Gang and local climate activists followed by refreshments.

This event is part of Villa Albertine’s City/Cité conference series organized in partnership with the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois Chicago.

RSVP for the event here: https://villa-albertine.org/events/public-space-and-climate-change

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Smart investment can unlock North Lawndale’s economic potential

Image Source: Anthony Vazquez, Sun-Times

Findings from UIC Great Cities Institute report on the economic conditions in Lawndale is the subject of a column from the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board.

“The well-being of residents is bolstered by the economic health of a neighborhood,” Great Cities Institute Director Teresa Córdova said Monday as she presented the study at the City Club of Chicago. “When those wealth-building opportunities are denied, you start to have various quality of life indicators that are parallel to that.”

Full Article from Chicago Sun-Times »

Lawndale Has Been Robbed Of Equitable Investment For Generations, New Study Finds

Image Source: Video Parachute

Chicago’s West Side has been robbed of equitable investment for generations — and it has left legacy Lawndale residents with little economic opportunity, according to a new study.

Researchers found $124 million leaks out of Lawndale each year, seriously impeding community wealth building, said Teresa Cordova, director of the Great Cities Institute. That loss occurs through workers who live outside the neighborhood but earn money within Lawndale, or when “residents in the community must spend their money outside the community for basic necessities,” Cordova said.

“You want dollars circulating through your community. If those dollars are leaving … there are conditions created by the absence of that wealth,” Cordova said.

Full Article from Block Club Chicago »

IMPACT 2022

moderated by Dr. Teresa Córdova
featuring Rodney Brown, Brenda Palms Barber, Richard Townsell, Debra Wesley

The Invest Southwest initiative spotlights communities that have a history of disinvestment and poverty and offers new economic development opportunities to Chicago’s westside. An UIC Great Cities Institute report commissioned by Lawndale Christian Development Corp. examines the trends for potential growth and the economic needs for residents of North Lawndale — who wins, who loses, who gets to stay and who goes.

This panel will explore the the impact of gentrification and displacement with the potential benefits for existing community residents.

Purchase your tickets here: https://www.cityclub-chicago.org/event/2/3518/impact-2022

Categories:

Lawndale Service Area Databook

Executive Summary:

Like most communities, Lawndale residents desire nice homes, safe streets, good schools and dignified living-wage jobs. The well-being of residents is bolstered by the economic health of a neighborhood where conditions foster the building of community wealth. However, North Lawndale residents are losing wealth-building opportunities that make these quality of life conditions easier to attain.

Some indication that community wealth is lost is when there is leakage. Leakage occurs when wages from jobs within the community are distributed to people residing outside of the community or when residents within the community must spend money outside of the community to consume basic necessities.

Full Text (PDF)

Slides from City Club Presentation

Watch Video of City Club Presentation

Authors:

Jackson Morsey,
AICP, Urban Planner

Alex Linares,
Economic Development Planner

Jack Rocha,
Community Development Planner

Matthew D. Wilson,
Senior Research Specialist

Press Coverage:

New study finds ‘generations’ of disinvestment, systemic racism in North Lawndale from Chicago Sun-Times

Editorial: Fixing North Lawndale isn’t just City Hall’s job. Corporate Chicago must step up from Chicago Tribune

Report: Revitalizing North Lawndale will require more stores, education, to keep dollars in the community, report says from Chicago Tribune

Smart investment can unlock North Lawndale’s economic potential from Chicago Sun-Times

Lawndale Has Been Robbed Of Equitable Investment For Generations, New Study Finds from Block Club Chicago

City Club of Chicago: IMPACT 2022 – Economic trends and opportunities of Invest Southwest – North Lawndale from WGN Radio / City Club of Chicago

 

Democracy’s Rebirth: The View from Chicago

What are the challenges confronting Americans in their struggle to build the United States as a multiracial, multiethnic nation? Dick Simpson, a long-time political activist and former Chicago alderman, uses the Windy City to examine how the political, racial, economic and social inequalities dividing us play out in our neighborhoods and cities. His new book “Democracy’s Rebirth: The View From Chicago” is a blueprint for repairing democracy in America.

Now a professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a former president of Midland Authors, Simpson is an expert on Chicago politics, political reform and elections. He has published widely and affected public policy. He has built a 50-year career as a legislator, campaign strategist, government advisor and challenger of the status quo.

“Democracy’s Rebirth: The View From Chicago” helps illuminate both our past and our way forward toward a government and society that are more fair, equitable and effective for all its residents, and a successful future that we can all equally engage and benefit from.” – Lori Lightfoot, from her Foreword to the book.

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Robots are learning to think like humans. Can they meet Amazon’s demands for speed?

Image Source: Alan Berner, The Seattle Times

Beth Gutelius, research director of the Center for Urban Economic Development at UIC and senior research specialist with the Great Cities Institute at UIC, spoke to the Seattle Times about the use of automation and robotics to increase the pace of work in warehouses and the risks it poses to employees.

“There are many technologies that could take out some of those risks, lower the risks [and] the hazards of being a warehouse worker,” she said. “The problem is the choices the employers are making … are canceling out all those opportunities.”

“For all of the talk about how technology is changing warehousing … it’s at a much earlier phase overall in the industry than I think a lot of people assume given the news, especially about Amazon,” she said.

Full Article from The Seattle Times »

Gang Expert, John Hagedorn, Speaks on Most Recent Book

On March 17, 2022, we had the great honor of hosting John Hagedorn to speak about his latest book, Gangs on Trial: Challenging Stereotypes and Demonization in the Courts. In the foreword of the book, Craig Haney says, “Hagedorn has written an extremely courageous book, one in which he is willing to assert hard moral truths that cut against the grain of what passes for common knowledge about who commits crime and why.” 

Chicago’s local access TV was there, so if you missed our conversation with John, you are able to view it here via CANTV.  At the end of the program, John received a special tribute from Professors Elijah Anderson, Meda Chesney-Lind, Dick Simpson, former students Drs. Lance Williams and Chico Tillman and current student, Kaitlin Devaney. 

Professor John Hagedorn represents the best of ethnography and helps keep it elevated as one our most significant and useful methodological tools to gain a deep understanding of what is happening – and especially what is happening on the ground.  John’s qualities as a gracious, caring human being carry over into his ethnographic skills.  It takes a certain kind of person to do good ethnography – it takes a willingness to build relationships and to understand people from their points of view, while simultaneously building an analytical framework that considers context, structural factors, and dynamics of social and personal interactions. 

His focus on economic restructuring and the plight of communities devastated by deindustrialization still, unfortunately, rings true.  In 1998, referring to the devastating impacts of economic restructuring, John said, in the second edition of People and Folks, that “history will judge current American policy harshly” and “that left to our current course, we are sure to witness desperate acts of violence and rebellion.” And here we are, witnessing both the failure of urban and economic policies along with ‘desperate acts of violence and rebellion.”  And here John is, decades later, still engaged in the struggle to point policy makers in the direction of creating opportunities and rebuilding communities and against scapegoating and demonizing individuals in gangs. The focus, he argues, is on building “stability and hope.” 

John has brought his fervor and sensitivity to the courtroom where he spent countless hours defending young men and women against stereotypes.  He saw firsthand the tragic impacts of those stereotypes and has shared with us some of what he witnessed when gangs are on trial.  

We congratulate John on his new book and thank him for spending this special time with us. 

 

 

Note:

You can view the program on CANTV on the following dates:

Wednesday, March 30th @ 9 am and 9 pm on Chicago cable channel 27

Thursday, March 31st @ 12 pm and 5 pm on Chicago cable channel 27

Friday, April 1st @ 7am, 1 pm and 7 pm on Chicago cable channel 27

Friday, April 1st @ 8 am on Chicago cable channel 19

 

Census Data Shows Black Populations Moving From Cities To The Suburbs. What Trends Are We Seeing In SoCal?

Image Source: Jennifer Cappuccio Maher, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

Teresa Cordova, director of the Great Cities Institute at UIC and professor of urban planning and policy, was one of two featured guests in a discussion on KPCC Radio’s “AirTalk” that examined the latest Census data showing Black populations moving from cities to suburbs and how these trends are being reflected in Los Angeles and Southern California.

Today on AirTalk, we speak with Teresa Córdovaprofessor of Urban Planning and Policy and director of the Great Cities Institute (GCI) at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Michael Stollprofessor of Public Policy and director of the Black Policy Project in the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA about the latest trends and how they’re being reflected in Los Angeles and Southern California.

Full story from KPCC Radio »