POSTPONED: Fair Fares Chicagoland: Advocating for Equitable Transit

This event has been postponed. A new date will be announced at a later time.

Join Lynda Lopez, advocacy manager at the Active Transportation Alliance, alongside Andrea Reed and Linda Thisted, co-chairs of the Coalition for a Modern Metra Electric for a discussion on Fair Fares.

Last November, Active Trans released the Fair Fares report, offering recommendations for fare equity in the region. Some of the recommendations include fare-capping, discounted fares for low-income residents, and testing the South Cook Fair Transit Pilot. This conversation will feature an overview of the report and a conversation with local leaders working for faster and more affordable transit service on the South Side.

Linda Thisted
Linda has an MBA from the University of Chicago and worked for the Boston Consulting Group as a strategy consultant for 12 years.  She was trained in community organizing by the Gameliel Foundation, and has been active in faith-based organizing since the late 1990s, first with the Metropolitan Alliance of Congregations and then with Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL).  She has organized and run a number of successful campaigns, including an effort to provide recreational opportunities in Bronzeville, which resulted in the building of the $17M Ellis Park Arts and Recreation Center several years ago.  She has lived in Hyde Park for over 40 years.

Andrea D. Reed, Executive Director Greater Roseland Chamber of Commerce
Ms. Reed has been the Executive Director for the Greater Roseland Chamber of Commerce (GRCC) since it’s’ inception in April 2009. She is on the board of Illinois Green Alliance (newly elected 2020), Preservation Chicago, and Women Gathering for Justice; and Commissioner for the Special Service Area #71. Ms. Reed taught mortgage licensing classes through the continuing education department at Harold Washington College and Malcolm X College and she teaches biblical and financial literacy classes at her church (Salem Baptist Church of Chicago). Ms. Reed is life and health licensed (Illinois) and works with families to provide financial wellness education. Ms. Reed plans to receive her Bachelor’s Degree in Entrepreneurship from DeVry University.

Lynda Lopez
Lynda Lopez is a writer and transportation advocate in Chicago. Lynda is an Advocacy Manager with the Active Transportation Alliance and recently co-authored a report on fair equity in the Chicagoland region. She has previously written for Streetsblog Chicago focusing on equity issues around housing displacement, biking, and transportation in communities of color. As an avid bike advocate, she is the southwest side representative for the Mayor’s Bike Advisory Council. She also serves on the Metropolitan Planning Council’s transportation committee. On the national level, Lynda is a core organizer with the Untokening, a multiracial collective centering the lived experiences of marginalized communities to address mobility justice and equity and is a member of the Innovations in Transportation Equity for Latino Communities workgroup at UT Health San Antonio. Lynda is a part of Transit Center’s inaugural Women Changing Transit Mentorship Program.

For disability accommodations, please contact Christiana Kinder, (312) 996-8700, christia@uic.edu.

If the above RSVP form is not working, please email gcities@uic.edu to RSVP.

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POSTPONED: Views from the Streets: The Transformation of Gangs and Violence on Chicago’s South Side

This event has been postponed. A new date will be announced at a later time.

Join us as Roberto R. Aspholm discusses his new book, Views from the Streets: The Transformation of Gangs and Violence on Chicago’s South Side. Chicago has long served as a symbol of urban pathology in the public imagination. The city’s staggering levels of violence and entrenched gang culture occupy a central place in the national discourse, yet remain poorly understood and are often stereotyped. Views from the Streets explains the dramatic transformation of black street gangs on Chicago’s South Side during the early twenty-first century, shedding new light on why gang violence persists and what might be done to address it.

Drawing on years of community work and in-depth interviews with gang members, Roberto R. Aspholm describes in vivid detail the internal rebellions that shattered the city’s infamous corporate-style African American street gangs. He explores how, in the wake of these uprisings, young gang members have radically refashioned gang culture and organization on Chicago’s South Side, rejecting traditional hierarchies and ideologies and instead embracing a fierce ethos of personal autonomy that has made contemporary gang violence increasingly spontaneous and unregulated. In calling attention to the historical context of these issues and to the elements of resistance embedded in Chicago’s contemporary gang culture, Aspholm challenges conventional views of gang members as inherently pathological. He critically analyzes highly touted “universal” violence prevention strategies, depicting street-level realities to illuminate why they have ultimately failed to reduce levels of bloodshed. An unprecedented analysis of the nature and meaning of gang violence, Views from the Streets proposes an alternative framework for addressing the seemingly intractable issues of inequality, despair, and violence in Chicago.

For disability accommodations, please contact Christiana Kinder, (312) 996-8700, christia@uic.edu.

If the above RSVP form is not working, please email gcities@uic.edu to RSVP.

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All Eyes on the Coronavirus

Our thoughts are with all of you, hoping that you are all warm and safe. We are, of course, sensitive to those whose health or livelihoods are being most directly affected and hopeful that this crisis will not result in the further exacerbations of structural inequalities. We are appreciative of the leadership from our state and local governments and recognize the critical role of public health officials, health care workers, those managing public services and infrastructure and the many others who are providing grounding during this societal earthquake.

There are still many uncertainties and much to think about as the world responds to the realities of something that scientists who study viruses have warned us about for decades.  As a research institute, we have been paying attention to the mathematics and science of this pandemic.  We also took another look at a report from the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board from September 2019 that provided “a snapshot of where the world stands in its ability to prevent and contain a global health threat.” Observing that recommendations from the many previous panels and commissions had been either “poorly implemented or not implemented at all,” the report identifies serious gaps in emergency systems to prepare for eventual pandemics. The Monitoring Board asserts that we seem to be better at responding to crises rather than preparing for them.

For too long, we have allowed a cycle of panic and neglect when it comes to pandemics: we ramp up efforts when there is a serious threat, then quickly forget about them when the threat subsides. It is well past time to act.

As we think about the world’s response to this pandemic, we thought we would share a link to the report along with a post about its findings.

The report, titled, A World at Risk:  Annual Report on Global Preparedness for Health Emergencies, identifies “seven urgent actions” (along with timelines) that involve investments from governments; countries and regional organizations leading by example; building strong systems; preparing for the worst; financing institutions linking preparedness with financial risk planning; development assistance funders creating incentives and increasing funding for preparedness; and The United Nations strengthening coordination mechanisms.

The Monitoring Board calls for many of their recommended steps to be completed by September 2020.  With regard to building strong systems, they recommend that

Heads of government must appoint a national high-level coordinator with authority and political accountability to lead whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches, and routinely conduct multisectoral simulation exercises to establish and maintain effective preparedness. They must prioritize community involvement in all preparedness efforts, building trust and engaging multiple stakeholders (e.g. legislators; representatives of the human and animal health, security and foreign affairs sectors; the private sector; local leaders; and women and youth).

This 2019 report states that, “Countries, donors and multilateral institutions must be prepared for the worst:”

A rapidly spreading pandemic due to a lethal respiratory pathogen (whether naturally emergent or accidentally or deliberately released) poses additional preparedness requirements. Donors and multilateral institutions must ensure adequate investment in developing innovative vaccines and therapeutics, surge manufacturing capacity, broad-spectrum antivirals and appropriate non-pharmaceutical interventions. All countries must develop a system for immediately sharing genome sequences of any new pathogen for public health purposes along with the means to share limited medical countermeasures across countries.

There will be much grieving over lost lives and the impacts of COVID-19 are likely to be will be with us for a long time to come. Yet some countries are doing a better job than others at containing its spread, providing health care, and minimizing financial disruptions.  What can we learn from them?

This time, we don’t just want to respond to this crisis but prepare ourselves for subsequent ones.  Or even better, might we start looking for the sources of these health crises and find ways to prevent them?  Perhaps we can start by seeing the connections between these new viral strains and the disruptions of ecosystems and the destruction of natural habitats.  These are big issues requiring big solutions, international collaborations, and a focus on the public good over privatized greed.  We all have a stake in how this plays out and it is encouraging to see our collective response to help keep one another safe. We look forward to the creativity that may emerge from this crisis along with a healthy respect for the sacredness of Mother Earth and a commitment to our children’s future.

How Hourly and Gig Workers Are Grappling With Coronavirus

Tyrone Turner / WAMU

Beth Gutelius, associate director of UIC’s Center for Urban Economic Development and senior researcher at the Great Cities Institute at UIC, is interviewed in an online story from NPR’s Washington D.C. affiliate WAMU-FM that examines the potential impacts of coronavirus on hourly workers and independent contractors in the U.S.

When examining the potential impacts of coronavirus on U.S. workers, it’s a “crisis that exists at the intersection of three things: exposure, job quality and employment classification,” says Beth Gutelius, research director for the Center for Urban Economic Development at University of Illinois, Chicago.

Full Story from WAMU-FM »

POSTPONED: Back on the Bus: Advocating for Faster and More Reliable Buses

This event has been postponed. A new date will be announced at a later time.

Join Jeremy Cuebas and Zair Menjivar of the Northwest Side Housing Center and the Belmont Cragin Youth Leadership Council, Professor Kate Lowe of UIC’s College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, and Julia Gerasimenko of the Active Transportation Alliance for a discussion on bus service and ridership in Chicago, youth-led transportation advocacy, and a national perspective for how Chicago stacks up nationally when it comes to prioritizing buses on city streets.

The discussion will begin hyper-locally focusing on youth-led bus advocacy in Belmont Cragin. Northwest Side Housing Center has been a strong partner of Active Trans in advocating for faster and more reliable bus service in Belmont Cragin, a community primarily served by CTA buses. Following the release of the Back on the Bus report in 2017 and the Bus Friendly Streets Report Cards in 2018, Active Trans has worked around Chicago to support those who rely the most on the bus while trying to raise political will to invest more in this underappreciated resource. And finally, we will end with a national lens from Professor Kate Lowe who will provide examples of what other cities are doing to invest in buses and what lessons have been learned in terms of who has benefited and who has been burdened by those investments.

In partnership with Active Transportation Alliance.

For disability accommodations, please contact Christiana Kinder, (312) 996-8700, christia@uic.edu.

If the above RSVP form is not working, please email gcities@uic.edu to RSVP.

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Jeremy Cuebas
Youth Organizer, Northwest Side Housing Center

Jeremy Cuebas is a youth organizer for the Northwest Side Housing Center. His work focuses on building relationships and empowering the youth specifically in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood. He leads a group of 30 students called the “Belmont Cragin Youth Leadership council”  who meet 5 days out of the week, to organize, strategize, and meet with community stakeholders, elected officials, and residents on issues that they are passionate about. In 2019 Jeremy and the youth council rallied around the idea of improving public transportation in Belmont Cragin. With the support of Active Trans Alliance who provided hard core data for our youth council to analyze, they were able to hold meetings with Senator Durbin, Senator Tammy Duckworth, and their local Alderman’s to discuss how to improve public transportation in Belmont Cragin. The youth council was awarded $10,000 dollars from the Bright Promises Foundation and $20,000 dollars from DIVVY to support their efforts in the community.

Zair Menjivar
Belmont Cragin Youth Leadership Council

Zair Menjivar is a member of the Belmont Cragin Youth Leadership Council which he has been for three years now.  The council is a youth empowerment group that strives to make change in the community. Zair has lived in the Belmont Cragin community for eight years and he was really intrigued at the concept of community organizing and being able to advocate for himself, which is why he got involved with the youth council. Zair is a Junior at Lane Tech High School, and aspires to be a master computer programmer in the future.

Julia Gerasimenko
Advocacy Manager, Active Transportation Alliance

Julia Gerasimenko is an advocacy manager at the Active Transportation Alliance. Her work focuses on building relationships around the city of Chicago and she leads Active Trans’ bus advocacy. She recently co-authored a report on Fair Fares Chicagoland, recommendations for a more equitable regional transit system. She is also involved in community planning efforts to create more walkable and bikeable communities across Chicago. Prior to joining Active Trans in June 2017, she worked in the education and college access space in Chicago for five years, working with primarily lower income, Latinx students and students of the City Colleges of Chicago. Realizing that transportation was often a barrier to accessing education, she decided to switch fields to get at one of the root causes of inequitable access. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Grinnell College. She has never owned a car and does not plan on it.

Kate Lowe
Associate Professor, UIC College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs

Kate Lowe studies transportation at the intersection of policy, funding, and social equity. Her work examines how varied stakeholders and transportation policies interact across different levels of government and how this impacts transportation investments. Much of her work has focused on how federal funding programs interface with local funding, with an emphasis on equity implications. She also studies the transportation perspectives and experiences of low-income populations and has completed work on low-income households in Louisiana. Most recently, she is turning to racial dynamics and local investment choices around streetcars, as well Chicago-based qualitative research on low and moderate income communities of color. She received a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University, a M.A. in Community Development and Planning from Clark University, and a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Bard College.

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A Just Transition: What it is and Why?

Back by popular demand!

“Just Transition” is a principle, a process and a practice. The principle of just transition is that a healthy economy and a clean environment can and should co-exist. The process for achieving this vision should be a fair one that should not cost workers or community residents their health, environment, jobs, or economic assets. Any losses should be fairly compensated. And the practice of just transition means that the people who are most affected by pollution – the frontline workers and the fenceline communities – should be in the leadership of crafting policy solutions.

The Just Transition Alliance (JTA) was formed in 1997. JTA seeks just transition of communities and workers from unsafe workplaces and environments to healthy, viable communities with a sustainable economy. They devote their primary resources to strengthening frontline and fence-line alliances with an eye toward building and creating alternatives to corporate globalization that work for people on-the-ground.

José Bravo is the Executive Director for the Just Transition Alliance (JTA), where he works directly with Environmental Justice (EJ) Communities and Labor (organized and unorganized) to develop best practices and build meaningful and impactful alliances. José is also the National Campaign Coordinator of the Campaign for Healthier Solutions (CHS), a community driven campaign towards healthier discount stores.

Bravo’s work in social justice issues is rooted from his upbringing in the Southern California fields alongside both his parents. Bravo has also been doing work on immigrant rights issues since his days as a student organizer in the 80’s to the present. His participation in the Environmental Justice (EJ) movement since 1990, has over the years gained him recognition as a national and international leader in tthe EJ movement and founding member and national and international leader in the Just Transition Movement.

For disability accommodations, please contact Christiana Kinder, (312) 996-8700, christia@uic.edu.

If the above RSVP form is not working, please email gcities@uic.edu to RSVP.

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The Danube River and Its Cities: A Viewpoint from Budapest

The River Danube, flowing between the Black Forest and the Black Sea, is one of the world’s most international rivers. Connecting, as well as separating, human life; it crosses 10 European countries and 4 capital cities (Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade) while serving as the national border along 39% of about an 1,800 mile long journey.

This presentation will begin with an overview of major cities on the Danube, highlighting their distinct contexts and geopolitical backgrounds. Melinda will then turn attention toward the ‘twin-city’ phenomenon, illustrating disparate urban landscapes developed face to face, on both sides of the Danube belonging to the same or different countries. Finally, she will describe the case of Buda and Pest, the historic twin-cities that unified and became Budapest, the Hungarian capital city in 1873, explaining contemporary urban development issues related to resources and potentials offered by the Danube.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Urban Planning & Policy’s Master of City Design (MCD) Program.

For disability accommodations, please contact Christiana Kinder, (312) 996-8700, christia@uic.edu.

If the above RSVP form is not working, please email gcities@uic.edu to RSVP.

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The Danube River and Its Cities: A Viewpoint from Budapest

Video from the March 5, 2020 event with Melinda Benkö.

The River Danube, flowing between the Black Forest and the Black Sea, is one of the world’s most international rivers. Connecting, as well as separating, human life; it crosses 10 European countries and 4 capital cities (Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade) while serving as the national border along 39% of about an 1,800 mile long journey.

This presentation will begin with an overview of major cities on the Danube, highlighting their distinct contexts and geopolitical backgrounds. Melinda will then turn attention toward the ‘twin-city’ phenomenon, illustrating disparate urban landscapes developed face to face, on both sides of the Danube belonging to the same or different countries. Finally, she will describe the case of Buda and Pest, the historic twin-cities that unified and became Budapest, the Hungarian capital city in 1873, explaining contemporary urban development issues related to resources and potentials offered by the Danube.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Urban Planning & Policy’s Master of City Design (MCD) Program.

The Dispersal of Black Chicago

Image: Mell Montezuma, South Side Weekly

GCI Director Teresa Córdova is quoted in a South Side Weekly story about the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy’s recent report on the decline of Black population on the South Side of Chicago. She highlights GCI data on the loss of manufacturing jobs as one factor that has led to the decline.

“In these same neighborhoods where the manufacturing jobs left, where there’s concentrations of segregated populations, primarily Black populations, the numbers of joblessness is extraordinarily high… and we’re still feeling the impacts of the decline in manufacturing,” said Teresa Córdova, director of the Great Cities Institute, at the same event in January. “So the real question then becomes: as the economy continues to change, how are we going to build an inclusive economy?”

Full Story from South Side Weekly