Understanding India’s New Approach to Spatial Planning and Development: A Salient Shift?

How is India planning its diverse range of settlements, which vary from rapidly growing cities to remote villages? Have changes in the country’s polity influenced its approach to the spatial planning and development of urban and rural areas? Taking the regime change in the early 1990s as a point of departure, this book focuses on the complex nature of India’s ongoing urbanization and transformations in the interrelated, but rarely-studied-together, domains of infrastructure finance and development, local planning practice, and on-the-ground empirical outcomes.

Instead of discussing the largest cities—such as Kolkata, Mumbai, and Delhi—that dominate the discourse on urban India, the authors pay close attention to regional cities, rural settlements, and the nuances of the shift away from the Nehruvian planning and development model. This approach illustrates how the tensions between democratic and market-oriented impulses are shaping India’s existing and emergent settlements, drawing out useful insights for scholars and practitioners alike.

Sanjeev Vidyarthi is an Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Policy and a Senior Fellow of the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Professor Vidyarthi co-authored the book, Understanding India’s New Approach to Spatial Planning and Development: A Salient Shift?, with Shishir Mathuris, Associate Dean of Research in the College of Social Sciences and a professor in the Urban and Regional Planning Department at San Jose State University, California, USA; and Sandeep K. Agrawal, Professor and inaugural Director of the Urban and Regional Planning Program at the University of Alberta, Canada.

Welcome to the Fall 2017 Semester

Welcome to the Fall 2017 semester. As the new academic year starts, Great Cities Institute has many exciting things in the works.

On Wednesday, September 6 at 12 noon, Professor and GCI Fellow Sanjeev Vidyarthi will be speaking about his new book on urban planning in India as part of our Cities Across the Globe lecture series. Join us for a light lunch for this talk titled ‘Understanding India’s New Approach to Spatial Planning and Development: A Salient Shift?’.

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We’re excited to announce this semester’s Real Time Chicago lecture series theme is ‘Critic(al) Infra-Structures’, examining the processes and procedures in the creation of new and renewed infrastructure and the impacts on communities from multiple scales and perspectives. The lectures this semester will be on Tuesdays at 12 noon, and light lunches will be provided.

The first lecture in the series will be on September 19 and is titled ‘The Impact of Infrastructure on Communities: Three Rail-to-Trail Projects’. When new infrastructure is created in communities, what are the impacts on existing residents? This topic will explore the creation of three rail-to-trail projects in Chicago from initial dreaming to post-implementation community changes, and what is being done to remedy communities’ concerns. More topics will be announced in the coming weeks.

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GCI will be releasing an annual report of the past year of progress on our research and projects in October, but to give a brief highlight, we released two reports on the issue of youth employment in Chicago and Cook County; began a project to examine the crime and criminal justice in Peoria, Illinois; will soon release a study on Latino transportation access to jobs; continued to facilitate a community planning process for the Back of the Yards community; will continue to implement several projects from the South Chicago Commercial Avenue Revitalization Plan; completed the Pilsen Quality-of-Life planning process; expanded Participatory Budgeting into additional wards and schools; and hosted or co-sponsored over fifteen events.

We also would like to welcome our new research assistants this semester:  Benjamin Corpuz, Amber Farrell, Katherine Faydash, Kevin Peralta, and Elisabeth Rask. With our many ongoing projects, they are already well-integrated into our GCI family and completing crucial work to advance our mission.

Should Chinatowns Stay Chinese?

Chicago’s Chinatown, a thriving neighborhood with locally owned businesses and a growing Asian population, is bucking a national trend. Around the country, the Asian populations in Chinatowns are decreasing, as the neighborhoods grow whiter and wealthier. Source: Getty Images.

Chicago’s Chinatown, a thriving neighborhood with locally owned businesses and a growing Asian population, is bucking a national trend. Around the country, the Asian populations in Chinatowns are decreasing, as the neighborhoods grow whiter and wealthier.   Source: Getty Images.

Teresa Córdova, director of the UIC Great Cities Institute, and Janet Smith, co-director of UIC’s Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement, were interviewed by Stateline regarding the gentrification of Chinatowns across the country, and how Chicago’s Chinatown is an outlier experiencing a growing Asian population.

Chicago’s Chinatown is growing — and becoming more Chinese — even as many other cities’ Chinatowns, along with their Little Tokyos and Koreatowns, are starting to shrink in the face of encroaching development.

People who want to preserve ethnic enclaves such as Chicago’s Chinatown say they provide essential social networks to newcomers and established residents alike. They also provide vital tourism dollars to their cities, and their microbusinesses serve as “the No. 1 job creators,” said Seema Agnani, executive director of the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (National CAPACD).

“What distinguishes a really exciting city from the same old, same old? It’s the character of its people,” said Teresa Córdova, director of the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “And ethnic enclaves are a part of that.”

Full story from Pew Charitable Trusts »

Can the former South Works overcome the current South Side’s baggage?

The 440-acre South Works site has been vacant since 1992. Photo by Chicago Lakeside Development.

The 440-acre South Works site has been vacant since 1992. Photo by Chicago Lakeside Development.

Crain’s Chicago Business cites data from UIC’s Great Cities Institute on Chicago neighborhood violence in a story about the challenges of developing the former South Works steel plant.

Still, finding buyers and renters in the immediate vicinity won’t be easy. Demand will depend largely on how much their homes sell or rent for, which are unknowns at this point.

Violent crime is a problem, too. In South Shore and South Chicago, the homicide rate was more than twice as high as the city average of 8.42 per 10,000 residents from 2011 to 2015, according to the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Full Story from Crain’s Chicago Business »

If jobs stop bullets, why aren’t more companies stepping up?

Brandon Bradley of Intren clears brush and plant roots near Midway Airport. Bradley is a graduate of Construct, a training program offered by Commonwealth Edison. Photo by Manuel Martinez, Crain's Chicago Business

Brandon Bradley of Intren clears brush and plant roots near Midway Airport. Bradley is a graduate of Construct, a training program offered by Commonwealth Edison. Photo by Manuel Martinez, Crain’s Chicago Business

UIC’s Great Cities Institute assisted with Crain’s Chicago Business for special report that examines the connection between joblessness and violence in Chicago neighborhoods.  Teresa Cordova, director of the institute, is quoted in the story that features case studies of businesses that are hiring people from the city’s areas where unemployment rates are high.

Researchers agree, to a point. Even though experts are reluctant to draw a straight, solid line between joblessness and violence, the evidence seems to support the adage that “Nothing stops a bullet like a job.” More than half the city’s homicides from 2011 to 2015 took place in neighborhoods on the South and West sides with the highest rate of joblessness, according to maps created for Crain’s by the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

On the South and West sides, some neighborhoods have a jobless rate of 85 percent among black youths ages 16 to 19. Rates are near 60 percent for those 20 to 24. “Some people have said, ‘If you want us off the street, give us jobs,’ ” says Teresa Cordova, director of the Great Cities Institute.

Full Story from Crain’s Chicago Business

 

Chance and Chief Keef: A tale of two rappers

Chance the Rapper, left, and Chief Keef, right, represents two different sides to rap music coming out of Chicago. (Matt Sayles/Invision/AP, Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune)

Chance the Rapper, left, and Chief Keef, right, represents two different sides to rap music coming out of Chicago. (Matt Sayles/Invision/AP, Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune)

A Chicago Tribune article profiling the divergent styles and backgrounds of Chance the Rapper and Chief Keef cites figures from an early 2017 report by the UIC Great Cities Institute on youth unemployment in Chicago and Cook County.

An exodus of residents, the Great Recession and the ravages of drug and gang wars have left deserted blocks and broken families in an already-debt ridden city and state. With few jobs or opportunities in their neighborhoods, nearly half of the city’s black men between 20 and 24 (Chance and Chief Keef’s age group) don’t have jobs and aren’t in college, according to a report from the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Great Cities Institute.

Full Story from Chicago Tribune »

Five ways Trump can help solve Chicago gun crime

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A BBC News story on ways to address Chicago’s gun crime includes quotes from John Hagedorn, GCI fellow and UIC professor of criminology, law and justice, as well as findings from a UIC Great Cities Institute report on youth unemployment in the Chicago area.

Joblessness is dire among the city’s youth, especially for African Americans males in Chicago’s racially segregated neighbourhoods that also have high rates of poverty and crime.

According to recent report published by the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, 47% of 20- to 24-year-old black men in Chicago were out of school and unemployed in 2014 compared with 20% of Hispanic men and 10% of white men in the same age group.

The report looked at the lost tax revenue that resulted in urban youth unemployment and found that the federal and state governments lose nearly $9.5bn in potential taxes.

John Hagedorn, a criminology professor at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), told the BBC the Trump administration could help by addressing the desperation the city’s youth are facing.

Full Story from BBC News »

The Cost Of Jobs

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Matthew Wilson, economic development planner with the UIC Great Cities Institute, assisted with a Chicago Public Media (WBEZ-FM 91.5) interactive online story estimating the number of full-time, year-round jobs needed in a program that would eliminate a significant amount of violence in Chicago. This story, which is part of WBEZ’s Every Other Hour project, also features input from Joseph Persky, a UIC professor of economics, who helped come up with a combination of government strategies that might be feasible, and a quote from Teresa Córdova, director of the institute.

To come up with the number of full-time, year-round jobs in a program that would eliminate a significant amount of violence, we crunched numbers with Matthew Wilson, an economic-development planner at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Great Cities Institute, which has been doing research on employment and poverty.

First we identified a group that makes up just 4 percent of Chicago’s population but accounts for roughly half of the city’s shooting victims this year — and potentially half the assailants. That group consists of males, ages 16 to 34, in 26 of the city’s 77 community areas.

Then we used U.S. Census Bureau estimates to find out roughly how many members of this group are out of school and out of work. That number is 32,656. To keep the math simple, we rounded it down to 30,000. That’s how many jobs might be needed to take a big bite out of Chicago’s violence.

Full Story from WBEZ

 

GCI attends Energy & Smart Cities International Conference

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Great Cities Institute’s Director of Neighborhoods Initiative, Thea Crum, had the honor of speaking about public participation and Participatory Budgeting Chicago at the international conference Energy & Smart Cities in Águeda, Portugal, June 29–30, 2017. The conference included speakers and participants from around the world, including elected officials, academics and scholars, practitioners, private sector professionals, and members of the scientific community.

Águeda, widely known as the first smart city in Portugal, is at the forefront of sustainable urban innovation. The city’s Sustainable Energy Action Plan focuses on renewable energy use, intelligent energy management, adaptation to climate change, and investments in water and waste sectors. The city has already achieved a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and has pledged to reach an overall 33% decrease by 2050. All of this made Águeda the ideal host city for the conference.

Conference presenters and attendees covered a broad range of topics, from smart education to the future of connectivity, intelligent mobility, the circular economy, energy and smart sensing, transparency and open data, smart government, and public participation. Importantly, public participation is a key component to building smart cities, as it ensures that policies, planning, and innovative technology all place people at the center of the solutions they offer.

Members of the panel on public participation shared their participatory budgeting experiences in Chicago, as well as in Águeda and Lisbon, and discussed the challenges facing participatory democracy in Europe. Key themes that emerged were a need to shift the mindset of elected officials and agency staff in order to reduce their fears of public participation, increased openness to experimentation, the use of new technology platforms that aid in participation together with face-to-face strategies, and the creation of international communities of practice to exchange tools, knowledge, and experience.

Thea says that—aside from spending time in the wonderfully welcoming and engaging city of Águeda—an important takeaway from participating in the conference is that the active engagement of local residents is central to the creation of smart cities. Participatory budgeting is at the forefront of that engagement, and there was much to learn from and exchange about participatory budgeting and its successes and challenges in Águeda.

 

Youth Joblessness News Conference

Illinois and the U.S. are losing an estimated $9.5 billion in future tax revenue, as tens of thousands of out-of-school youth who lack a high school diploma can’t find work. This June 12, 2017 news conference with U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (DIL); U.S. Representative Robin Kelly (D-2); Cook County Commissioner Bridget Gainer (D-10); and Chicago Ald. Patrick O’Connor (Ward 40) and GCI Director Teresa Córdova addressed findings in the report ‘The High Costs for Out of School & Jobless Youth in Chicago and Cook County’.