Chicago Tribune: Expert: Orland downtown focus part of suburban trend

Officials say Ninety7Fifty, the apartment project Orland Park put $63 million into, is about 77 percent filled out. (Taylor Anderson, Chicago Tribune / February 7, 2014)

Officials say Ninety7Fifty, the apartment project Orland Park put $63 million into, is about 77 percent filled out. (Taylor Anderson, Chicago Tribune / February 7, 2014)

The Chicago Tribune’s TribLocal quotes Rachel Weber, GCI fellow and associate professor of urban planning and policy, on younger residents being attracted to suburbs such as Orland Park that are developing new downtown areas.

Weber said the long-term plans, some of which are already coming to life, for Orland Park’s downtown reflect a regional trend that has taken place in suburbs for the past two decades as towns attempt to adapt to generational shifts.

“On the demand side, you see sort of the demographic trends are showing that there’s a kind of bubble of younger people who might be looking for a more urban experience,” Weber said. “Many of these folks are more likely to stay in the city.”

Weber said towns have shifted to enticing development of transit-oriented, multi-family residences near stores and restaurants. The description fits Orland Park’s fledgling new downtown to a tee.

Full Story from Chicago Tribune »

Streetwise Editorial: Aldermen seek CHA Oversight

Alderman Joann Thompson (16th ward) at a press conference before Wednesday Jan. 15 City Council Meeting where the City’s 5-year Affordable Housing Plan was introduced. Photo: Suzanne Hanney

Alderman Joann Thompson (16th ward) at a press conference before Wednesday Jan. 15 City Council Meeting
where the City’s 5-year Affordable Housing Plan was introduced. Photo: Suzanne Hanney

A Streetwise editorial extensively quotes Janet Smith, co-director of the Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement in the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, about her research into the CHA’s Plan for Transformation.

The Chicago Housing Authority has built up reserves of $660 million, even as it has left thousands of apartments unoccupied, failed to meet the construction goals of its Plan for Transformation and withheld 13,000 to 15,000 funded housing vouchers annually, says a low-income housing coalition calling for City oversight of the CHA.

Roughly 15 aldermen joined the Chicago Housing Initiative (CHI) in a press conference before the January 15 Chicago City Council meeting to urge Mayor Rahm Emanuel to extend oversight to the CHA. In addition, the aldermen and CHI sought an amendment to the City’s 2014-18 Five-Year Affordable Housing Plan (see story page 9) to require one-for-one replacement of public housing units redeveloped with City funds.

Full Story from Streetwise »

Urban Innovation Symposium: Back to the City

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Presented by Urban Planning & Policy Student Association

9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
UIC Student Center East
Room 302
750 S. Halsted

Featured Speakers:
John Norquist
President & CEO, Congress for New Urbanism

Douglas Farr
President & CEO, Farr Associates

7:30 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.
The Den Theater
3rd Floor
1333 N. Milwaukee Ave

PechaKucha Night

Fast-Paced and Thought-Provoking Presentations from Young Trailblazers in the World of Urban Planning. Snacks Provided.

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Oil Shale Fracking: Implications for Community Planning & Environmental Safety

Fracking

Presented by UIC Great Cities Institute & UIC Center for Urban Economic Development

“Oil Shale Fracking: Implications for Community Planning & Environmental Safety”

Panel Discussion

Teresa Córdova
Director
UIC Great Cities Institute

Susan Christopherson
Professor
Department of City and Regional Planning
Cornell University

Thursday, January 30, 2014
12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Great Cities Institute
412 South Peoria Street
Suite 400, CUPPA Hall
Chicago, IL 60607

Assessments by the U.S. Geological Society of the amount of gas and oil contained in the Bakken Formation in northwestern North Dakota, northeastern Montana, and southern Saskatchewan, continue to be adjusted upward. The Marcellus Shale Formation in eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York, and the Utica Shale, which lies beneath it, contain among the world’s largest fields of natural gas. Estimates of the “undiscovered, technically recoverable” shale, combined with advances in the technology of horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” suggest that natural gas and oil extraction from these regions will grow in importance, demanding appropriate policy responses.

Gas and oil extraction has occurred at such rapid rates that communities in northwestern North Dakota are experiencing a “boom town” phenomenon, with the associated implications. In this panel, Professor Córdova will discuss the Bakken Formation, gas and oil extraction, state laws, and planning issues in the region. Some communities have sought to regulate “fracking” practices, which in some cases is either in conflict with state law or provoke lawsuits from industry. Professor Christopherson will discuss mobilization efforts by local communities in upstate New York and Pennsylvania, concerned about the health, environmental and financial risks of “fracking.”

Teresa Córdova is the director of UIC Great Cities Institute and Professor of Urban Planning and Policy within CUPPA. Before her appointment as GCI director, she was Department Chair and Professor of Community and Regional Planning at the University of New Mexico.

In Spring 2012, Professor Córdova traveled with a group of students to northwestern North Dakota where they conducted interviews, gathered data and studied first hand the Planning Issues of a Modern Day Boomtown.

Susan Christopherson is a Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University. She is a geographer whose career has been based on commitment to the integration of scholarly work and public engagement.

Her research interests are diverse, but focus on political-economic policy, especially its spatial dimensions. Much of her research is comparative and she has published a series of articles and a book on how different market governance regimes influence regional development and labor market policies.

To request disability accommodations, please contact Christiana Kinder, Great Cities Institute, (312) 996-8700, christia@uic.edu

Categories:

How Does Financialization Affect Manufacturing Investment?

Christopherson

Presented by UIC Great Cities Institute & UIC Center for Urban Economic Development

“How Does Financialization Affect Manufacturing Investment?”

Susan Christopherson
Professor
Department of City and Regional Planning
Cornell University

Wednesday, January 29
3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Great Cities Institute
412 South Peoria Street
Suite 400, CUPPA Hall

This talk engages the debate on the role of manufacturing in the US and UK. Two major questions are addressed. First, does it make economic sense to expect the growth of advanced manufacturing in what are considered “post-industrial” economies? And second, what conditions work against the establishment of robust export-oriented manufacturing in the US and UK. In particular, Susan will examine how processes associated with the “financialization” of these two economies affect capital investment in manufacturing enterprises, particularly in the small and medium size companies that make up supply chains, and in the research and development that leads to product and process innovation. For the purposes of this talk, financialization is defined as a set of processes in which financial motives and instruments become central to capital accumulation. These processes have been more influential in economies such as those of the US and UK, whose market governance institutions favor short-term returns on investment and emphasize the primary rights of one set of industrial stakeholders, capital investors.

Susan Christopherson is a Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University. She is a geographer whose career has been based on commitment to the integration of scholarly work and public engagement.

Her research interests are diverse, but focus on political-economic policy, especially its spatial dimensions. Much of her research is comparative and she has published a series of articles and a book on how different market governance regimes influence regional development and labor market policies.

Susan Christopherson’s public engagement has spanned arenas from the local to the global. She has acted as a consultant to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development as well as national, state, and local government. She is currently chair of the International Economic Development Council advisory committee on higher education and economic development.

To request disability accommodations, please contact Christiana Kinder, Great Cities Institute, (312) 996-8700, christia@uic.edu

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Latino Consortium Looks to Evolve for Growing Latino Community

Teresa Córdova, director of GCI is quoted in a Diverse: Issues in Higher Education story about the development of the Inter-University Program for Latino Research, which now housed at UIC and directed by Maria de los Angeles Torres.

In 1983, Latinos made up less than 2 percent of faculty members and less than 5 percent of college students. Public funding for Latino research was paltry, and for research purposes many policymakers often arbitrarily lumped Latinos with other minorities.

Despite their evidently soaring numbers, Latinos were, in effect, invisible in the academy.

It was against this backdrop that directors of four Latino research centers—the University of Texas at Austin, UCLA, Stanford and Hunter College—met to come up with plans to boost Latino-focused research and increase the pool of Latino researchers and faculty.

One outcome of their meeting was the creation of the Inter-University Program for Latino Research (IUPLR).

Full Story from Diverse: Issues in Higher Education »