On the final leg of our caravan heading north to the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, we joined Chicagoans for a march to Chicago’s City Hall to demand jobs, housing, and critical health care services.
We began at the site of Cabrini Green, a historic public housing project that has been mostly razed by the city of Chicago as part of its “Plan for Transformation,” which will ultimately raze or rehabilitate 25,000 public housing units in the city.
At its height, Cabrini Green was home to 15,000 people. Rather than maintain the housing over time, city officials chose not to invest in the community, leading to deplorable conditions that masked the web of community inside for those outsiders who act as judge and jury on its future. Now, the site is a ghost of the past community, with the high-rises gone, and about a third of the population remaining in row-housing that still stands.
A mix of affordable and public housing will be set aside in the new developments in the area for former Cabrini Green residents, but they’re too little too late for keeping intact the extended families that lived in Cabrini Green for generations. When Cabrini was destroyed, lease-abiding residents were given a “right to return” to new development, but many of those have seen their applications denied due to things like poor credit, a history of late rent payments, or criminal records in their families. Another option for residents was to take Section 8 housing vouchers, which can be used to subsidize rent. A vast majority of those who took that option have dispersed to other areas of Chicago, that are more “…segregated, isolated, and poor than Cabrini had been.”
Our march to City Hall began in a barren parking lot skirting the edge of a fenced off section of ground that used to hold towering housing projects. “Coming soon” said one design sketch posted on the wall of a building along our route.
The signs of new development encroaching on the space are everywhere, and its a development that looks vastly different from what came before. But as we wound through largely boarded up two story row houses, the outdoor social life of the remaining community was evident, suggesting once bustling streets. Men played dominoes at a table and clustered on sidewalks. Children rode their bicycles. A solitary grill smoldered next to a chair in front of boarded up doors.
The story of Cabrini Green’s demise is an old one, actually.
The history of the United States is rife with social engineering that disregards the value of intact social and familial communities, in the name of economic development or urban revitalization. Not surprisingly, these demolitions don’t happen in wealthy neighborhoods.
In Albuquerque, for instance, a lone house surrounded by the National Hispanic Cultural Center confronts visitors with the lost history of an entire swath of the historic Chicano neighborhood of downtown Barelas demolished in the name of “urban renewal” in the early 1970s. In that case, a significant portion of the traditional Barelas families were displaced, so that the area could be re-zoned for industrial use. The attempt to attract large industry just south of Albuquerque’s downtown failed, but not before the houses were razed. Eventually, public institutions like the NHCC filled the empty space.
The end results of these sorts of schemes to “improve” the urban environment actually has an overall effect that Lawrence Vale, a public housing expert at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, calls the “purging of the poor.”
A funny thing happened on the way to City Hall
Gentrification and displacement, lack of jobs, poor social services; our caravan joined with our Chicago companer@s to make demands on city leaders.
When we arrived at City Hall, our vibrant and highly diverse group were met by Walmart funded “protesters” wearing pristine white t-shirts emblazoned with the Walmart logo and a demand for jobs.
Can you say “twilight zone”?
We had been met by one of the largest sweatshop corporations in the world, trying to co-opt our march and rally to get their message on the evening news. Apparently, unions in the city have successfully blocked expansion of the retail giant into the city proper until they raise their minimum wage.
The battle over Walmart’s minimum wage in Chicago is long-standing, with the company being successfully blocked by the passage of a big-box ordinance in 2006 calling for $11.03 an hour, plus $3 in benefits. Yesterday, the company offered $8.75 an hour, which was met with outrage from union leaders.
Walmart supporters say the city can’t afford to turn up its nose at the jobs. But union leaders say Walmart can afford to pay the wage mandated by the big-box ordinance.
“Wal-Mart doesn’t make this investment out of a sense of corporate largess. They’re not gifting the money. They’re doing it because they have to invest in an urban market. Their stockholders are demanding it,” said union leaders in reply.
Rock on Chicago Labor!
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