HERE
COMES THE
NEIGHBORHOOD

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Redevelopment on Chicago's West Side just might
work despite 25 years of devastation

by Jennifer Halperin

Friday, April 5,1968, may well be the day Chicago's West Side died. True, for decades poverty and racism had plagued many of the area's neighborhoods, weakening residents' confidence and limiting their options. But, for many, this single date — one day after Martin Luther King's assassination — marked the end of the community. At noon on that day, thousands gathered in Garfield Park, some five miles west of downtown, to listen to angry speakers urge them to vent their grief and frustration on local businesses. Mobs moved from

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there along commercial strips, like the one on west Madison Street, where they smashed windows, set fires and looted. At 2 p.m.. Mayor Richard J. Daley called in the National Guard, ordering police to "shoot to kill" any arsonist, anyone holding a Molotov cocktail.

The rioting took an unexpected toll. It shocked city officials and residents, who were left with a corpse of a community — block after block of buildings demolished by arson. It left the area without necessary goods and services, as scared and frustrated merchants decided against rebuilding on burnt-out streets.

Soon after, industries and companies like Sears, Roebuck, a community anchor, also pulled out, heading downtown and for the open space of suburbia. Once the' factory jobs were gone, most everyone who could afford to left.

In the 1970s, the North Lawndale community alone — which is located about two miles west of the new United Center — lost 35 percent of its population. A larger area, encompassing several square miles, includes such communities as Garfield Park and Austin.

These neighborhoods, North Lawndale in particular, have worn the moniker "hopeless" ever since, fueled by seemingly endless news accounts of the region's astronomical rates for murder, high school drop-outs, unemployment and a host of other social ills. The region is arguably one of the most devastated urban areas in the country. But wait. While the West Side of a quarter-century ago may indeed be dead, some see the beginnings of a social and economic reincarnation.

While the West Side of a quarter-century ago may be dead, some see a social and economic reincarnation.

Businesses like Lou Malnati's pizzeria — for decades a stalwart of the city's wealthier northern reaches — are locating in North Lawndale and making a financial commitment to the community. People like Robert Steele, who wanted to leave the devastated neighborhood for good when they went away to college, are returning to the area, buying homes and raising children. Even Sears is back, teamed with developer Charlie Shaw and the city of Chicago to build Homan Square — hundreds of middle-income condos and townhomes in an area otherwise plagued by abandoned buildings and garbage-strewn lots. And now North Lawndale is part of a larger region selected as one of three federal empowerment zones in the city, which qualifies the area for tax incentives designed to lure even more businesses. (The other two areas are Pilsen, a Hispanic community on the Near Southwest Side, and an area on the South Side that includes the neighborhoods of Englewood and Woodlawn.)

In short, private and public interests have begun to pull together to help the West Side community rebuild itself. And it might just work.

Reasons for skepticism

Still, some experts aren't so sure. At least they're not ready to place early bets. Wim Wiewel, an urban planner at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says it's because no one has seen a community that was so far down come back up.

"They may be able to pull it off," he says. "But let's not overblow the expectations for this community. ... I'm not sure this is the best use of scarce resources."

Observers raise more specific concerns about who will actually benefit from redevelopment efforts. John-Jairo

Photograph by Richard Foertsch

Chicago's West Side is one of the most devastated urban areas in the country. In the 1970s, North Lawndale lost 35 percent of its population. Now, 47,300 people live there. The majority of the neighborhood's residents (96 percent) are African American. Three percent are Hispanic.

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Betancur, a colleague of Wiewel, finds it difficult to be optimistic when it comes to revitalizing poor neighborhoods like North Lawndale. An expert at UIC on urban economic development, Betancur cautions that the larger community may not benefit from such promising large-scale projects as Homan Square.

"There is such a thing as a protected community within a poor neighborhood," he says — a middle-class island that brings little positive spillover to the larger area. Sitting just four blocks from the Eisenhower Expressway and the Homan CTA stop, Homan Square conceivably could be cut off from the rest of North Lawndale. Should that happen, it wouldn't mean much progress for the run-down area; it could become an upscale outpost amid continuing decay.

Betancur and others also caution that redevelopment efforts sometimes turn into investment opportunities for businesses interested only in increasing profits rather than truly improving a neighborhood. Groups of middle- and upper-income residents moving in, for example, could spur land grabs by outside developers hungry to open businesses and lure these new customers.

"Fifty-five percent of the land in North Lawndale is vacant," says Robert Steele, executive director of the Lawndale Local Business and Development Corp. "Before you know it, the median income level rises and offers to buy this land are popping up. Ideally, 90 percent of a neighborhood's property should be locally owned so dollars can exchange hands within the community. But here, all the corner grocery stores and gas stations are owned by outsiders. They don't bank here, shop here ... this isn't their community."

And successful redevelopment could lead to gentrification in the surrounding area, with rising property values pushing rents beyond lower-income residents' budgets.

"To me, the bottom line is: When people say they want to revitalize, what do they mean?" says Betancur. "Making physical improvements is a matter of getting players to do the infrastructure and market the community to people who can afford it. They call it gentrification or urban renewal, but the reality is... the population can't afford to stay. When you're trying to reinvigorate a community without displacing population, you're up to a much, much more complex thing. I don't know of any community in the U.S. doing those two things at the same time."

He cites the redevelopment of Chicago's Wicker Park and Bucktown, along the Dan Ryan Expressway. These neighborhoods were billed as future "mixed income" communities. Instead, Betancur argues, they've become "yuppified" — too expensive for longtime low-income residents.

Sketch courtesy of the Shaw Co.

Sears, Roebuck and Co., joined by private developer Charlie Shaw and the city of Chicago, plans to build hundreds of middle-income condos and townhomes in North Lawndale, an area on the city's West Side that is otherwise plagued by abandoned buildings and garbage-strewn lots.

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That phenomenon is difficult to avoid, because property owners want to protect their investment. They pressure neighbors to improve their property as well. Before long the assessor's office is raising values and increasing taxes, and some residents and businesses no longer can afford to stay.

"You get into some very complicated dynamics here," Betancur says. "The dynamics of the market work against mixed-income neighborhoods."

Yet plenty of people appear willing to give it a try on the West Side.

For starters, through its empowerment zone program, the federal government has agreed to pump tens of millions of dollars into the area over the next few months for job training and social services. Businesses that hire residents from the area will get tax breaks. And the federal dollars are expected to generate another $2 billion in private investment.

More encouraging, though, some businesses are considering the profit in returning to the West Side without such incentives.

Sears returns

A sign in the lobby of a former Sears building in North Lawndale reads: "A business must account for its stewardship not only on the balance sheet but also in the matters of social responsibility." The message must seem ironic to Robert Steele, who passes the sign every day on his way to work. The nonprofit group he heads helps commercial and industrial companies in North Lawndale — a mission that wouldn't be so crucial, he says, if companies like Sears hadn't left the area 20 years ago, fueling unemployment rates that now run near 45 percent.

"You're looking at an area that was completely dependent on industry," he says. "Thousands and thousands of employees came from these streets for Sears, Coca-Cola, General Foods, Western Electric, Copenhagen Tobacco.... Two and three generations of families worked there. It was easy and convenient for them to get to work. But when the companies moved out, people were left with no jobs and heavy mortgages. Many families had several members unemployed.

"What happened next was social devastation. People didn't want to believe what happened," he says. "They kept waiting for the next step, the next source of employment to come in. But there never was any next point."

Property declined. Banks foreclosed. Many turned to welfare, some to drugs and crime. And the economic climate sent homeowners out of the neighborhood in search of work. Young people like Steele, with the resources to attend school, didn't want to return to a place that offered no jobs, and no hope.

Photo courtesy of Bethany Hospital

Bethany Hospital on Chicago's West Side provides health screenings, immunizations and complete physicals for children free of charge.

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It's a good time for Sears to return. Development is gearing up in the West Side neighborhoods nearer to downtown, in and around the United Center where the Bulls play. And Steele says potential buyers have been eyeing vacant land farther west.

Kristin Dean, vice president of the Shaw Co., says the new housing should draw middle-income people into North Lawndale without displacing current residents.

'Since the homes will be built on Sears property, no existing homes will be torn down to make room, she says. And many homes within the complex will be available only to people below a certain income level.

"We are very big believers in economic integration," she says.

Besides promoting home ownership among limited-income families, the project's goal is to increase the amount of green space in the area, Dean says. Sears and Shaw are donating two acres to the Chicago Park District for a park near Milton Gregory Elementary School.

So, while Sears once played a role — however inadvertently — in pulling down North Lawndale, it now is trying to make something good rise from the rubble.

Supporters believe the company's efforts could make a difference to the West Side.

Banking on a long shot

Perhaps more significant than commercial and governmental investment are the individuals in North Lawndale who are pulling for success. Paul Wesley Ramey I is one. He's a neighborhood activist whose family has lived on the West Side for three generations, and over the years he's watched ideas and hope leave North Lawndale. Now, he says, he sees organizations and individuals working on projects designed to help area residents become productive citizens.

"Usually people will go with the jazzy news: 'Let's look at the West Side from the Sears Tower vantage point. All we see are highways and nothing,'" he says. "But if you get out here, if you walk through the streets, you see that there's a lot going on."

Lena Shields, chief executive of Bethany Hospital in Garfield Park, just north of North Lawndale, agrees. "People are finding creative ways to provide services that are needed," she says. The hospital, for example, has started outreach programs in almost every venue possible, from schools to senior citizen centers.

"You have to go to where the people are," she says, "because they won't always come to you."

Cindy Johnson, with Lou Malnati's, says the restaurant followed that philosophy when it decided to team with the Lawndale Community Church to open a business on downtrodden West Ogden Avenue. The Malnati family decided to pour all profits from that pizzeria back into the community for education and children's athletic programs, she says. Three apartments above the restaurant that are being rehabbed will become transitional housing for homeless families.

Meanwhile, Robert Steele is working with a group that steers young people with a criminal history into apprentice programs with members of 21 building trade unions.

Earlier this year, 10 participants joined the carpenters union. "They're on a track where they'll be earning $18, $19 an hour for the rest of their lives now," he says. "It may seem like a small start, but these are people that are making a decent living and will be able to buy property and spend money at local merchants. That helps restore a community."

Supporters of Bethel New Life Inc., a group of businesses, churches, school councils and parents on the West Side, have helped rehab nearly 1,000 homes in the area.

The group built a recycling buy-back center, which helped create 35 local jobs. And they've helped create a network of in-home day-care providers among women in the community who wanted to get off welfare while making sure their children were in a safe environment.

If not here ...

Experts are cautious about assuming community enthusiasm will translate into revitalization. And they raise some larger issues when it comes to efforts to do so: Where should we invest scarce resources? And who truly benefits from investments in urban communities — indigenous neighborhood residents, or those who develop rundown property that eventually becomes valuable?

"The ultimate solution to stability is people who live in a community believing in it," says developer Charlie Shaw. "What man does, man can undo. People created these conditions. I felt [the neighborhood] could be resurrected," he says.

"Nowhere is there a blueprint or book called 'How to redevelop a community,'" Ramey says. "But people being involved is one part. And that's what we have starting here."

Indeed, all of the elements — business, government and neighborhood commitment — appear to be in place to bring this community back. And we should hope it does.

Because if it doesn't work here, it might not work anywhere. *

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