Chicago, it seems, is defined by its lines of demarcation. North Side, South Side. Cubs, Sox. Black, White, Hispanic.
Nowhere, though, were the lines more stark than in the blocks of blighted public housing apartments that dotted many of the city’s South and West Side neighborhoods.
When officials began tearing down the high rises and introduced an experimental mixed-income housing plan to try to erase some of those lines, social scientists and officials from other large cities watched as they sought their own ideas for a better way to build new communities.
So far the experiment in Chicago is yielding mixed results. As Emma Graves Fitzsimmons reports, while the physical surroundings of the low-income residents has improved, they have not benefited from the interaction with their new and wealthier neighbors. Emma’s story focuses on a new study by researchers at the University of Chicago that looks at the Chicago Housing Authority’s “Plan for Transformation,” which seeks to establish 10 new mixed-income developments around the city. CHA officials acknowledge more needs to be done to bring residents together.
Meanwhile, photographer Bonnie Trafelet and reporter Jessica Reaves have captured the wonderful, nervous, thrilling ride that more than 900 10-year-old Chicago Public School kids have endured over the past 20 weeks or so learning everything from the tango, to the Cha-Cha, to the waltz. It’s quite the different scene from what most kids are exposed to when it comes to dance. But as instructor Nicole Erickson tells Jessica, the kids “learn how to look silly, get over it, and then look good. And they learn how to do it in a room full of peers, which is huge.” This year’s program culminates in a two-day final competition this weekend at Navy Pier.
As popular as the program has been, it’s also in danger of fading away. For the past three years, “Having a Ball” has been funded mainly by a federal physical-education grant, which is about to expire. Money from the program has also come from CPS. But both funding sources are uncertain and will likely remain so until at least August, Jessica reports. Bonnie’s photographs are a delight and we invite you to spend some time with her wonderful photo gallery.
Columnist Jim Warren takes us to the south suburban Blue Island and to the Illinois Department of Human and Family Services office there where the painful effects of the Great Recession are felt on a daily basis. There, Jim reports on how the human toll of the recession meets the strained resources of a state in financial distress. This office has a staff of 123, down from 230 a few years ago, though the caseload for welfare, food stamps, and Medicaid is up 30,000 to 81,000 cases in the same period. That means caseworkers are inundated, with some workers overseeing between 1,500 and 2,000 individual cases. As one caseworker sums it up: “You’re a social worker, counselor, mother, father–one-stop shopping. But it is overwhelming.”
Finally, City Hall reporter Dan Mihalopoulos brings us the story of Frank Coconate, the man who co-workers in his former job with the Water Management Department dubbed “The Coconut” because of his penchant for publicly lambasting the mayor. Almost five years after the Daley administration fired him for allegedly loafing, this “notorious political naysayer,” Dan reports in The Chicago Way, is back working part-time. Only this time he’s working for another Daley critic, Alderman Scott Waguespack. It’s a classic Chicago story and the photo gallery by Jose More frames the tale of Coconate perfectly.
Thanks for reading.