This a pretty good read about the redevelopment of Chicago's south side which could be compared to our north side as far as how bleak things seemed. A lot of parallels to St. Louis for sure, hopefully we get the same results. It's pretty long, but worth it especially for the wannabe planners. I pasted a couple of excerpts.
Putting the 'chic' back in Chicago
It's hip to live in the city again as formerly desolate neighborhoods are reborn
Charles Leroux And Ron Grossman
Tribune staff reporters
Published February 5, 2006
FOR DECADES, THE AMERICAN DREAM has revolved around a ranch house on a spacious lot in the suburbs. Cities, once emblematic of the sophisticated good life, seemed dirty, crowded and dangerous. They were perceived as warehouses for the poor, dreary, dead-end places from whose mean streets anybody able to escape should. A lacework of expressways built with federal funds after World War II pointed the way out of the nation's metropolises. Government-insured mortgages enabled ex-GIs and their families to pioneer that route.
--snip--
FIFTY YEARS AGO, the wrecking ball was the symbol of urban renewal, and decision-making at a distance was the order of the day. If a city's housing suffered from age and neglect, the bulldozer was the solution of choice. Swaths of rubble were left in its wake.
Alternately, massive housing projects were grafted onto neighborhoods and then parasitically devoured their hosts. In the nation's capital and at university seminar tables, it rarely occurred to planners to ask the people affected how they thought those policies were working.
-snip-
"Chicago was a feudal fiefdom," says Ald. Preckwinkle, recalling how development decisions were made in the '80s, "and the king and court were downtown."
In 1983, Preckwinkle ran unsuccessfully for alderman. Her campaign highlighted the community's need to gain decision-making power, which would mark a break from the traditionalist stance of her main opponent, incumbent and City Council powerbroker Tim Evans.
Segregation had created dense concentrations of black people in public housing high-rises, which had gone from temporary way stations for the post-Depression impoverished to permanent shelving of the poor. Those buildings were a godsend for African-American politicians. In other parts of town, precinct captains would have to worry about getting their voters to the polls on Election Day. But in the 16-story CHA buildings along the lakefront, hundreds upon hundreds of voters were only an elevator ride away from voting machines in the lobbies.
In '83, for example, voters in the Lakefront Properties building at 3983 S. Lake Park Ave. gave 158 votes to Evans, 2 to Preckwinkle.
>>Link to Story (LONG)
Putting the 'chic' back in Chicago
It's hip to live in the city again as formerly desolate neighborhoods are reborn
Charles Leroux And Ron Grossman
Tribune staff reporters
Published February 5, 2006
FOR DECADES, THE AMERICAN DREAM has revolved around a ranch house on a spacious lot in the suburbs. Cities, once emblematic of the sophisticated good life, seemed dirty, crowded and dangerous. They were perceived as warehouses for the poor, dreary, dead-end places from whose mean streets anybody able to escape should. A lacework of expressways built with federal funds after World War II pointed the way out of the nation's metropolises. Government-insured mortgages enabled ex-GIs and their families to pioneer that route.
--snip--
FIFTY YEARS AGO, the wrecking ball was the symbol of urban renewal, and decision-making at a distance was the order of the day. If a city's housing suffered from age and neglect, the bulldozer was the solution of choice. Swaths of rubble were left in its wake.
Alternately, massive housing projects were grafted onto neighborhoods and then parasitically devoured their hosts. In the nation's capital and at university seminar tables, it rarely occurred to planners to ask the people affected how they thought those policies were working.
-snip-
"Chicago was a feudal fiefdom," says Ald. Preckwinkle, recalling how development decisions were made in the '80s, "and the king and court were downtown."
In 1983, Preckwinkle ran unsuccessfully for alderman. Her campaign highlighted the community's need to gain decision-making power, which would mark a break from the traditionalist stance of her main opponent, incumbent and City Council powerbroker Tim Evans.
Segregation had created dense concentrations of black people in public housing high-rises, which had gone from temporary way stations for the post-Depression impoverished to permanent shelving of the poor. Those buildings were a godsend for African-American politicians. In other parts of town, precinct captains would have to worry about getting their voters to the polls on Election Day. But in the 16-story CHA buildings along the lakefront, hundreds upon hundreds of voters were only an elevator ride away from voting machines in the lobbies.
In '83, for example, voters in the Lakefront Properties building at 3983 S. Lake Park Ave. gave 158 votes to Evans, 2 to Preckwinkle.
>>Link to Story (LONG)
