Toxic Tour in Little Village

Probably the most memorable field visit this semester was our “Toxic Tour” of the Little Village neighborhood conducted by Kim Wasserman, executive director of LVEJO (Little Village Environmental Justice Organization).  LVEJO started the tours seven years ago as a way to educate the community and others about the toxic presence of several industries right in their backyards. 

The injustices seem insurmountable.  Factories run their businesses with no regard for the pollutants they release into the environment, the citizens that live next door, or the employees that suffer burns while they work.  According to a report compiled by the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago, Chicago ranks 2^nd among all cities in the country adversely affected by power plant pollution, leading to 855 premature deaths, 848 hospitalizations, 1,519 heart attacks and 23,650 asthma attacks.   

In addition to toxic pollutants, the community has to deal with overcrowded schools, and schools built on toxic sights.  There is one park to serve 95,000 residents.   Bus service has been halted for three miles in the middle of the community, leaving residents unable to access the lakefront, colleges, or to simply move around the city.

Yet there are successes.  Toxins were removed from school sites.   Factories have become more accountable.  OSHA came in to protect workers.  There are plans for a large park to be built.  And the biggest success is that after more than 10 years of grassroots campaigning, the Crawford Generating Station, a coal power plant owned by Midwest Generation, an Edison International Company, will be closing in 2014. 

The 95,000 people that live in Little Village need LVEJO to help fight threats to their environment.   As Kim states, “The reality is we deserve to live in a safe community.  We have every right to speak out.”

Here are some photos from our visit to the Garfield Park Conservatory  this semester.  We were able to enjoy azaleas and hydrangeas long before they are blooming outside in Chicago!

Photos courtesy of Emily N. Summers

 
 
 

Cancel Lollapalooza? Casinos opening in the loop? Taxpayer $ for bike lanes? Don’t panic (yet) … it’s only a debate!

Chicago Program students debated the pros and cons of adding more dedicated bike lanes to Chicago streets, legalizing gambling/casinos in Chicago and hosting the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago.

Teams incorporated their research of the environmental, economic and social impact of the issues on the community.   I learned a lot about both sides of the issues, and am a much more informed citizen. It made me realize you really have to do your research before you can formulate an opinion.  For more about the issues, read on…

Lollapalooza

Pro.  Lollapalooza is one of the top 5 tourist attractions in Chicago, and brings in $80 million revenue; mainly for hotel/retail industries; recycles waste from festival, plants trees and restores Grant Park grounds to it’s original condition and brings people together with music.  

Con.  Organizers need to be more transparent; skipped out on paying taxes and there is an antitrust suit against C3, the festival promoters.  They also need to be more sustainable; last year they  destroyed Grant Park, leaving the grounds a mud pit for two months before restoring it.  The festival insists bands have a radius clause in their contract, so local bands can’t perform at other venues in the area for 9 months out of the year.

Gambling—Casinos in Chicago

Pro.  Casinos would bring in a source of revenue badly needed by the city.  The city is losing potential revenue to casinos in northwest Indiana, as most of the gamblers in Northwest Indiana are from Illinois.  Casinos would bring jobs to help city unemployment rate of 9.3%.  Casinos would bring more tourists, more customer spending into the area, generating more revenue for the city. 

Con.  Bringing casinos to Chicago would bring crime and corruption into an area where there is already corruption. Legalizing gambling brings with it social problems of bankruptcy, domestic abuse, suicide, robbery.  In other cities where casinos have been built, crime rates have increased, requiring increased law enforcement, lowering housing values. Surveys show citizens don’t want casinos in Chicago.  Casinos would take away from other attractions and restaurants Chicago has to offer.  

 

 

Dedicated bike lanes in Chicago

Pro.  Dedicating more bike lanes would be good for Chicago economically, socially and environmentally. Economically, bikers can make more stops at shops and restaurants along the route, since they don’t have to worry about parking. Socially, citizens would get more physical activity, be more social out among other riders. Environmentally, less cars means less pollution, no emissions, and less gas  consumption.  Less cars on the road means less road rage, less accidents.

Con.  Chicago has an extensive public transportation system, which makes it easy for folks to get around; there is no need to add more bike lanes. Taxpayer dollars would be better spent on badly needed CTA renovations. Spending money on bike lanes in already privileged areas increases economic disparity in the city; less advantaged neighborhoods wouldn’t get the rewards; in fact, some neighborhoods don’t have essential bus service. There are dangers of bikers merging into traffic and, unfortunately, numerous serious traffic accidents occur.

 

 

 

Great job, everyone!

 

Growing Power

Growing Power began with a farmer, a plot of land, and a core group of dedicated young people.  The idea is to develop healthy food systems locally to provide high quality, safe, healthy, affordable food for all residents in the community.

ACM students visited one of Growing Power's six farms in Chicago, Iron Street Farm, an urban farm growing produce on the bank of the Chicago River in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago.  Built on an abandoned industrial site, the farm has numerous gardens and a warehouse that grow food year round.  It was ACM day at the farm, as Erica Hougland, who gave us the tour, is a graduate of Grinnell College, and Gillian Knight who also works there and helped arrange our tour, is a Lake Forest College graduate. 



Photos courtesy of Emily N. Summers



Will Allen started the nonprofit organization in Milwaukee, and his daughter Erika runs six farms in Chicago including Iron Street Urban Farm, Altgeld Gardens Urban Farm, Chicago Lights Urban Farm, Grant Park “Art on the Farm” Urban Agriculture Potager and the Jackson Park Urban Farm and Community Allotment Garden.

Local restaurants provide food scraps the organization uses for compost, which are housed in wooden boxes.  The farm uses aguaponics, where the water from fish tanks is used to fertilize soil, and then cleansed and circulated back to the fish tank.  There’s a vertical mushroom-growing station, greenhouses for planting, and six beehives on the roof. 

Growing power hires 200 young people in the summer, and youth programs reconnect folks to what is healthy food, where does it come from, and how to get involved. 

Change & Gentrification in Bronzeville and Humboldt Park

Students created a storyboard masterpiece on our chalkboard wall to illustrate change and gentrification in two neighborhoods:  Bronzeville and Humboldt Park.  They did a great job.  We have some very creative and artistic students!

Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s

CP students visited two interesting exhibits at the Museum of Contemporary Art this semester.  “This will have been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s”    touches on major developments of the period, including the politicization of the AIDS crisis and the increased visibility of women and gay artists and artists of color. 

“The Language of Less (Then and Now)” is inspired by the MCA’s holdings from the 1960s and 70s  of Minimal art – art that a) rejects imagery, b) reveals little, if any, evidence of the artist’s hand, and c) embraces industrial materials.    Minimalist art creates a presence, and elicits a response more so than representative art.  

In addition to the work of traditional minimalists such as Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt and Richard Serra, the “Then” exhibit includes work of artists such as Martin Puryear, an African American artist who was not accepted as a minimalist of the time.    The “Now” exhibit of contemporary artists has pieces by Leonor Antunes, Carol Bove, Jason Dodge, Gedi Sibony, and Oscar Tuazon.

Tricycle races... at work?

Where would you find a climbing wall and a huge indoor treehouse, complete with slide?  A children’s museum, you might say.  Guess again!  This is the working office of Red Frog Events, an event production company based in Chicago.  CP students were treated to a tour of the space, designed by Torchia, the same designers who worked on Google's Chicago office. You have to see this place to believe it!  There’s a tree in the center of the office, conference table made of legos, foosball and pool tables, tricycles (for tricycle races) and a wall of hands, just waiting for your high five!   My favorite is the conference room with swings instead of chairs!

Owner Joe Reynolds wanted to create the type of work environment that would attract lots of employment interest. In an interview with EntrepreneursUnplugged.com, Reynolds explained how he has always been "incredibly focused on having a company that's the best place to work in the world. When you have a great place to work, great people want to work there."  And it seems to be working!  Every employee I met was smiling, enthusiastic, and their eyes glowed whenever they talked about the company.  

Red Frog  won the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Dream Big Small Business of the Year Award in 2011 and was also a Chicago Innovation Awards 2011 winner.  In 2010, Red Frog was voted one of the top workplaces by Chicago Tribune.  

Redfroggers explained to CP students how Reynolds started the company, Great Urban Race, with a competitive scavenger race in Chicago in 2007.  By 2008, Great Urban Race expanded to 20 cities nationwide.  Great Urban Race became Red Frog Events in 2009, when they added Warrior Dash, a 5K obstacle running race.  They have also added Beach Palooza, a beach themed 5K obstacle course, and Red Frog Bar Crawls.

In response to CP students questions about how a project comes together from ascertaining the market to marketing, securing permits, etc., Redfroggers and  “tadpoles” (interns) were happy to respond.  If there is sponsor/participant/city interest in a race, Red Frog sends a marketing team out to ascertain the market, local media, find location, meet with city government to secure permits, etc.  They work with 65 venues across the country, and have traveling obstacle courses they bring and construct on site.   They use digital, print, broadcast, and social media and are huge on Pandora.  They have 800,000 facebook followers.   They also value participant feedback, and so send out a survey to all participants after the event with questions about area, course, obstacles, food, camping.

Internships here are very competitive; they’re paid and you can learn so much!  Departments are referred to as teams, and interns are assigned to five teams, and can join others.  It’s hard work, but they have the world’s best benefits package.  Deadline for summer 2012 internship:  April 6.

 

Housing Issues in Hyde Park

David Hays, Assistant Director of the Community Service Center at the University of Chicago welcomed Chicago Program students and gave us a tour of the campus.  The Community Service Center connects University students as they work with community organizations through internships and volunteerism.  Two thousand of the University’s 13,000 students are involved with community organizations.

Notable buildings on the tour included Rockefeller Memorial Chapel; the Robie House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Albert Pick Hall for International Studies.  A sculpture outside of Pick Hall reportedly casts a shadow of a hammer and sickle (the symbol of communism) on Pick Hall’s east wall on May 1, International Workers Day. 

Robie House

Throughout the tour, David adds notes about community activities happening on campus, and opportunities for us to volunteer and become involved. We walk along Midway Plaisance, a park where the 1893 world’s fair was held.  Only one building remains from the fair, the Museum of Science and Industry.  David tells a story of when his father lived in an apartment building facing the park.  It was at the time of Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968.  From his window, Mr. Hays watched as the Blackstone Rangers, a large and well organized street gang in the neighborhood, gathered to decide if they would riot or not.  Although riots broke out in other parts of the city, the Blackstone Rangers decided not to riot, saving their neighborhood from being ravaged. 

After the tour, we sat down with David for a discussion about the housing issues in the Hyde Park area.  From 1916 until 1948, racially restrictive covenants were used to keep Chicago's neighborhoods white.  These were legally binding covenants attached to parcels of land that prohibited African Americans from moving into certain areas.  Of course blacks contested the borders of their segregated community, particularly since the population was ever increasing and they had no where to go.  But, unfortunately, they were up against political leaders and financial institutions which funded the legal defense of restrictive covenants.  In 1948, the Supreme Court in Shelley v. Kraemer declared the enforcement of racial restrictive covenants unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Even with restrictive covenants gone, however, urban renewal programs capitalized on the expansive eminent domain powers, whereby the government can take private property for a public purpose through condemnation and payment of fair value.  So the powers that be could buy out owners who may not want to sell, and use the space for their own needs.  In the 1950s and 1960s, the "Fight Against Blight," one of the largest urban renewal plans in the nation, resulted in the demolition and redevelopment of entire blocks of decayed buildings with the goal of creating an "interracial community of high standards."  The plan forced the relocation of 20,000 residents, mostly low-income blacks and whites.  
As a result, Hyde Park's average income soared by 70 percent, but its Black population fell by 40 percent, since the substandard housing primarily occupied by low income minorities had been purchased, torn down, and replaced, with the residents not being able to afford to remain in the newly rehabilitated areas.

When residents of the Woodlawn neighborhood felt under threat from an expansion plan, they organized the Woodlawn Organization (TWO).  The Woodlawn Organization’s founding president was the Reverend Arthur Brazier of the Pentecostal Apostolic Church of God, whom community organizer Saul Alinsky helped to train to head the organization. Today, the Woodlawn Organization and University of Chicago work together on neighborhood issues. 

The idea for the Woodlawn Children's Promise Community originated in 2008. The late Bishop Brazier had heard about the Harlem Children’s Promise Zone, which provides free services for youth living in a 97-block area of that community.  The goal is to remove barriers to learning so all kids can go to college.  During his election campaign, President Obama pledged to fund similar efforts around the country, and Brazier approached the University of Chicago with the idea of launching one in Woodlawn.  Woodlawn expects to be one of several Chicago communities competing this year for a federal Promise Neighborhoods grant.   

In response to a question about asset based development in the community, Hays talked about the work of Public Allies Chicago (PAC), established by founding Executive Director Michelle Obama in 1993.  Public Allies’ trains young people from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds to emerge as community leaders.  Michelle Obama’s emphasis on indigenous leadership and her belief that all people have potential to lead became a core value of PAC’s  leadership philosophy.  The first lady was one of the original faculty members of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University, led by John McKnight and Jody Kretzmann.  Jody Kretzmann is one of the founders of the ACM Urban Studies Program, and continues to speak to students each semester about asset-mapping.

CEO shares lessons learned in launching a business successfully

Students met with the CEO of InContext Solutions, an internet-based market research company named “One of America’s Most Promising Companies” by Forbes.com in 2009.  InContext Solutions is the first company to offer the technology of a 3D virtual store experience to provide an analysis of shopper attitudes, behaviors and actions to products.   

CEO Bob Gillespie shared some of the lessons he has learned about launching and growing a business successfully.  He emphasized that it is critical for his business to not compete on price and offer a value-added service that the competitors can't match.  Bob shared how important it is for students to begin thinking about building their personal network now and demonstrated how he tapped into these relationships to make InContext Solutions successful.  InContext Solutions won the “Up-and-Comer Award” at the 2010 Chicago Innovation Awards, and has been featured on CNBC, Fox Business News, and the Today Show. 

Artists examine social effects--positive and negative--of mega events

Chicago Program students visited Gallery 400 for two of its exhibits: Global Cities/Model Worlds  and “Pocket Guide to Hell.”  In the Global Cities/Model Worlds exhibit, artists Ryan Griffis, Lize Mogel and Sarah Ross examine the architectural and social effects—positive and negative—of so-called mega events such as the Olympics and World’s Fairs.  It’s amazing to see how many cities actually end up getting hurt by hosting these large events.  The overall cost to the city; the impact on the communities that are displaced is usually not worth the light the event shines on the city.  Promises for low income housing being built are made, and what’s built ends up being one-third of the housing the event displaced.  Where do these people who have been displaced go? 

The “Pocket Guide to Hell” exhibit focused on the work of Steele MacKaye.  The works highlighted his vision for the city and his dream of building the world’s largest theater—the Spectatorium—for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition that never got realized.