A discussion of Chicago's History of Diversity.

1. Housing, Transportation
and Diversity in the News
The Struggle Continues

2. CTA determines path for proposed Red Line
south extension to 130th Street
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-cta-extension-
20180125-story.html

3. Scope of the Article
 The $2.3 billion project, if it gets funding, would fill in what activists have called
a “transit desert” on the city’s Far South Side as well as south suburban
Riverdale. The city has not created an extension of an “L” line since the Orange
Line to Midway Airport opened in 1993.
 The 5.3-mile extension would include four new stations near 103rd Street,
111th Street, Michigan Avenue near 115th Street, and 130th Street with
parking and bus connections.
 CTA officials noted that the timing of the project is dependent on funding —
the earliest construction would begin is 2022, and the project would take
about four years.

4. Why Is this a Diversity Issue?
 This planned extension will primarily affect the 60628 Zip Code: Roseland, West
Pullman, and the South East Sides. 90% African American/Hispanic and one of the
City’s most economically and socially stressed areas.
 This area has lost 10% of it’s population due industrial job loss and increasing crime.
 Sherwin William, US Steel South Works, Ryerson Steel and a host of heavy industry,
and their supporting business infrastructure had been the economic engine of the
region until the 1980s.

5. The History of Chicago Housing.
 With the Fair housing laws of the 1960s restrictive covenants fell, but the sentiments behind
them did not.
 The areas once covenanted away from African-Americans, became the primary space for them.
 But when they came in, the jobs and industry went away to the newly created suburbs, made
possible by the expansion of the interstate highway system and lower land costs.
 That region then cratered and its productive population is moving away.
 But real diversity in housing is hard to find in the City and for some of the same reasons as in the
past.

6. Chicago
Communities
as Envisioned by
City Planners

7. Housing – Restrictive Covenants
In 1917 the U.S. Supreme Court deemed racial zoning
unconstitutional. But the Court in a later opinion
declared that while the government could not racially
zone, it did not prohibit private parties from agreeing to
racially segregate neighborhoods.
In the wake of that opinion, a swell of activity among
private actors filled deeds with racially restrictive
covenants.
Restrictive covenants were extensively used in cities
like Chicago, where some estimates suggest that at
one point they covered three quarters of the
city’s residential housing stock.

8. Northwest Side alderman files complaint against
cops, alleging racially charged language in housing
controversy
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-arena-northwest-side-housing-police-complaint-20180202-
story.html
 Arena made the complaint in mid-January, amid a long-running fight over the
project in which supporters have claimed opponents are trying to keep
minorities from moving into the bungalow belt neighborhood.
 The plan developers presented and Arena backed last year was set to include
100 total units, 80 rented at below-market rate, with 20 of those set aside for
people with Chicago Housing Authority vouchers and a preference for veterans
with vouchers.
 Opponents have publicly focused on the size of the building, saying the seven-
story apartment complex would be too big. Backers say the opposition is
racially motivated, with white residents trying to keep minorities from
moving into an area that’s long been home to lots of cops, firefighters and
other city workers.

9. What does the Red Line Extension Have to do With
the Affordable Housing Fight in Jefferson Park, and
what do either of then Have to do with Diversity?
 The shape of Chicago has always been based on race.
 The South side has been clearly underserved and people are leaving the area.
 The same forces that created the ghettoization of the city into socioeconomic
enclaves are still making it impossible for some people to find housing in
diverse neighborhoods
 So why, all of a sudden are we looking to build greater transportation
infrastructure into a region that had been systematically strangled, instead of
when the region was still productive and it was needed…

10. 20,000 homes planned for mixed-use
development on South Works site
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-south-works-ryan-ori-0802-biz-
20170801-column.html
 Two European firms are ready to take a crack at developing a 440-acre site on
Chicago's south lakefront that has been unused since U.S. Steel closed a plant
there 25 years ago.
 Emerald Living, a unit of Dublin-based WElink Group, and Spanish partner
Barcelona Housing Systems have a deal to buy the site that runs along Lake
Michigan from 79th Street to the Calumet River, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said
Tuesday in a news release.
 They plan to build as many as 20,000 modular, environmentally friendly
homes as well as "opportunities for commercial retail and office spaces,
taking advantage of the extensive lakeshore frontage and views of the
Chicago skyline," the release said.

11. Diversity in the News – South Works
Redevlopment
 Developments of this size are complex and difficult to fund, particularly for a
site surrounded by lower-income neighborhoods.
 "This agreement is a major milestone towards converting an unused stretch of
land that represents Chicago's industrial past into a vibrant community that
will contribute to Chicago's economic, cultural and recreational future,"
Emanuel said in the release.
 Renderings on BHS' website show low-rise and midrise buildings, parks,
pedestrian and bike paths, and waterfront walkways along boat docks.
 Because of the huge scope, the project would likely be constructed in several
phases over the course of at least a decade — and potentially much longer.

12. Housing Diversity in the News
How do these three stories connect?
 The Good News of effective mass transportation coming to the far South Side
of Chicago would be seen as a benefit to the community, even though it is at
least 20 years out.
 Meanwhile African-Americans from the Far South Side are being blocked from
moving to other areas of the city and are being forced to leave it.
 If all goes well, the new South Lakefront will have been built about the same
time as the Red Line Extension. The far end of the South Works property is
right near the proposed 130th and Calumet River Station.

13. Is there a future planned for African-Americans
in the city of Chicago?
Even more importantly, what does the future hold for poor
Chicagoans?
 Additional article of interest on Housing Diversity
The infamous practice of contract selling is back in Chicago
https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/contract-selling-redlining-housing-
discrimination/Content?oid=25705647