Divided Agenda: The Chicago Housing Authority
The Chicago Housing Authority is an agency that is at odds with its own true nature and goals. It is an agency committed to managing the welfare of the poor and disenfranchised. At the same time it is an agency with a commitment to the city of Chicago to "take care " of the Black poor problem. "Taking care" in this instance seems to mean by any means necessary. Whether Blacks are shuttled about from one part of the city to the next, stacked on top of each other like prisoners, or out and out murdered there seems to be an unspoken agenda to get rid of the problem. The dichotomy I see is that while some of the politicians and more upwardly mobile citizens of Chicago want to help poor people. They also want the problem to disappear.
African Americans first migrated to Chicago during the Great Migration of the 1920's. They were seeking employment, schooling, and a better quality of life compared to the poverty of the rural south. With almost all mass migrations of poor people Ghettos' were formed very soon after. The tenements previously inhabited by ethnic whites, such as the Irish, were giving way to Black Ghettos'. The housing was typical of the urban Ghetto's of the time. Ramshackle dilapidated buildings, disease, and crime.
The Chicago Housing Authority came about as a means to manage the large amount of poor Black residents. " In 1949, Congress, in addressing a postwar housing crisis, had authorized loans and subsidies to construct 810,000 units of low rent housing units nationwide" (p.21, Kotlowitz). During the 1950's the first of these new developments were constructed- The Cabrini homes were some of them. These first developments were only one or two stories and were well received by the city and its residents. Then the Chicago Housing Authority hired architects who designed a new type of development. A high-rise building (known as a project) with each unit having at least 15 to 19 floors, and approximately 5-15 buildings within each development. There was a political battle as to where these Projects would be built. After many meetings and court decisions they were finally built at the edges of the existing Ghetto's.
During the 1960's the Projects were brand new and many were still under construction. The poor Blacks who were moving into them were happy to have at last a stable place to live, where the rents were affordable, and the environment was clean.
Chicago’s Cabrini-Green public housing project is notorious in the United States for being the most impoverished and crime-ridden public housing development ever established. Originally established as inexpensive housing in the 1940’s, it soon became a vast complex of unsightly concrete low and high-rise apartment structures. Originally touted as a giant step forward in the development of public housing, it quickly changed from a racially and economically diverse housing complex to a predominantly black, extremely poor ghetto. As it was left to rot, so to speak, Cabrini-Green harbored drug dealers, gangs and prostitution. It continued its downward spiral of despair until the mid 1990’s when the Federal Government assumed control the Chicago Housing Authority, the organization responsible for this abomination. Cabrini-Green has slowly been recovering from its dismal state of affairs recently, with developers building mixed-income and subsidized housing. The Chicago Housing Authority has also been demolishing the monolithic concrete high-rise slums, replacing them with public housing aimed at not repeating the mistakes of the past. Fortunately, a new era of public housing has dawned from the mistakes that were made, and the lessons that were learned from the things that went on for half a century in Cabrini-Green.
Chicago in the 1920s was a turning point for the development of ethnic neighborhoods. After the opening of the first rail connection from New York to Chicago in the 1840s, immigration sky rocketed from that point on. Majority of the immigrants to Chicago were Europeans. The Irish, Italians, eastern European Jews, Germans, and Mexicans were among the most common ethnicities to reside in Chicago. These groups made up the greater part of Chicago. The sudden increase in immigration to Chicago in the 1920s soon led to an even further distinguished separation of ethnicities in neighborhoods. The overall development of these neighborhoods deeply impacted how Chicago is sectioned off nowadays. Without these ethnicities immigrating to Chicago almost 100 years ago, Chicago neighborhoods would not be as culturally defined and shaped as they are today.
...ll. The inner city has many complications the fact that most are African American is a mere coincidence. If we as a nation are capable of fixing all institutions and structural issues we could bring the slums out of poverty. The cycle of unemployment and poverty is a terrible cycle that cannot only be judged by race and cultural values. When reading this book keep in mind the difficulties, any family or person could go through these tribulations. There are many arguments and sides to each problem; this is another one of those. The battle for inner city poverty, and the factors that go along with it, has not been finished. Wilson brings out a different aspect which could help people expand horizons and come up with better solutions.
The Great Migration was a huge relocation of African Americans from the Southern states of the United States to northern and Midwestern cities. This occurred between the years of 1910 and 1970. Over 6 million African Americans traveled to Northern cities during the migration. Some northern city destinations include Richmond, D.C, Baltimore, New York, and Newark. Western and Midwestern destinations include those such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, St. Louis, Chicago, and Detroit.
A Ghetto Takes Shape: Black Cleveland, 1870-1930 explains in detail how the author deciphers the ghettoization process in Cleveland during the time period. Kusmer also tries to include studies that mainly pertained to specific black communities such as Harlem, Chicago, and Detroit, which strongly emphasized the institutional ghetto and dwelled on white hostility as the main reasons as to why the black ghetto was
The United States’ government has always had a hand on our country’s housing market. From requiring land ownership to vote, to providing public housing to impoverished families, our government has become an irremovable part of the housing market. The effects of these housing policies can affect American residents in ways they might not even recognize. As several historians have concluded, many housing policies, especially those on public housing, either resulted in or reinforced the racial segregation of neighborhoods.
Sudhir Venkatesh’s ethnography Gang Leader for a Day is a summary of his research through the University of Chicago in the 1990s. Venkatesh chose to do research on poor African-Americans in Chicago, and their experiences in public housing developments. He concentrated his study on the Robert Taylor Housing to better understand how residents lived and differentiated from those in other parts of the city. Venkatesh’s target population was those living in harsh living conditions, primarily black and poor. Throughout this paper, I will be addressing Venkatesh’s research and its limitations. I will also share my opinion on Venkatesh’s analysis and understanding of his findings about the residents, and how his experiences mesh with my own. In
Though present from the initial discovery of the West, blacks entered the West in earnest after 1850. Between 1850 and 1910, thousands of African Americans, lured by the promise of land, opportunity, and most importantly, racial justice migrated to the trans-Mississippi West (African Americans). This great migration occurred shortly after the civil war, as thousands of blacks moved West because they were unwanted in the North or South (Dick 30).
Chicago was the best place to live and visit for anyone. Many people traveled from far places to visit and live in Chicago. Long after the World War II many things started reshaping America. One of the most significant was the racial change all over America but specifically in Chicago. Many southern blacks started to move into Chicago. Chicago started to become mostly dominated by blacks and other minorities while whites started to move into the suburbs of Chicago. "Beginning in the 1930s, with the city's black population increasing and whites fleeing to the suburbs, the black vote became a precious commodity to the white politicians seeking to maintain control" (Green, 117). Many of the mayors such as Edward J. Kelly, Martin H. Kennelly, and Richard J. Daley won over the blacks and got their votes for them to become mayor. The black population grew by 77 percent by the 1940. The white population dropped from 102,048 to 10,792 during the years of 1940 to 1960. With all of these people moving into Chicago there had to be more housing. There were many houses built to accommodate all the people. Martin H. Kennelly at one time wanted to tear down slums and have public housing built in the black ghetto. Many of the blacks wanted to escape these ghettos so some of them; if they could they would try to move to the white communities. When the blacks would try to move into the white communities they were met with mobs. There were many hurdles that blacks had to overcome not only in Chicago but all over America. The blacks of Chicago had to fight for a place to live and to find a mayor that would help them for who they are, not their color.
The downgrading of African Americans to certain neighborhoods continues today. The phrase of a not interested neighborhood followed by a shift in the urban community and disturbance of the minority has made it hard for African Americans to launch themselves, have fairness, and try to break out into a housing neighborhood. If they have a reason to relocate, Caucasians who support open housing laws, but become uncomfortable and relocate if they are contact with a rise of the African American population in their own neighborhood most likely, settle the neighborhoods they have transfer. This motion creates a tremendously increase of an African American neighborhood, and then shift in the urban community begins an alternative. All of these slight prejudiced procedures leave a metropolitan African American population with few options. It forces them to remain in non-advanced neighborhoods with rising crime, gang activity, and...
By creating the ghettos, African Americans were residential separated from other races. These ghettos were created to keep the African American race down. When it comes to income, most black families who lived in these certain areas were unemployed and very poor (William, 1980). Most of the jobs that were available, were far away from the ghetto, and the blacks didn’t have the requirements that were needed for that particular job. When blacks were to look for a job, it wasn’t easy because they would have to deal with racial discrimination, which was another reason why they continued to be
In the article “Gentrification’s Insidious Violence: The Truth about American Cities” by Daniel Jose Older, Older places emphasis on the neighboring issue of gentrification in minority, low income communities or as better known as being called the “hood” communities. The author is biased on how race is a factor in gentrifying communities by local governments. Older explains his experience as a paramedic aiding a white patient in the “hood” where he was pistol whipped in a home invasion by a black male. This is an example of black on white crime which is found to be a normal occurrence in the residence of his community. But that is not the case in Older’s situation because that was the first time he has
Gentrification is the keystone for the progression of the basic standards of living in urban environments. A prerequisite for the advancement of urban areas is an improvement of housing, dining, and general social services. One of the most revered and illustrious examples of gentrification in an urban setting is New York City. New York City’s gentrification projects are seen as a model for gentrification for not only America, but also the rest of the world. Gentrification in an urban setting is much more complex and has deeper ramifications than seen at face value. With changes in housing, modifications to the quality of life in the surrounding area must be considered as well. Constant lifestyle changes in a community can push out life-time
It all started after World War I and during the Great Depression in New York’s Harlem neighborhood, where a lot of people lived. The first building given to black tenants was on West 134th Street. The area was called “The Capital of Black America” and “The Black Mecca” of the world (Harlem Renaissance). From 1900 to 1920, the black population of New York City increased by ninety-one thousand. Harlem is also where freed African Americans searched for a new place to explore their new identities as free men and women.
While, Coates focus on Chicago’s struggle for rights in housing in terms of blacks and whites, there are more diverse examples of this in other cities. New York City is home to many neighborhoods of varying backgrounds and races. New York City has everything from Little Italy to Chinatown, but are those places restricted to people of that ethnic background? Legally, the answer is no. You cannot be denied housing because of your background or beliefs. However, this does not stop people from being denied anyway. New York City, while the most culturally diverse city, is also the most segregated. Many may see this isn’t a issue but it