The Impact of Urban Development on the residents of Chicago
Ashley Adams
Keisha Hatcher
Kovel Walker
Abstract
Urban development is among the most debated subjects in sociology. As contractors build up urban cities to attract businesses, professional, and higher capital; they often displace the urban population and their business establishments. This phenomenon changes dynamics of urban America, greatly affecting industry, individual residents, the makeup of the neighborhood, and the structural landscape of these areas. Chicago, in particular, has undergone large scale changes in an attempt to revitalize the city. Though recent development has brought in capital, many of the current residents have been displaced due to the higher cost of living. One is left to wonder whether urban development in Chicago is harmful or helpful to the current residents of the city. This research will investigate urban development in Chicago and its impact on its residents.
Gentrification as an urban phenomenon has been studied since 1975 (Betancur 2002; Wolf 1975). Gentrification is defined as “the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces earlier usually poorer residents” (Merriam-Webster Online). This term will be used interchangeably with urban renewal or urban development since they are often seen by scholars to be similar in nature. Urban development refers to the physical, social and cultural phenomenon whereby working class or inner city neighborhoods are converted into more affluent communities resulting in increased property values and the outflow of poorer residents. The early research on gentrification urban development focused on the rehabilitation of the inner city and, “studied empirical and anecdotal questions about who and how was gentrification” (Betancur 2002). Although such inquiry was necessary, scholars soon realized that it is important to look at the motivations for as well as, effects of this “rehabilitation.” Who is benefiting from these drastic changes in mostly downtown areas full of culture and life? Is it necessary to replace the barrios and ghettos of America with mini condos and coffee shops? How do these drastic changes to places rich with culture and character affect the family and issues of race, and gender in American society? This study centers on these questions and focuses on Chicago, IL, a constant subject of gentrification.
Neil Smith, a geographer, explains gentrification through economics and the relationships between flows of capital and the production of urban space. Smith argue that low rents in the urban periphery during the two decades after World War II led to a continuous movement of capital toward the development of suburban areas. This caused a 'devaluation' of inner-city capital, resulting in the substantial abandonment of inner-city properties in favor of those in the periphery, and a consequent fall in the price of inner-city land relative to rising land prices in the suburbs. This‘devaluation’ of the inner-city also had a cause and effect role in regard to both white flight and investment red-lining. Due to the devaluing of homes and property values, most white Americans decided to move from the inner city in search of safer and more stable communities, increasing economic gain in the suburbs of more prominent and prestigious cities.Those who were able to move to the suburbsbenefitedfrom reduced crime, increased economic investment in new homes, schools and stores, while those who remained in the inner-city due to barriers of race and poverty experienced higher crime rates, and a loss of jobs and property values. It was only after years of decline and neglect of inner-city neighborhoods that interest and investment returned to the inner city. This new interest took the form of gentrification and focused not on helping those poor and minority families still living in depressed inner city neighborhoods but on rebuilding inner-cities for white, middle-class Americans looking for cheaper housing in urban rather than suburban areas.
Gentrification and the case of West Town, Chicago, Illinois
Contributions of gentrification can be categorized in four dimensions: demographics, real estate markets, land use, and culture/character.
Demographics: An increase in median income, a decline in the proportion of racial minorities, and a reduction in household size, as low-income families are replaced by young singles and couples. Real Estate Markets: Large increases in rents and home prices, increases in the number of evictions, conversion of rental units to ownership (condos) and new development of luxury housing. Land Use: A decline in industrial uses, an increase in office or multimedia uses, the development of live-work "lofts" and high-end housing, retail, and restaurants. Culture and Character: New ideas about what is desirable and attractive, including standards (either informal or legal) for architecture, landscaping, public behavior, noise, and nuisance (Grant, 2003).
All four of these dimensions of gentrification are relevant to what is happen in Chicago, more specifically WestTown which is the inner-city area that we will be focusing on throughout this paper.
Within the study of gentrification there arepeople who have differences of opinions when it comes to the issue of urban development, as including bothmanifest and latent functions of gentrification.People who focus on the manifest functions are those who are interested in the intended and known consequences of gentrification. For example, in the case with WestTown the large downtown corporations and city hall joined forces to reestablish the central business district (CBD). The Chicago Central Area Committee (CCAC) plan for urban development established middle-class housing and aesthetics as the priorities for redevelopment, but it did not include any programs to improve the employability or living conditions of residents, with the focus being on the physical conditions of the area(Department of Urban Renewal, 1965). People who are interested in latent functions of gentrification are those who focus on unintended consequences of one part of a sociocultural system. These people are the residents of the homes that the CCAC are trying to “redevelop,” but most of the citizens of WestTown do not see the advantages of redevelopment. The Northwest Community Organization (NCO) goal was to maintain the WestTown community as a residential area for families of low, moderate and middle income families (Northwest Community Organization, 1976). This plan claimed that disinvestments, absentee landlords, and redlining had the latent effect of causing resident flight and local deterioration while trapping residents without the resources or alternative opportunities. The statistical analysis states that in 1960, whites comprised 97.7 % of West Town population, and that accelerated white flight without white replacement made room for other ethnic groups (African Americans, Latino Americans, and German descendents) to seize the opportunity to move in (Lydersen, 1999). Most residents opposed the displacing development due to the notion of institutionalized process of urban renewal. Most citizens felt that urban renewal/urban development is a means of “Negro removal,” which isa situation that WestTown citizens believe is moral and ethically corrupt because it ultimately borders on racial discrimination . Also, urban renewal/urban development was perceived and still is identified as an agent of displacement of low to moderate-income residents to make room for upwardly mobile service employees (Smith & Williams, 1986).All of these factors lead to the belief that contractors like NCO and CCAC build up urban cities to attract businessprofessionals and higher capital, and that they often displace the urban population and their business establishments.
In the case of Chicago, gentrification has changed the face of the city. Since the 1980s, several neighborhoods have gentrified due to business subsidies. These subsidies take the form of tax cuts for business that relocate to the area. Ideally, the purpose of these subsidies is to bring revenue and new jobs to the communities in Chicago to reenergize the economy.
Land Use
Urban development in Chicago has changed the face of some of its poorest neighborhoods. After white flight occurred through the 1960s, the once thriving industrial city was left with abandoned buildings and vacant industrial sites. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the use of land and property began to increase again. Between 1970 and 1990 there was a forty percent increase in utilized landin the Chicago metropolitan area, which has increased industry outside of the city (Chicago Historical Society, 2005). Much of the development inside the city has taken the form of historical sites and rebuilding apartment buildings and businesses.
The Brownfield Initiative is a program developed in Chicago to build up old, abandoned industrial sites (Smith, 2001). Its main aim was to utilize the existing industrial sites and renovate them to meet working standards. The initiative provided funds to rebuild twelve sites in suffering neighborhoods such as Austin and DePaul (Smith, 2001).
Business subsidies and other government aid also contributed to the rise of industrial land use. This aid took the form of tax cuts that span several types of corporate taxes from property tax to sales tax (Pollin & Luce, 1998). Evidence has been found that nationwide business subsides have cut into municipal tax revenues considerably (Pollin & Luce, 2004). Also, the competition for land was unequal. Relocating and expansion is limited to those corporations that could afford it, which eliminated small businesses. Large corporations benefit greatly from the initiative for urban development, due to these factors, which leaves much to be desired.
Real Estate
The real estate market was greatly affected by urban development. Given lucrative subsidies, land developers seized the opportunity to build. In the 1990s, the inner cities were experiencing the “teardown” trend. Real estate owners were tearing down older apartments to build condos and upscale town homes. With the new housing, rent was raised and the cost of living in the area increased.
The new interest in real estate in Chicago’s inner cities brought several problems. Many of the low-income residents were forced to move to more affordable housing. This caused a large scale displacement of low-income residents. Many families, facing the fear of homelessness,have to suffer with being placed in poor or substandard housing because of low wages. According to the Catalyst in Chicago, the effects of displacement are very real to the residents (Welfare, Housing, and employment: Learning from the Jobs-Plus Demonstration., 2001). One woman recalls her Logan Square apartment being turned into condos. Elaine Butler states, “The first time the rent went up, [the landlord] said, ‘The taxes went up.’ God forbid he goes up to $750.” She was faced with moving her children out of the school district in which she also worked part time (Cauthen, 2004).
Many believe that gentrification does not negatively affect the residents of inner cities. One study suggests that gentrification is not related to the displacement of occupants of the existing housing (Freeman & Braconi, 2004). The authors of this study examined the gentrification of the New York City and its affects on displacement. Freeman (2004) found that among seven low-income areas the displacement rate was relatively low. Also, the authors found that the changes to the city were welcome by the current residents. This suggests that gentrification is not significantly related to displacement in the country’s inner-cities. There is no conclusive evidence that displacement is a large effect of gentrification in Chicago.
Demographics
Considerable studies of urban development in Chicago explore the demographic changes to the cities as the result of the urban development initiative. The changes during gentrification largely involve the poor and minority populations. Before the Post-World War II era, Chicago’s city and downtown area were predominantly white. Centralized business and commerce attracted these individuals to the thriving industrial city. After World War II, white flight devastated inner city communities. These low-income areas became home to many low-income and minority families. Lack of employment options and the monetary means to escape the inner-citiescontinued to be serious problems for these families through the 1990s.
WestTown has been highly gentrified since the 1980s. In the 1960s, the town again experienced a great deal of white flight. Many left, going to both other parts of the city and to suburbs to seek the opportunities of a rapidly expanding larger metropolitan area. Throughout the seventies, Whites continued to leave and Latinos and other ethnic minorities moved in a very steady rate. In the 1980s, the local government sought to bring revenue back to the area by giving business subsidies. In the case of WestTown, by the 1970s the racial composition of WestTown had changed drastically. At this point, forty-five percent of the residents were ethnic minorities (Betancur, 2002).
Character
One of the goals of urban development is to beautify and restore the overall character of the city. Many of the new developments add refreshing views, whereas the historical buildings have been less aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Many low income housing projects were torn down and rebuilt as apartment buildings. For example, the Robert Taylor homes on Chicago’s south side have been extensively improved in an aesthetic sense by the reconstruction of existing apartment complexes. Maxwell Street provides another example of the beautification process of historical Chicago. The area, although rundown, was an open air market place for ethnic goods. The redevelopment of Maxwell Street however, serves an example of the loss of culture and history. Although Maxwell Street was not pleasing to the eye, its removal to the eye history has been erased from the area.
Uneven development is another concern surrounding the development of Chicago’s inner city. The illustrious North Michigan Avenue downtown serves as a prime example (Nyden & Nyden, 1999). Years ago the area was rebuilt to become an upscale retail and commerce district. A few blocks from the plush downtown area are the slums of inner city Chicago. It amplifies the divide between the rich and the poor. Within walking distance of the affluent North Michigan Avenue are poverty-stricken tenements of the city’s poor (Nyden & Nyden, 1999).
Family and Gender
It is well documented that gentrification involves the displacement of people, but it is important to see how the phenomenon affects the family and other entities of everyday life. John J. Betancur, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, wrote about “the local dialectics of power associated with gentrification in the community of WestTown in Chicago” (Betancur 2002). Betancur states that much of WestTown has been gentrified, although historically WestTown was a place for European immigrants, including Polish Jews, Italians, Scandinavians and Germans (Betancur 2002). Even the parts of town that were rich in minority low-income clusters have seen gentrification “clean their town up”. Both churches and schools have been affected by gentrification. Congregations that were once full have seen their numbers dwindling while others have had to close for lack of parishioners. Public schoolenrollments have also suffered while higher income students are taking over the private schools. Families are often in transition and being shuffled around as the landscape and texture of their town is changing constantly.
One can see from the research done by Betancur that race and ethnicity plays a large role in gentrification. As these groups settled in made WestTown home, that is made it a cultural and ethnic mecca. This place was rich with the traditions of these people and the city was vibrant with their ways of life. After World War II, as whites moved out for better opportunities in the suburbs,Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and later African Americans moved into town, and with these moves came disinvestment in the town (Betancur 2002). In the late 1990s the returns of white Americans hoping to “reinvent” and “reinvigorate these slums” were removed many of the long standing residents in the town and displaced them to neighboring communities. These changes ripped away at the social fabric of the communities in WestTown.
One example of the effects that gentrification has on ethnic groups is the problems that Puerto Ricans have had to face. After multiple displacements around the Chicago area, Puerto Ricans were eager to rebuild their lives in a different community but faced the same problems that haunted them in other parts of the city. Housing discrimination, low-end jobs, and police harassment made it virtually impossible to build a community. Puerto Ricans had to struggle for a significant place in a community they once controlled.
The affluent see gentrification as a testimonial to the values of individualism, and a sign of upward mobility, and the rewards of hard work (Smith and Williams, 1987). The outcomes, however, place heavy burdens on the poor, the elderly and minorities, especially in terms of rising and changing cost of housing and have wide effects on employment.