Chicago’s Brownfield Initiative to Reclaim Urban Sprawl and Economic Resources
Introduction
Brownfields are abandoned, idled or underused industrial and commercial properties where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived contamination. In 1993, representatives from the Chicago Departments of Environment, Planning and Development, Buildings, Law, and the Mayor Office came together to develop a strategy for promoting cleanup and redevelopment of the City’s brownfields. The city developed a three- pronged initiative based on this strategy. This paper will focus on Chicago’s efforts to reclaim urban sprawl and return the city’s abandoned or underused properties to productive use. Background information will be provided as well as the issues that concerned the development and an analysis of the procedures, the policies utilized and the outcome.
Background
Two miles west of the Loop, many of Chicago's communities have devolved into crumbled cement and poverty. Major streets are both populated with teenagers, clusters of children moving with care, fast food joints and liquor stores and abandoned buildings. There is virtually no economic development in these communities.
Tucked between these grid points of workaday urban blight are the vestiges of a once vibrant west side. However, this vision has been replaced and now stands factories and buildings that have been long neglected by owners or simply abandoned. These properties have come to be known as "brownfields," their smoked glass windows concealing potential environmental disaster. The new caretakers are homeless squatters, who relentlessly tear the buildings to pieces. Ragged demolition crews, pushing stolen shopping carts, are constantly in t...
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...wnfield issues.
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Sustain The Environmental Information Group. Beyond Sprawl-Chicago Area Land Use Guide. 22 March 2001. www.sustainusa.org/landuseguide/3economics.html
United States Environmental Protection Agency. Brownfields Showcase Community. Washington, DC. Nov. 1998. www.epa.gov/brownfields/
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Williams, Drew. "Brwonfields: Chicago starts Reclaiming Its Urban Sprawl". 22 March 2001. www.pollutionengineering.com/archives/1996/pol0601.96/06reprot.htm
Jackelyn Hwang and Robert J. Sampson’s article “Divergent Pathways of Gentrification: Racial Inequality and the Social Order of Renewal in Chicago Neighborhoods” addresses the evolution of gentrification over time. The direct examination of gentrification is difficult to observe; however, by examining social pathways we are able to further advance our studies.
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The rezoning of 125th street has been a topic of controversy and has yet to be approved. The Department of City Planning believes rezoning of 125th street will bring positive economic changes. I personally believe that these changes would negatively affect the residents and business owners of Harlem. According to the New York City’s Planning Commission, the rezoning will bring new business and housing. Residents and business owners disagree because they believe this plays a bigger role in promoting further “gentrification.” I believe that Harlem should be able to keep its cultural heritage while still promoting and modifying economic growth.
Under the plan for transformation, Chicago will destroy more public housing than any city in the country. There are families being pushed out of their homes, out of the city and the communities that they want to stay in. (Haney), Suzanne. " Street Wise" This is major impact on the city, from this comes segregation and the economy fails. Mayor Richard Daley and his administration promised people in Chicago affordable housing and now Daley has gone back on his word.
Gang violence is a very serious downfall living in Chicago. In two articles written by Mark Guarino, “Behind Chicago’s High-Crime Summer: Persistent Street Gang Violence” and “In Chicago, Can Community Involvement Combat Gang Violence” he adds how Chicagoans are severely alarmed by the series of murders there are due to gang violence, including the death of an innocent eight year old girl who was caught between a heated gang war while playing outside (Behind Chicago 1), while adding how a gunmen approached a car and started shooting and killed a 20 ...
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
Slavery was one of the factors that played a key role in the causes of the Civil War. The Missouri Compromise was a debate began as to whether Maine and Missouri would enter the Union as free or slave states. To be fair to the rule of the Mason-Dixon Line, Maine was admitted as a free state, and Missouri, even though it was also in the north, would enter as a slave state. The Compromise of 1850 dealt with whether California, Utah, and New Mexico would be slave or free. California was admitted as a free state, but since it made the ratio of slave to free states unequal, " it also stated that the territories of New Mexico and Utah would determine for themselves whether to become slave or free states."(Wise) The Kansas-Nebraska Act decided that any territory that became a state would have the right to vote on whether it would be slave or free, which made Northerners angry because it changed the terms of the Missouri Compromise. The constant flux of the issue of slavery grew during the years leading up to the war, as the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1859, and the Kansas-Nebraska act con...
“gentrification as an ugly product of greed. Yet these perspectives miss the point. Gentrification is a byproduct of mankind 's continuing interest in advancing the notion that one group is more superior to another and worthy of capitalistic consumption with little regard to social consciousness. It is elitism of the utmost and exclusionary politics to the core. This has been a constant theme of mankind to take or deplete a space for personal gain. In other words, it 's very similar to the "great advantage" of European powers over Native Americans and westward expansion”(Wharton).
In the year 2000 the Englewood community had high hopes community reinvestment was on the upswing. Kennedy King College was being relocated and the housing business was booming, but all of the toxic loans came into effect interest rates ballooned and residents could not make their payments. This left the community with high foreclosures and empty buildings. Therefore investors pulled out of the neighborhoods and residents fled; as a result the numbers of abandoned buildings and vacant lots on many streets outnumbers occupied buildings. Drug dealers use the abandoned houses to store their drugs; addicts break in to shoot up, and get high. Sexual predators drag victims into empty houses, and prostitutes find decrepit ruins convenient for doing business. (Chicago Tribune, 2011) Englewood is bordered by 55th Street on the north, 75th Street on the south, Racine Avenue on the west, and State Street on the east. The total area is approximately 3.1 square miles.
Inner City Communities are often areas which are both densely populated and deteriorating(quote). The areas and its residents have strongly been correlated with social and economical disparity. Residents of inner city communities have been plagued with problems including: “high unemployment, poor health care, inadequate educational opportunities, dilapidated housing, high infant mortality, and extreme poverty” (Attitudes and Perceptions, n.d). Though the inner city communities have been stricken with
Wilson, D. C., Shienberg, A., & Casanova, L. (2012). Solid Waste Management in the world's cities. Netherlands: UN-HABITAT.
...ious environment. It is typical in Chicago for neighborhoods to be referred to by there Church or the cultural environment of the primary language. This is very well linked to the hierarchy of the cities as such in Mesopotamia, and the delegated jobs and status of its people. This is evident in the neighborhood surrounding the museum, as there is diversity on the streets leading through the area. It is apparent that when you arrive to Hyde Park, the affluence is increased, possibly due to the education of the people in the area and direct access to a fabulous university. I am sure as time goes by, I will have much more information after visiting this area, as to where the societal break may have derived from, or not. I am looking forward to the experience of finding out more and why. Which I truly believe this project was all about. Expanding our where and why.
When Willy and Linda purchased their home in Brooklyn, it seemed far removed from the city. Willy was young and strong and he believed he had a future full of success. He and his sons cut the tree limbs that threatened his home and put up a hammock that he would enjoy with his children. The green fields filled his home with wonderful aromas. Over the years, while Willy was struggling to pay for his home, the city grew and eventually surrounded the house.