So In October I went to Chicago for a wedding....and..err, was astonished how easy I rolled from the Magnificent Mile right on up into Cabrini Green...
Here are some of my recollections of my adventures....
"I was soo suprised how easy it was just to roll up into the hood in Chicago.... I was like, 'what the hell are those flashing blue lights for?they're like the 'I've been assaulted' College Campus lights'
And Drew was like "Fool, we're in Cabrini Green, Flooor IT!'
Nobody told me, so I just drove....crossed LaSalle,and was all WTFluck?
Flashing blue lights?Is this the K-Mart neighborhood, is ish on sale?
Like, for 6 blocks? I just pull over, and get a discount?
The Projects:Sponsored by K-Mart"
So In recalling this, and remembering, like we made a right turn, and we were in rather uppity Wicker Park...I was wondering, what the hell was Cabrini, doing like, on the nice side of town (I had just assumed all the projects were on the south side of town). But my mind skipped back to San Francisco's Fillmore, or My own East Palo Alto and Belle Haven districts of Menlo Parks, the politics of "White Flight" and remembered...ooh...I grew up in similar, if not as severe issues...in rather affluent San Mateo County, just like 3 generations of Cabrini residents grew up, passing Wicker Park and the Magnificent Mile on the EL...to go back to Cabrini.
And it makes me wonder, as there was a riot in New Orleans, as the Public Housing Authority approved to tear down a 4,500 unit project in the 9th ward...does the government really care anything for the good of its residents, or a sense of community? Like, from what history tells me Cabrini Green's row houses built in the 40's were actually decent places to live...The Projects The Supremes sprang from, were recalled favorably by all 3 girls when they moved in during the mid 1950's. But something went wrong with the planning by the early 1960's. Like what I read about Cabrini, maintanence was skipped, the lush greenery and gardening was paved over with cement, wire went up to prevent people falling from the massive patios...the local jobs left....and the same fate fell Brewster Douglass, and nameless projects nationwide...(Like Sunnydale here locally). I don't wanna lie all the blame at the government about setting hopes high for project residents, and then leaving residents to their own devices...as the immigrant and first generation Irish and Italian families that mostly occupied projects before African Americans used them as probably the best thing in a capitalist system, as a means to save and move on to home ownership they could afford...
But, now, 50 years later....again with the subprime mortgage crisis on my mind...and with urban renewal primarily focusing on bringing "market rate" housing...I can't help but think, at this point the government has turned it back on people that have supported it so long...just in the same way it's robbing man young men and women of their youth and future with false promises in the military....at the end of the Cabrini Green article, it's said that those forced out of Cabrini's tear down, but who still wanted housing were sent to even worse projects, like the Robert Taylor homes (ironically named for the first certified African American architect), and most just gave up hope, and moved to more economically depressed areas like Gary, Indiana, away from the oppurtunities that a metropolis like Chicago could provide....
It's 2008 people, and I think a lot of us need to do a Sister Mary Clarence in Sister Act II and Wake up and Paying attention, cause you never know when you might be ass out....
1 comment:
My mom, part of the civil rights movement says she remembers that her group got a hold of a memo from the federal govt that outlined the plan for the Robert taylor homes - and it basically stated that the idea was to pile as many people in as small a place as possible - like zoo animals - and watch them eventually destroy each other. Have you ever run across anything like this?
(urbanrevolution@anewdawn.tv)
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