#Tucker on the crime problem and the grinches who rob volunteers and burn down Christmas trees

 

[VIDEO] I'm sharing this segment from Tucker Carlson Tonight on FOX News with you today because the commentary you see by host Tucker Carlson discusses some local events that perhaps you missed. Most certainly I missed these events.

To bring home some of the points Carlson is discussing here is there needs to be a reckoning on the crime issue nationally. Certainly it's an issue not just in the city where last weekend a group of youths converged near Millennium Park to cause enough issues for the police to start making plans to address any future disturbances. Basically as a reaction problem as this issue has been going on for a while as this isn't the first time I wrote about youths coming to downtown to cause problems as theft, vandalism, or even just causing major disturbances.

So he starts off with attacks on Christmas trees because well tis the season. And the first thing he mentions was that a group of My Block My Hood My City volunteers were robbed putting up holiday decorations in the history south side Bronzeville neighborhood. 

BTW, if you don't want to listen to Carlson here's a story from CBS Chicago. According to the article this crime occurred at 48th & King Drive and part of a team of volunteers putting up Christmas decorations from  35th Street to 115th Street.

You Saturday viewing: "Chicago's South Side" by Geoffrey Baer

 

[VIDEO] Allow me to state from the jump that I found this video on YouTube as opposed to sharing the video on WTTW's page for this documentary. I believe this aired on WTTW in 2015 and didn't find this until doing a Google search on the Roseland neighborhood.

Basically this documentary focuses on the south side neighborhoods of Brighton Park, Chinatown, Ashburn, Bridgeport, Bronzeville, Hyde Park, Washington Park, Woodlawn, Englewood, Auburn Gresham, Beverly, Washington Park, Roseland, South Shore, Pullman and the southeast side. Basically the south side is divided up into near southwest and southeast and far southwest and southeast.

I know over the years Geoffrey Baer has done documentaries of interest such as Chicago by L (of which there was another edition produced in 2020 according to his wikipedia page), he did one on the Chicago Lakefront, I think he even did one that featured the Illinois & Michigan Canal that runs through the southwest side.

I guess my takeaway without watching having yet watched this is I wish he had some other neighborhoods on this such as Chatham. Perhaps there wasn't enough material for him to really document the neighborhood as he had Englewood, South Shore, Hyde Park, Auburn Gresham, or even Ashburn. However it has my attention and plan to watch this documentary with you all.

Generosity of a stranger keeps mother and child from living in her car

 

[VIDEO] I hate to see stories like this, however, its an interesting twist. You own the property you rent it to someone else, however, that party refuses to move out. Eviction proceedings are useless because due to this pandemic the state has issued a moratorium because well if you're not working and unable to make an income how can you reasonably pay rent.

I'm glad to see that for now, thanks to someone's genorosity that someone helped this mother out and allowed her to stay in an apartment rent free. At least until that moratorium runs out and whenever that tenant is forced to move. In the meanwhile this still isn't an ideal situation.

What happened this weekend with the Dan Ryan protests

On Saturday morning, I wrote a post about a planned protest on the Dan Ryan. I reminded everyone about the Dan Ryan protest held further south near 79th street back in 2018 which was held without incident though controversial as this one was more controversial considering the times we're living in right now.

We have a pandemic going on and not only that the week before downtown Chicago and 87th street evidently had events of mass looting. Then we still have unrest around the nation especially since the death of George Floyd which largely hadn't settled down and every urban area has experienced some form of civil unrest.

Thankfully there was no protest on the Dan Ryan which would've started near 47th Street on Saturday. I wrote that post assuming many of you read the blog before you do anything else in the AM, although I don't always post in the morning though my goal is to post at 8:30 AM when possible.

According to this report from CBS 2, protesters didn't have the turnout they expected to hit the Dan Ryan on Saturday. Instead they marched through the Bronzeville neighborhood and found their way to Grant Park downtown where clashes between these so-called protestors and police happened. [VIDEO]

There were videos of people trying to get to their homes in Bronzeville, but not allowed to walk down their street due to the police presence. The language here in coarse so it's not safe for work of some Bronzeville residents going back and forth with a wall of state police blocking their street.

Sun-Times: Rev. Leon Finney Jr.’s free fall

This story seemed to have broken over the weekend. Leon Finney Jr. is something of a power broker who has a church in Bronzeville and largely has been an important person in Woodlawn. This report from the Chicago Sun-Times has been quite damning!

The Rev. Leon Finney Jr. spent the last half-century building a real estate empire on Chicago’s South Side while amassing political power and hobnobbing with politicians like Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Richard M. Daley and Toni Preckwinkle.

Now in his twilight years, Finney’s fiefdom teeters on the brink of collapse.

Once revered for his community work, Finney, 81, stands accused of fraud, self-dealing and mismanagement after his nonprofit, the Woodlawn Community Development Corporation, filed for bankruptcy in October and the curtains were pulled back on its finances.

Finney has been ousted at the organization he helped create. And, in a rare step, a federal judge appointed a trustee in April to take control of Woodlawn, a move the nonprofit fought. Piece by piece, its real estate holdings are being sold off.

After the bankruptcy came more financial blows. Woodlawn’s main source of revenue — lucrative contracts to manage more than 4,300 apartments for the Chicago Housing Authority, bringing in about $170,000 a month in management fees — was canceled in June after the CHA accused Woodlawn of mismanagement resulting in nearly $400,000 in damages.

Finney’s personal finances are in tatters, too, with the bank going after his church and his home.

And his wife has filed for divorce.

Investigations into allegations of wrongdoing and mismanagement have dogged Finney for decades. But the troubles he now faces represent the gravest threat to his legacy.

Read the whole thing.

Former state rep. Ken Dunkin appointed by Gov. Rauner to water reclamation district

While outside of the scope of this blog I just wanted to note this since I saw this on Friday night. Ken Dunkin as a former a member of the Illinois House of Representatives represented the 5th district of Illinois which is basically the near south side (he represents parts of the Bronzeville neighborhood). He attempted to regain his seat in March running in Democratic primary, he was unsuccessful in this attempt - also bear in mind winning the Democratic nomination in Chicago is tantamount to victory in the general election.

Back in 2016 Dunkin lost the Democratic primary to the current state Rep. Juliana Stratton. Stratton is running for Lt. Governor with Democrat gubernatorial nominee JB Pritzker. Dunkin had been heavily associated with the agenda of Gov. Bruce Rauner and that effectively hurt his chances of re-election not only with his constituents, but with his caucus. Why would anyone in the Illinois House Democratic caucus even think they can go against the all-powerful speaker Michael Madigan?

Long story short, Gov. Rauner appoints his old ally in Dunkin to a seat on the Chicago Water Reclamation District. Below you see a tweet from David Ormsby with an image of the document which announces the governor's appointment. I first got wind of this via Rich Miller's Capitol Fax blog. It's also likely that this appointment is only temporary as it arose after the sudden death of a commissioner to the reclamation district and the sudden departure of another Rauner appointee.

Ex-State Rep. Ken Dunkin (D-Chicago) tapped by @GovRauner for $70K Water Rec Board gig. #twill pic.twitter.com/KISCvl5DSo

— David Ormsby (@DavidOrmsby) May 18, 2018

The reason why this is worth sharing and probably the least important part of this whole political store is that Dunkin is a Morehouse grad. This is one primary reason why this caught my eye although where he got his degree or degrees is not entirely news. What's news is that he becomes another member of the water reclamation district via gubernatorial appointment.

Can we help Woodlawn repeat as winner of the Curbed Cup?

Remember last year when Woodlawn won Curbed Chicago's Cup for neighborhood of the year. Then the year before where it was Pullman that had the honor.

In 2017 Woodlawn is back and made it into the final four for this year's Curbed Cup. There were three other entrants in this competition from Chicago's south side. Hyde Park, Bronzeville, and yes the South Loop. I do consider the South Loop south side even if they may have the close proximity to downtown and for many years it was an area that hadn't be doing well until the 21st century.

Curbed Cup Elite Eight results! West Loop and Fulton Market knocked out https://t.co/viQ6tUmBFS pic.twitter.com/gtrktAgNWW

— Curbed Chicago (@curbedchicago) December 22, 2017

Anyway, why Woodlawn again? The expansion of the University of Chicago further south, the Obama library is expected to come that way, there's going to be a new Jewel-Osco on 61st & Cottage Grove. I want to add a grassroots movement to re-extend the CTA Green Line beyond their current terminal at Cottage Grove. This would be great news for another are of Chicago's south side that hadn't done well in recent years until now.

BTW, voting will begin on the final four neighborhoods after the Christmas holiday. Hopefully that means on Tuesday - today - you will see a poll on a future poll at Curbed Chicago. Let's support Woodlawn and allow that neighborhood to repeat their accomplishment from last year.

And I still want to open the floor for other neighborhoods we all hope will get nominated next year. Yes I'm looking at you Englewood, Chatham, Roseland, or even Pullman - again! Am I missing any from our part of town? Let us know!!!

WBEZ: Black Homeownership - The Promise and The Pitfalls

Via The Chicago Neighborhoods

JP Paulus shared this post on our FB page and I basically got stuck on the "black tax" what does this even mean?

But Chatham was no urban Mayberry. When I was in high school, the “Chatham rapist” stalked the neighborhood. On more than one occasion, thieves broke into our garage.

“There was crime in the neighborhood, although it was a very nice neighborhood,” my mom said. “But you would hear about robberies in the area, so that was a downfall, I think.”

This is part of what’s called the black tax. Black middle-class neighborhoods are more affected by urban ills than white middle-class neighborhoods; you have to deal with more poverty, more crime, worse schools and fewer services.

Another example of this black tax:

My dad said he saw the black tax even when he shopped at a Jewel grocery in the neighborhood.

“When I wanted to pay for the groceries by check, I had to almost get my birth certificate for ID,” he recalled.

But then he went to a Jewel in neighboring Evergreen Park, where he didn’t have to show any ID. He also noticed the prices were lower. When he asked why the prices were higher at the Chatham store, he was told the store had to pay for security.

“There is a shortcoming of living in an all-black neighborhood, even one as affluent as Chatham,” he said.

Basically the article discusses Black homeownership in mostly Black areas vs. integrated areas. Reporter Natalie Moore discusses choosing to own a condo in Bronzeville - an area we hear had been on the upswing - vs. renting in more intergrated Hyde Park.

Her own parents ultimately left Chatham and moved further southwest to Beverly:

My parents made a good decision, but they also got lucky. They bought the Chatham home in 1974 for $30,000 and sold it almost 20 years later for more than four times that amount. By 2010, Chatham was going through rocky times. U.S. Census Bureau figures show population loss, decreased median income and plummeting home values.

There was also the housing collapse. Black homeowners were set up, by certain lending practices, to take a harder hit than whites. Subprime loans were targeted at black homeowners, and those loans were concentrated in black neighborhoods, like Chatham.

My parents left before the collapse, and the devastation of the housing crash didn’t hit their new neighborhood like it did in Chatham. Their new home -- a four-bedroom, mid-century modern split level -- is located in a housing market with stable home values.

My parents told me their decision to move into an integrated neighborhood -- Beverly is 62 percent white and 34 percent black -- has paid off. Blacks have far less equity in their homes. That changes if you live in an integrated or white neighborhood.

Why should ethnicity in a neighborhood make a difference as far as equity?

Jahmal Cole visits Washington Park #MBMHMC

[VIDEO] Jahmal Cole in his ongoing webseries My Block My Hood My City visits Washington Park. Before he heads to the court for a game of hoops he visits two establishments Currency Exchange Cafe & RTW Veteran's Center. A recurring theme when Cole visits the many Chicago communities is to find an eating establishment. And we also see a very touching story regarding how the veteran's center came into existence.

BTW, we also get some man on the street interview on how the Washington Park community has changed. It has changed for the better, but many still describe the surrounding area at least west of Washington Park as still "the hood".

Monroe Anderson: Spike Lee’s #Chiraq could be KKK

Spike Lee via RAGE ig

So the new Spike Lee "joint" expected to be filmed in Englewood that's causing some controversy among some in Chicago - for it's title primarily - is the subject of a column from Monroe Anderson.

You can see why Chiraq is not the best title for what’s really happening here. So, I’ve got a better suggestion. I think Spike should look at the artwork of visual artist James Pate and either beg, borrow or buy his cutting edge artistic vision. A couple of years ago, Pate had a three-month exhibition at the DuSable Museum. Its title was KKK--Kin Killin Kin.

The detailed black and white drawings, beautiful yet powerful, were of boys from the hood, wearing Ku Klux Klan-like headgear with their black faces exposed or basketball jerseys with the initials KKK on them while pointing guns at each other’s heads. The bullets they fired were artistically frozen just before they entered each other’s heads.

That unnerving reality would make a much more powerful movie than a sequel to the Hughes brothers 1993 hit.

I was thinking this could be another one of those message movies which seemed very popular in the 1990s.  This time at least a movie will be set on the south side of Chicago instead of South Central Los Angeles.

Also if you read the another issue is at play, gentrification. Violence is an important issue of course but not the only one. Neighborhoods like Bronzeville is changing and in the future the eye is on Englewood - where this movie will be set.

Crain's: Here is how you rebuild Bronzeville

Via The Chicago Neighborhoods

An application (app.)/game to rebuild a neighborhood? Interesting idea:

Here's how to have fun and an impact while you're at it: By playing a game on your smartphone, you could bring retailers and public spaces to a blighted swath of Chicago's South Side.

A new FarmVille-esque app called Build It! Bronzeville allows players to earn points by creating a new and improved Bronzeville (virtually, of course) by building a playground here and a police station there, a sandwich shop on this corner and offices on that one. Players can spend those points on other new amenities. They also can earn points by scanning receipts from real-life shopping in the neighborhood or wherever.

The game could guide the city on economic development and yield data that retailers might buy: How much money Bronzeville residents spend and on what, providing store owners a better idea of the kind of retail that would be viable.

For now, the Build It! Bronzevlille app lives on a developer's phone. Like the community it's designed to serve, the game needs investors so it can move from test product to market.

Read the whole thing - this article is from Crain's you might have to get beyond a paywall. Also check out their official website @ Team Build It!

Do you think an app. such as this could help revitalize other communities such as Englewood, Chatham, and Roseland?

Chicago Mag: Why Bob Mariano Wants Your Old Dominick’s Store

Marianos.com

Chicago Magazine interviews Roundy's CEO Bob Mariano. They discuss not only the expansion of Roundy's Mariano Fresh Market stores in the Chicago area and the decision by Safeway to exit the Chicago area and close their Dominick's stores last year. What's of focus here are the plans for a future Mariano's store in the Bronzeville neighborhood:

Mayor Emanuel has pledged to open supermarkets in so-called food deserts. Are you involved with that effort?

We’ve been working [with the mayor’s office] for a long time. We have a store in Jefferson Park, which, believe it or not, was a partial food desert for a long time. We’re working on a [Bronzeville] location at 39th and Martin Luther King Drive. [But] Jewel, Whole Foods, independent stores—we all do business in the city. Each needs to step up.

What’s the status of the Bronzeville store?

Because it’s [on Chicago Housing Authority land], there are things that CHA and the city have to do to free the site up. I hope that by this time next year we’re through the regulatory phase and ready to start. We had an architectural competition with four minority-owned architecture firms, because this is a very special location. We wanted the building to be reflective and respectful of the existing architecture.

We've been keeping an eye on the Bronzeville Mariano's for a while - at least since 2008 - although it's a long way from this part of town.

AP: Multiple groups vie for Obama's Presidential Library

President Barack Obama

The AP has a story about the many groups here in Chicago who are vying for their particular insitutions or neighborhoods to become home of the President's future library. Those sites include Bronzeville, Chicago State University, University of Chicago, Pullman, and even that former US Steel site on the southeast lakefront. In the case of Chicago State and Pullman:

There are also two potential bids on the Far South Side, one led by Chicago State University and the other by a group promoting the historic Pullman neighborhood. It was in those areas that Obama established his earliest roots in the city as a community organizer in the mid-1980s, setting up job training programs and defending the rights of public housing tenants.
...
The Far South Side is a longshot given its distance from downtown, lack of transportation options and the gang violence that persists there.

And presidential libraries aren't guaranteed to lift the local economy.

So far the main competitors are:

The main point of tension is between the University of Chicago, where Obama spent 12 years as a constitutional law professor until his 2004 election to the U.S. Senate, and a group advocating for Bronzeville, the city's historic center of black culture, business and politics.

"They think that they can get whatever they want," Bronzeville organizer Harold Lucas said of the university. "If you compare the cranes in the sky and that opulent growth of this university to the surrounding, predominantly African-American community, it's a travesty. It's a clear tale of two cities."

Lucas and other critics of the university's bid say the school has been secretly working its White House connections at the expense of a plan that would benefit more of the city and honor the black community's role in electing the nation's first black president.

For its part, the university says it wants to work with neighbors on a plan to build the library off-campus in a part of the South Side where it can spur development. A university spokesman declined to comment beyond the school's previous statements. 

We already know that Mayor Emanuel wants to submit only a unified bid for Obama's Presidential Library so the various groups need to come up with a good bid. And bear in mind one point of this article, "presidential libraries aren't guaranteed to life the local economy". That being said the library could easily either go to Hawaii where Presient Obama was born or to New York so time will only tell if Chicago will eventually succeed in its bid.

SUN-TIMES: Chicago to make unified bid for Obama presidential library

Well this is a great idea to post a single bid, however, that means the many universities or neighborhoods who are vying to be the site for a Presidential libraries would have to make their own pitches. It sounds fair of course, but then hey there's no guarantee it'll be in Chicago anyway.

Chicago is going to make one unified bid for President Barack Obama’s Presidential Library and Museum, with the University of Chicago and other city schools not making solo plays, Mayor Rahm Emanuel told me Thursday.

“We are going to run a process. But my goal is to have the City of Chicago, with its major educational institutions, have a single proposal,” Emanuel said.

“I don’t expect us to win this based on some sentiment toward the city,” Emanuel said.

As for his pitch to Obama, “I will remind him about his roots in Chicago, but I expect us to be as a city and as university systems competitive and to be very competitive in our proposal to have it come to Chicago.”

I have handicapped Obama’s library/museum as the University of Chicago’s to lose given its very close ties to the Obama family and its long list of wealthy potential donors in the Obama orbit.

With Emanuel moving to consolidate the city’s resources for a bid, University of Chicago has little choice but to forge an alliance with Emanuel, because it brings Emanuel’s own formidable fundraising abilities to the package.

City Hall has already been working internally on the project, Emanuel said. “Let me say this. It is important for the city to have the president’s library in his hometown, and we will be very competitive in our proposal, and we have put a lot of thought into it.”

According to this AP write-up from where I found the link to the Sun-Times, here are the groups who want the Presidential library:

 The University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago State University, and the University of Chicago have all expressed interest in being home to the library. So has a group from Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood that's promoting a lakefront site at a now-closed hospital.

OK, University of Chicago is a logical choice. And so is putting this library in Bronzeville at the site for the former Michael Reese Hospital. It would be cool if it was on the south side at Chicago State University. Have anyone else heard that the Pullman neighborhood was interested as well? It appears they're not even a blip on the radar now.

Oh yeah as for that Bronzeville site:

City Hall considers the former Michael Reese Hospital site at 29th and Ellis — close to downtown and an easy trip for tourists — as too big and too costly to develop.

Tourists can take a bus there or we could build an IC - oh I'm sorry Metra Electric - stop nearby to that site. Still it probably isn't as beneficial if it costs money to develop.

ALSO consider they mentioned fundraising. So UIC and Chicago State may not get the library because they may not have the fundraising ability of UChicago. In addition to that if Mayor Emanuel gets behind UChicago that will be a bid that's hard to beat.

Where do you think President Obama's library should reside?

Mariano's, Wal-Mart push into Bronzeville

I had found this article from Chicago Real Estate Daily that shows two grocers looking for property in Bronzeville namely on the site of former CHA housing projects. Within the past five or so years of the publication of this blog we did two posts about Roundy's intending to build a store on the site of the former housing projects along State Street. You check them out below:

• Grocery for Bronzeville - Sept. 27, 2008
• Roundy's to open grocery store in Bronzeville - Feb. 18, 2009

Now Roundy's plans to bring a Mariano's to that historic south side neighborhood formerly known as "the Black Metropolis" back in it's heyday which was the early to mid 20th century. Today it's an emerging neighborhood that's sure bet with IIT and close proximity to downtown Chicago.

It should be noted as well that Mariano's has been expanding in Chicago and there is already one open in downtown Chicago at Monroe/Halsted. Another is currently being built in the South Loop neighborhood located at 16th/Clark Streets. Mariano's is aiming for a spot at Pershing Rd. (or 39th Street) & State Street which was once the site of the former Ida B. Wells Homes and the development where the store is located is to be called "Oakwood Shores".

Also the Wal-Mart that's coming to Bronzeville is expected to be located at Pershing Rd (or again 39th Street) and King Drive which is also a site of another former housing project long since razed. It's expected to be a "supercenter" such as the one being built near 111th & Bishop Ford Expressway in Pullman. It'll be just like the stores on 83rd and the one in Austin. The article also reported that in 2012, Wal-Mart had already signed a 20 year lease to anchor a mixed use project at 47th/Cottage Grove with one of their small store formats.

What do you think of these developments?

Rosenthal: Rejuvenation of South Side the fair thing to do

It's great to know there are projects moving along on this part of town, but it would be nice to know of projects that would also benefit Englewood, Chatham, and other areas on the far south side. They closed Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune came was the vacant steel mill site in the South Chicago neighborhood. If the south side is benefitting from the rejuvenation what form would you like to see it take in our communities? Hat-tip Curbed Chicago!

How Black Gentrifiers Have Affected the Perception of Chicago's Changing Neighborhoods

Bronzeville Row Houses - Laura Chipps

How Black Gentrifiers Have Affected the Perception of Chicago's Changing Neighborhoods

Another wrinkle in the idea of gentrification. If any Black communities were to ever change and gentrify my only hope is that it's Blacks who are driving it. That's what this article from The Atlantic Cities seeks to argue.

The look at the case of Bronzeville (aka The Black Metropolis). It seems that even though the area has largely changed for the better in recent years. Still even then the area can't remove the stigma of the housing projects most of which have been torn down in the area, especially the ones along the State Street corridor.

Still it seems it's an entirely new thing to see that Blacks gentrifying urban neighborhoods is considered a new phenomenon. It's unheard of and it seems gentrification depends upon your race. Of course this depends upon who you talk to. In that vein this article we see a comparison between Bronzeville and Pilsen.

In any case we have talked about gentrification here on this blog. We have added the terms of South Looped or even Hyde Parked to the vocabulary here. Granted those terms haven't been used here in years!

Still, let's take this discussion further South. There is an interest to attract those same residents who are attracted to Bronzeville to this part of town as well. We want them to buy a home in Chatham for example. We also hope they might bring some of their amenities with them as well!

Would our part of town be burdened by the same issues that has burdened Bronzeville?

Bronzeville, a Neighborhood Whose Promise Has Been Stalled

Chicago News Cooperative:

Margo Strotter considered herself proof that the revival of Bronzeville was under way. She opened a sandwich and smoothie bar at 45th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue in early 2006 and waited for other businesses, inspired by a booming real estate market, to follow her lead.

Four years later, she and Nicole Jones, owner of the designer shoe store next door, are still waiting. No new stores have opened among the empty lots on their street corner since 2008, when development was stalled by the credit crisis and the city’s failed Olympics bid.

Ms. Strotter and Ms. Jones — along with the owners of a jewelry boutique, a coffee house and a menswear store — are among the commercial pioneers who tried to cash in on the buzz surrounding the South Side neighborhood that was once blighted by high-rise housing projects. Now their ventures are a cautionary tale: They are struggling to stay open and instill a sense of community on a street that is quiet during the day and has little sign of night life.

Bronzeville is one of many West Side and South Side areas that lured developers eager to take risks at the height of the national real estate boom. Revitalization of the South Loop was well under way by 2004 and attracted new restaurants, condominiums, coffee shops and a Target store. Speculators began looking at the depressed land prices in neighborhoods from North Lawndale east to South Shore and north to Edgewater.

“The boom petered out before everybody could make realistic investments,” said Garth Taylor, a senior research fellow at the Metropolitan Chicago Information Center. “The risks became unreasonable.”

Chicago developers, Mr. Taylor said, “would rather force another 50,000 square feet of unwanted retail in the middle of Lincoln Park.”

Bronzeville may not be ready for that "Renaissance" many entrepreneurs expected up until the "Great Recession". I know one place that is ready for them to drop by.

Ms. Strotter's establishment was featured in a YoChicago video back in 2007. You can watch it by clicking this link!

Would I be wrong if I said Chatham is ready for those businesses that are struggling up there in Bronzeville to come on down and set up shop?

I will encourage you to read this whole article!

Has crime been transported into Chatham?

Harold Lucas of the Bronzeville Visitor's Center starts off in this video (actually this is the second visitor of an interview by Marc Sims check out the first one here) saying that the crime that was once prevalent in Bronzeville has been transported into Chatham on 79th Street. He then goes on to say that making a heritage area out of Bronzeville could ultimately benefit other black neighborhoods on the South Side.

The question to ask is if you believe that crime has been transported into the Chatham community from Bronzeville?

Walmart- What workers say about the company

I recently found this article from Bronzeville Metropolis. I didn't agree with some of the points brought out in this article especially "economically challenged" Chatham community. But I found this interview with an employee from the West side store interesting.

I noticed Henry* at the Austin Wal-Mart, store lo­cated on Chicago’s west side, as I watched staff mem­bers pull him in different directions to either joke around or seek work-related advice. It appeared that he was well respected and admired by the younger associates, so I felt compelled to approach him to ask a simple question, “Do you enjoy working for Wal-Mart?” And unlike the other 6 associates I previously asked - who all robotically shouted “Yes”; Henry, a man in his late 50s, paused for a while, chuckled to himself and said “Yes”.

Henry is just one out the 1.4 million associates Wal-Mart employs in the U.S. - making it the largest pri­vate U.S. employer. Last fiscal year, Wal-Mart earned $401 billion in sales; which is larger than the GNP for even a small industrialized countries. e retail giant has historically developed stores in rural and subur­ban communities, however recently Wal-Mart has shielded its growth plans to aggressively pursue large urban markets and have successfully opened 2 urban stores in Los Angeles and Chicago.

While, they’ve achieved some success, other cities, such as New York, Detroit and D.C. won’t even enter­tain Wal-Mart’s proposals to develop a store concept within their city limits. There are two major reasons why Wal-Mart has experienced massive opposition: jobs & wages and community retail development. This opposition is currently happening right here on the Southside and the controversy is heavily centered on jobs and wages
.
Wal-Mart laid quietly dormant until October when the IOC gave Chicago a swift punch in the gut announcing Rio as their host city for the 2016 Olympics; but they found the bad news to be an op­portune time to reignite their interest in developing on the south side. Their next proposed location is for a 190,000 sq. ft. urban supercenter, which includes a full grocer, in the economically challenged com­munity of Chatham on 83rd and Stewart. The site is a mere 7 miles from our Bronzeville community and to understand the scaling would be to imagine a re­tail destination that could hold 75-100 Agriculture’s and Z & H’s; however without the benefit of diversity in services and products that small businesses tend to offer communities.

So what’s the big deal, right? In Chicago we’re suf­fering through tough economic times: people need money and people want to save money. Well, the Wal-Mart store debate boils down to this: jobs versus qual­ity jobs - it’s just that simple. Alderman Brookins, 21st ward, is advocating for the Wal-Mart in City Council, where his ordinance is currently sitting in the Finance Committee. According to a blog posting he made on Huffington Post, he merely states, “the store will create at least 400 new jobs and stimulate economic development.” He wants jobs, but it doesn’t seem to be transparent to south side residents what Brookins is proposing with regard to benefits for these Wal-Mart jobs.

On the other hand, Amisha Patel, a representative from the Good Jobs Chicago Campaign, was very clear on what the group defines as a quality job - jobs that provide workers with living wages and affordable health insurance. Good Jobs Chicago is a coalition of residents, business owners, Pastors, and organizations fighting for quality jobs from big box retailers, such as Wal-Mart. the group feels there is much room for improvement from big box retailers, as Amisha states, “existing low wages is not economic development...
we need good jobs so that workers can pay the rent, clothing, etc...and not be placed in a position to choose between two [necessary] things.”

Henry began working for Wal-Mart in 2007 at $8.40/hour. His disenchantment with the company developed because Ald. Mitts of Austin and Wal-Mart promised workers that by 2007 all employees would earn at least $10/hour and receive quarterly bonuses. Over the 2+years that Henry has been employed at Wal-Mart, he’s only received $1 in salary raises; bring­ing him just 60 cents shy of the $10/hour promised. He’s also only received 3 out of the 12 possible bo­nuses; his last bonus of $83 was paid last Spring.

Henry and I sat down over coffee to discuss his monthly expenses in order to illustrate the difficulty that a full-time Wal-Mart employee has with covering basic living expenses. Similar to the other Wal-Mart associates I spoke with, Henry subsidizes his and his child’s healthcare through government programs -- his wife is uninsured and relies on free clinics.

Henry takes home $1,170/month, which includes disability insurance and tax deductions, however his monthly living expenses are $1,613; leaving him $443 over budget. He supplements his income by working another job that pushes his total work week to 70 hours/week, excluding his 3 hour/day public trans­portation commute. When asked does he have time for fun, he responded as if the concept seemed for­eign, explaining that he lives a “simple life of church, home and work.” He continued, “Basically the way the schedule is, you don’t have that much [time for fami­ly], because your off days are not back to back...so you get off one day, you take care of errands, but by [then] it’s time to go to bed to go to work the next day.”

In response to Wal-Mart’s failed public commit­ments to Henry and all the “Henrys” working at Wal-Mart, Amisha states, “part of the challenge [is Wal-Mart] makes lots of claims that sound great, but in reality it’s quite different...Costco on the north side has quality living wage jobs, why can’t Southsiders get those same living wage jobs too.”

So yes Henry does have a Wal-Mart job; but the job forces him to work almost 2 full-time jobs just to cover his living expenses. Perhaps if Henry was given a choice between two jobs: one at status quo and one that gave him back the 30 extra hours taken away from laughing with his family, watching the game with his buddies, and being more active in his church - then who knows what story Henry would be sharing with me today.

*The name changed for purpose of protecting iden­tity of worker

Dhyia is a consultant with the virgoProject, LLC. Wal-Mart did not respond to Bronzeville Metropolis’ re­quest for an interview. For respectful exchanges of ideas please feel free to share comments at dhyia@yahoo.com, for all others stop and smell the roses.

What do you think?