Chicagoans hope high-rise demolitions raise bar for pooer (sic)

Boston Globe ^ | May 9, 2004 | Eric Ferkenhoff

[sarcasm]

CHICAGO -- At the midpoint of the nation's largest, most watched project to transform public housing, critics say the city has been slow and sloppy in relocating Chicago's most down-and-out residents. The old high-rises are coming down much faster than new low-rise, mixed-income developments are going up, and housing analysts worry that residents are getting lost in the shuffle.

< SNIP >

The goal is to rid Chicago, which once counted 39,000 public housing units, of most of the high-rise developments and many of the squat, low-rise buildings. These would be replaced with mixed-income communities where some apartments will be saved for the destitute, some for the working poor, and some for wealthier residents.

< SNIP >

This summer, in a bid to soften the image of housing authority residents so wealthier Chicagoans will buy into the mixed-income developments, an advertising campaign will showcase some of the system's success stories. The faces of men and women who shunned gangs and drugs and landed jobs that lifted them up financially will be featured in ads in newspapers and on buses and trains.

[BenLurkin]

Man - that is one series typo.

[MonroeDNA]

Sounds like a train wreck to me.

[Mark was here]

Like Polikoff, Popkin said the plan's chief failing so far is the inadequate efforts to relocate. Complaints include that buildings are coming down faster than replacements are going up, residents aren't getting necessary counseling and support needed for such a vast change, and many residents are being relocated to developments or apartments in areas nearly as poor and just as segregated.

When the dog poops on the floor you have to clean it up...

[joesnuffy]

Socialist housing always brings out the best in people....

[Thebaddog]

Why on earth would a Chicago housing story be coming out of Boston? Why would they care at all about the dirty old interior?

[ShorelineMike]

Chicagoans hope high-rise demolitions raise bar for pooer

Now, why would high-rise demolitions make it more difficult to get to a toilet? :-)

[Darheel]

I must comment on this article.

Public anything is a disaster: look at public schools, transportation, housing; all of it is a mess. Living in Chicago, I realized in the 70's that these poor (in spirit) folks were being mass-housed to shut them up by Daley. When crack hit the streets in the 80's, the Henry Horner Homes and other 'model' public housing in Cicago became war zones, trapping literally millions of of several generations in the crossfire. Now the emphasis is on tearing these blights down and moving the families to the suburbs, like Bollingbrook and Woodridge, where I lived for several years next to people moving in from the projects. They need this chance, to get away from vertical incarceration and into the air. The inherent goodness of these vastly Christian yet illiterate people is blighted by their lack of opportunity in the City; imagine having to walk 2 or three miles through gangland just to go to a grocery store because there are none in the projects. When I realized the inhumanity of public housing, I stopped blaming these people and started blaming the real culprit: Liberals.

However, there is one outsatnding issue that must someday be settled, and that is punishment of the Liberals who condemned these folk to public housing. Daley and his family, the Dems in the City Council, and all the other anti-humans that run Chicago have not been properly punished for their blatant, cynical, crimes against huimanity and their inherent racism, a racism that seems to have changed very little since the Dems owned slaves before the civil war regardless of the rhetoric.

[RichInOC]

Was that accidental, or were you deliberately going for the Rush Limbaugh thing?

[RichInOC]

I withdraw that question from you and redirect it to the bozo copy editor at the Globe.

[dufekin]

Consider a toilet on the 24th floor of a tower. If we take down the entire tower except the toilet (and all the plumbing), sitting on the toilet might be dangerous. It might not be easy climbing the 24 floors when the stairs and the elevator are gone.

[Kozak]

Now the emphasis is on tearing these blights down and moving the families to the suburbs, like Bollingbrook and Woodridge, where I lived for several years next to people moving in from the projects. They need this chance, to get away from vertical incarceration and into the air. The inherent goodness of these vastly Christian yet illiterate people is blighted by their lack of opportunity in the City; imagine having to walk 2 or three miles through gangland just to go to a grocery store because there are none in the projects. When I realized the inhumanity of public housing, I stopped blaming these people and started blaming the real culprit: Liberals.

Oh yeah all that crime and blight was caused by the Martians that came down and destroyed those housing projects. Bet all the fine folk who worked all their lives so that they could buy a home in the suburbs just LOVE having inner city welfare families GIVEN homes on their blocks. By the way, those housing projects sit on prime near downtown real estate, and will be turned over into lovely, expensive condo's, at great profit to those in the "club" in Chicago. Meanwhile the other neighborhoods in the City and suburbs will have to deal with the problems this is going to cause.

[Darheel]

"Meanwhile the other neighborhoods in the City and suburbs will have to deal with the problems this is going to cause."

I sleep good at night knowing these poor folks aren't rotting away in crime-ville. Sure there will be problems, but there are always problems. I suppose warehousing them for another 20 years would be your solution eh? I prefer they had a shot at a new life, because the vast majority are Christians and deserve a second chance. From the tone of your screed, I wager you wouldn't.

[Kozak]

And I'll bet that unlike myself, you view this from some Olympian height. I grew up in the inner city in Chicago near Humboldt Park. I saw many neighborhoods destroyed by well intentioned people like yourself. Each of those neighborhoods had people who had invested everything they had into their homes, only to see it pissed away. I hope they move a few section 8 housing folk on either side of you, then we can talk in about 5 years.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

When crack hit the streets in the 80's, the Henry Horner Homes and other 'model' public housing in Cicago became war zones, trapping literally millions of of several generations in the crossfire.

They were already like this in the 60's. That's why crack hit the streets there. Just another new product launch by the local Recreational Drugs Division of the Intercity Crime Corporation.

[FITZ]

imagine having to walk 2 or three miles through gangland just to go to a grocery store because there are none in the projects

But who is making it "gangland"? The gangs are made up of the puberty age kids of these same "families".