Category: People

What is gentrification?

May 18, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Update: Read the discussion happening on YoChicago.com.

What is “a hipster”? The Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, was called a hipster last because he likes bicycles a lot.

What is Pilsen? What makes Pilsen different or not different from any other Chicago neighborhood? Does it have a similar history to Wicker Park or Old Town, other art communes?

Photo of a found drawing about getting intimidating “white hipsters” out of Pilsen by Jared Kachelmeyer.

I lived in Pilsen for two years and then moved south to Bridgeport for another two years, still riding through Pilsen almost daily and doing my grocery shopping at La Casa del Pueblo (it’s very cheap). I’ve written about Pilsen a few times before, first on pollution and then on its sticky relationship to University Village.

Pilsen is known for its mural art: each one is a statement about life in Pilsen or life before or after Pilsen. They’re messages to visitors and to residents; reminders about leaders and struggles.

Evidence of “Olympic change” in Rio’s favelas

May 16, 2011 / / 0 Comments

I have never read Al Jazeera’s English edition until yesterday. I think I saw a post to this article on Twitter; it’s about how construction for the Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro, Rio, Brasil, is already removing parts of the favelas, or hillside shantytowns. The article is quite relevant for me because I wrote last week about how rising ticket prices threaten the egalitarian nature of watching futebol at the Rio’s most famous stadium, the Maracanã. From Al Jazeera:

This week came a series of troubling tales of the bulldozing and cleansing of the favelas, all in the name of “making Brazil ready for the Games”. Hundreds of families from Favela de Metro find themselves living on rubble with nowhere to go after a pitiless housing demolition by Brazilian authorities. By bulldozing homes before families had the chance to find new housing or be “relocated”, the government is in flagrant violation of the most basic concepts of human rights.

As you might expect, residents and planners have different ideas on what it means to remove these homes:

[Eduardo] Freitas doesn’t need a masters from the University of Chicago to understand what is happening. “The World Cup is on its way and they want this area. I think it is inhumane,” he said.

The Rio housing authority says that this is all in the name of “development” and by refurbishing the area, they are offering the favela dwellers, “dignity”.

The same thing has happened all across the United States and is still happening in Chicago. The Chicago Housing Authority, very quickly in the past 10 years, has demolished all of its high-rises (some were converted to condominiums, like Raymond Hilliard Homes at 54 W Cermak, or transferred to different ownership) under the Plan for Transformation. This displaced thousands of residents; some were moved to newly-built multi-flat buildings in specially-designed, mixed-income neighborhoods. But there weren’t enough of these buildings to absorb all of the residents who had to move out of the high-rises. I’m still not clear on where they went.

A favela in Rio de Janeiro. Photo by Kevin Jones.

Chicago’s final public housing high-rise was demolished in April 2011.

Friday is final day for comments about Damen-Elston-Fullerton

May 12, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Tomorrow, Friday, May 13, 2011, is the final day to email comments to Bridget Stalla, project manager for the Damen-Elston-Fullerton reconfiguration.

What should you do?

  1. Read an overview of the project and my analysis
  2. View photos of the posters at April’s open house to understand what will and won’t change
  3. Think of what you like or don’t like about the project
  4. Email your comments to Bridget: bridget.stalla@cityofchicago.org
  5. Think about posting your comments here.

My draft comments

Here’s what I plan to email Bridget tomorrow:

  1. Bike lane on Damen – There should be a bike lane on Damen connecting the two ends north and south of Fullerton. Additionally, the bike lane should go THROUGH both intersections. See an example of a “through bike lane” in this photo. Too often bicyclists in Chicago are “dropped off” at intersections, left to fend for themselves and get caught in the same problems as automobiles. But automobiles and bicycles are different kinds of vehicles and need different treatments and direction.
  2. Roundabout – Was a roundabout considered for any of the three intersections? What were the results of this analysis? A modern, turbo roundabout should be given serious consideration for at least one of the three intersections.
  3. Curve and wide road on New Elston Avenue – On “New Elston Avenue” between Fullerton and Damen, there are two regular lanes and one bike lane in each direction. The widening of Elston was not justified. The high radius curve on New Elston Avenue on the east side of the project, and two regular lanes in each direction, will likely cause higher-speed traffic than bicyclists are used to on many roads on which they travel in great numbers. Automobile drivers speeding around the curve may enter the bike lanes. This is a good case for protected bike lanes at least on this part of the roadway.
  4. Removing the center island – Was removing the center island an alternative the project team considered?
  5. Queue backups caused by Fullerton-highway ramp intersection – The project area should be expanded to include the intersection to the west of the project area, at Fullerton/Kennedy ramp. Westbound drivers constantly and consistently block the Fullerton intersections with Damen and Elston while waiting to go through the signal at the highway ramp.

A bird’s eye view of the new configuration.

World Cup and Olympics construction will disadvantage Rio’s poor

May 9, 2011 / / 0 Comments

It is a scene we see every four years when the Olympics come around: Development that displaces a group of people who lack a good defense, unlike the futebol team they used to pay $1.80 to see.

There used to be a standing-room only general admission area in the Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, years ago, but no longer exists today, according to an article yesterday in the New York Times. (Rio will host the 2016 Olympics after beating Tokyo, Madrid, and Chicago.)

The price of tickets is important to cariocas (residents of Rio) because of the stadium’s “role as an egalitarian space in a heavily unequal city like Rio.”

“What could be lost is the nature of the stadium experience as something that cuts across the class segregation of the city as a whole,” Bruno Carvalho said, a Rio native who is an assistant professor of Brasilian studies at Princeton. “Do you give up the vitality of the Maracanã as a public space, a rare type of space in Rio where you can actually get together people of different social classes?”

Members of the National Fans Association understand that safety and comfort upgrades, for which the general admission area was removed, have to be made for an event such as the World Cup 2014, but they want to ensure that other venues under construction be integrated and their designers consult local urban planners and neighborhood groups.

Nine new venues will be constructed for the Rio Olympic Games, and seven venues will be constructed but removed after the closing ceremony. For the 2008 Beijing Olympics, thousands of city residents were “relocated.” Some reports say 15,000 moved voluntarily with compensation and another says 300,000 were evicted.

I have a concern that in the next five years, there will be founded accusations of cariocas’ civil rights as “progress” pushes them out of the way.

Photo of the Maracanã stadium by Phil Whitehouse.

New site brings together bike crash maps and projects

May 5, 2011 / / 0 Comments

I just finished creating a website that brings together my original Chicago bike crash map and all of its offshoots created by others. It also includes a more details and updated FAQ page as well as a short history of how the map and data came to be.

Enter the Crash Portal.

Right now it features projects from myself, Francesco Villa, Derek Eder, and George Aye’s students at the School of the Art Institute “Living in a Smart City” class. The site also links to my inspiration: Boston and San Francisco. If you have a related project, email me and I’ll figure out a way to add it to the site.

Screenshot of new Crash Portal