GENERATIONS LOST The Green Healthy Neighborhoods plan illustrates the impact of the traditional formula of planning and development on a neighborhood scale across the communities surrounding the Commonwealth. It exemplifies the Chicago Way of Planning: years-long planning processes that propose utopic solutions that fall short of what is needed and fail to deliver what is promised. G reen Healthy Neighborhoods (GHN) was initiated in 2011 by the Department of Planning and Development (DPD) and the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP). After an 18-month planning process, GHN outlined a “10-to-20-year planning strategy to maximize the use of vacant land and 1 across Englewood, West Englewood, other neighborhood resources” Washington Park, Woodlawn, and surrounding community areas. The GHN plan was adopted by the Chicago Plan Commission in 2014.
“PROBLEM”
PLANNED “SOLUTION”
~11,000 VACANT LOTS | 800+ ACRES
CREATE URBAN FARM DISTRICT
Vacant lots defined as a “crisis;” as if they are naturally occurring, rather than a constructed ecology of absence brought on by redlining, urban renewal, etc.
10 YEARS
Create a “green belt” of urban farms on ~100 acres of city-owned and transform an abandoned rail line into the Englewood Nature Trail.
OUTCOME
$39
MILLION IN 2 PUBLIC FUNDS
900+ ACRES VACANT 3 LAND REMAIN
Nearly a decade later, vacancy persists. A generation of children have grown up amidst hundreds of acres of vacant land and buildings left unkept by the City of Chicago and absentee owners. As buildings deteriorate, the acreage of vacant land grows. In 2020, Chicago’s Invest South/West initiative documented “vacant 4 lots not being maintained” as one of residents’ “main concerns.” Yet, the city continues to pursue GHN’s vision, choosing to extract city resources toward the 5 $72M Englewood Nature Trail for which construction will not begin until 2026. What value does an elevated nature trail bring to children who walk through blocks of littered, vacant lots and buildings en route to school? Is the trail a 6 “pathway to community revitalization” if it doesn’t address the needs of people, land, and buildings on the ground?
Developed by Sweet Water Foundation for Re-Mapping the Publics… (2023). Shared under Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives. info@sweetwaterfoundation.com