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Renewal on the Near North Side

            “The area in and around Cabrini Green public housing project on Chicago’s Near North Side was, by the mid-1990’s, a troubled place indeed, characterized by extreme poverty, racial isolation, near universal unemployment, school failure, rampant drug and alcohol abuse, violent crime, and physical blight” (Fleming, 126)


NTRAC Plan: With all the violence and poverty plaguing the Cabrini Green area of the Near North Side, a development plan (North Town Community Redevelopment Plan) was created in an attempt to alter the area and develop it into a “safe, drug-free neighborhood.” One of the main points the plan lays out is that the diversity of the area was an advantage and its social, economic and racial integration was a positive thing that should be preserved. To ensure that this was maintained the plan included “the building of a Town Center, provision of new parks and community institutions, and the installation of better circulation patterns around and through the Cabrini Green site” (Fleming, 127). Here we see the neighborhood’s effort to establish a greater public atmosphere where the community can come together and sustain an integrated population. This combined with a proposal for 2,500 new mixed income housing seemed to be the solution to the violence. The plan strived to make the public housing residents feel as though North Town belonged to them as much as it did to anyone else. Essentially, the proposal attempted to persuade those of every race and income level that they had an equal part in their community, North Town. Having this mentality would result in less violence in the neighborhood.


Children play basketball as buildings of Cabrini Green are demolished


Dantrell Davis: The NTRAC plan did not receive much attention until the infamous Dantrell Davis incident. Dantrell Davis was a young boy who lived in one of the high-rises at Cabrini. On October 13, 1992 he was shot and killed by a sniper fired by a man from a tenth floor window of a vacant apartment nearby. This, and several other snipings occurring the summer of 1992 made the violence of North Town apparent throughout the community. Now that the violence was “real” something had to be done. Immediately, several people responded. The white community’s solution was demolition. This was the typical white response to disasters in the black ghetto. Also, an international competition for the redesign of Cabrini Green was announced.

This led to the creation of the first of a "contentious series of proposals for redeveloping Cabrini Green" (Fleming, 128) by the CHA.


Dantrell Davis


CHA Plan:

-Would cost $120 Million

-$50 Million of federal HOPE VI funds to demolish three buildings at the project and renovate a fourth

-Had to replace each of the 660-690 units from the demolished buildings because of the one-for-one rule (had yet to be repealed)

-300-330 new units on the 9-acre Cabrini North site

-190 units scattered across metropolitan area

-167 “section 8” vouchers provided for use

-Would provide 1,200 new housing units in the area, 75% for moderate-income residents and 25% for very low-income families


“At the time, it was the most radical plan for remaking a Chicago public housing development in decades” (Fleming, 128)



Demolition in Near North Side


The original proposal was turned down, but after some reworking it won a $50 million HOPE VI grant. After the demolition of two buildings began, the head of CHA, Vince Lane, was fired and the plan was halted. The new director, Joseph Shuldiner, issued a RFP for the site now that the CHA had $50 million to spend. This led to the creation of the NNRI.


Near North Redevelopment Initiative (NNRI):

$1 billion, ten year, public-private plan to build a mixed-income community in the area, with new housing scattered across 70 acres of a 330-acre redevelopment district.” (Fleming, 129)

-8 buildings of Cabrini Extension North would be demolished

-Remaining 15 high-rises and all of the row houses would be redeveloped

-Intended to change the neighborhood into a mixed-income community

-50% of units to be sold or rented at market rate

-20% affordable for moderate-income residents

-30% public housing.


Once again the proposal was halted because the Cabrini Green Local Advisory Council (LAC) sued CHA for creating a proposal that would have a “racial discriminatory impact on the neighborhood.” Finally the LAC, the city, and the CHA signed a consent decree.

 

Final Agreement:

- CHA agrees to 700 new public housing eligible units (no minimum income requirements and rent fixed at 30% of family income)

- City agrees to reserve 270 of the "affordable" units for families making less than 80% a.m.i.

- LAC agrees to demolition of buildings

- Income mix of new units: 50% market rate, 20% affordable and 30% public housing


"In October 2001, nearly a decade after the killing of Dantell Davis the city issued an RFP for the redevelopment of Cabrini Extension North, the cornerstone of the NNRI (Fleming, 132)."


In 2003 work commenced


Analysis: Throughout his book City of Rhetoric, Fleming points to the importance of the use of rhetoric when designing several spaces, buildings and areas. He claims that the design and use of a space plays a big role in the behavior and interaction between the people inhabiting it. In this chapter, Fleming writes about how the behavior of the inhabitants of Near North Side and North Town Village is believed to be altered due to mixed-income housing. In this specific section the area analyzed is Near North Side. All the proposals mentioned have many similar rhetorical aspects. The audience for all the proposals is the LAC, CHA and the city. More specifically it is the current and future residents of Cabrini Green. Also, all the proposals share a similar goal: to create harmony, unity and decrease violence in the community and also to promote the establishment of many similar projects in other cities and neighborhoods. Another thing to consider is the power of the murder of Dantrell Davis. Until this occurred nobody really paid attention to the proposals for change. It is events like these that are necessary to persuade the public. With this example we see the rhetorical device known as ethos in effect. The death of the little boy makes the “wrong” in Cabrini Green apparent to the rest of the neighborhood. Also, the sympathy felt for the family and little boy himself encourages others to strive to bring about the necessary change. This has a big effect on the mindset toward redeveloping Cabrini Green into a mixed-income community.



 

Matias


DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.
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DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.