University of Chicago -- The Meteoric Rise

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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“@JBStillFlying Are they, though? We have a community considered an urban “blight” filled with many poor, Black residents, a rapidly expanding university concerned about its image knocking on its doors, and a healthy dose of structural racism. Sounds very similar to 50s Hyde Park to me.”

@HydeSnark not quite. Mid 20-th century had several destabilizing factors such as large migration from the south causing rapid demographic changes on the south side, a loss of industrial jobs in the area, and massive social unrest (today’s problems regarding this last factor simply don’t compare). The overall outlook for both the south side and for American Blacks today in general is much, much better than it was 50 or 60 years ago!

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I’m skeptical. None of those were direct factors in Hyde Park’s “urban renewal”, though they were important to understanding the cultural landscape of the South Side.

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The problem of poverty in certain areas of city originated with realtors and banks red lining certain neighborhoods. The government built public housing for city residents (largely blacks) while they made government insured mortgages available to city whites. The public housing was nice when built. However those that had mortgages made available to them concentrated wealth due to appreciation. They, their children and grandchildren benefited. Those given public housing were consigned to paying rent in declining neighborhoods. They never built equity and had to send children and grandchildren to declining public schools. Good jobs are now scarce in these neighborhoods. At one time people of all races worked together making fairly similar wages in Chicago industry (working class wages). But ingrained institututionalized racism and segregation in housing developed to such an extent in the 50s and 60s that generations were relegated to lower class status while others made the leap to middle class status thanks to essentially white only mortgages written for White only neighborhoods (with many jumping to suburbs as they grew). There is a sad history in Chicago. If you doubt it, all you have to do is look at the original developer deeds in “good neighborhoods” where you will see restrictive covenants prohibiting sale to certain races and religions. It took federal legislation to evicerate those covenants but they remain to show in part why some neighborhoods and the people in them. still struggle. Many were not allowed equal access to the American Dream of home ownership.

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@HydeSnark those factors directly contributed to changing socioeconomic status, poverty and crime on the southside, which in turn contributed directly to declining enrollment at the University of Chicago, which contributed directly to the university’s decision to engage in the urban renewal project.

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@HydeSnark I acknowledge your general point, but I think it is overstated. It requires one to pretend that the University and the City of Chicago and the local community institutions haven’t learned a single thing since 1950. What happened back then was a ham-fisted response, but it was a ham-fisted response to an new and rapidly changing situation that people did not understand. The University and the City quite literally were afraid that the University would collapse and close. Some of that fear undoubtedly had underpinnings of racism - it was prior to the Civil Rights movement, and social enlightenment was a rare commodity. But it was more about a lack of understanding of social and economic dynamics, and it happened all over the country. Chicago, New York, Philly, Boston, San Francisco etc. All of them took drastic (and stupid) urban renewal measures in large part because they didn’t have a clue what else to do.

My point is this: what happened in the 1950s in Hyde Park and elsewhere has been studied for 70 years, and it it simply is not going to happen again. No one is bulldozing entire neighborhoods and moving people to giant sterile housing projects anymore. Not simply because activists will fight it, but because no one wants it - not the University, not the City, not the current residents. The results were lousy for everyone, not just the residents who got booted. What they all want is to revitalize that neighborhood with more and better economic activity, not destroy it or drive everyone out for 40,000 brand new yuppies.

Do you really think that former neighborhood activist Barack Obama is the figurehead on a new secret U of C plan to kick out all the current African-American residents of the Woodlawn neighborhood 1950s style?

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And where would they go - to yet another giant sterile housing project? Those have rightfully been recognized as complete failures and demolished.

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No they’re bulldozing entire neighborhoods and not moving the residents anywhere (except onto a 20+ year long waitlists) in most cases. And the trauma center battle between the community and UChicago was resolved only last year (after 25 years of conflict). So the dynamics that HS is explicitly reacting to aren’t just part of the distant past.

I agree with Chrchill (you’ll probably never hear me say that again, LOL) that this thread has jumped the shark.

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Many of the benefits of development being touted here (more tax revenues, better public services, better money for public schools) would have a huge impact if we were talking about a small town/county. In Chicago, the availability of money in an area isn’t usually the issue. Because revenues are spent at the City of Chicago or Cook County level (with some projects, like the Regional Housing Initiative, bringing multiple counties together), new tax revenues will mostly go into a city/countywide pot of money. Some will return to Woodlawn, but tax revenues in the neighborhood are only loosely linked to government spending.

Gentrification can still bring benefits - integration (on the right terms, as exacademic pointed out) will improve schools by changing the peer group, improve public services due to a more influential population, and help bring jobs to the area. But the right terms matter. If new development means a Whole Foods and more hipster coffee shops, that might be the price to pay. If the hipster shops crowd out community-owned businesses like Greenline Coffee, a Whole Foods paycheck isn’t enough to cover higher rents, and gentrification doesn’t bring more affordable stores to the area, the benefits will mostly be felt by well-heeled newcomers.

Glossing over the risks for renters is a big mistake. As of last year, only 1 in 6 units in Woodlawn were occupied by homeowners. A fair number are vacant, but more than half the area’s units house renters. An increase in rents will have a direct impact on the pocketbooks of half the community. If the supply of affordable housing isn’t maintained as the area develops, many will be pushed out. That’s a lot of collateral damage. This won’t necessarily happen - an approach like New York’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing might help - but development near the university doesn’t tend to put the community first unless the U of C is left with no choice.

I’ll add that the neighborhood has been turning the corner for some time now. Sunshine Enterprises, the business incubator that started Greenline, is aiming to put 200 businesses on 61st Street (not sure what the timeline is). There’s a new retail/mixed-income housing project going up on 61st/Cottage Grove, and several newly opened stores are providing relatively inexpensive goods. The Obama Library, if done right, can accelerate the process. Done wrong, it could nip these community-centered developments in the bud.

That’s why, although residents are glad the Obama library is coming to the area, there’s a major push for a Community Benefits Agreement that will provide certain guarantees for the neighborhood. The Obama Foundation has shown little interest so far. In other news, rumor has it the president rejected an earlier, less costly design for his library - it was “too unflashy.” One project intended to complement the library is the redesigned Jackson Park golf course, and while golf is fun (said the twice-yearly player who usually shoots 40 above par) it’s largely a rich person’s game. It seems unlikely most players would come from the community as it is now. All this raises some questions about the Foundation’s priorities, and the main beneficiaries of the development it’ll spur. Yes, the Obama Foundation wants to create the best library it can, and it’s true the president has a stated commitment to making his presidential center integrated with the community, but residents are understandably concerned.

A few sources:

http://sjnnchicago.medill.northwestern.edu/blog/2016/10/24/renewing-woodlawn-increasing-homeownership/

https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2017/4/11/woodlawn-anticipates-development-change-ahead-upco/

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So the university wouldn’t build a level 1 trauma center because it feared declining enrollments as a result of all the black people coming in and using it? Would be more willing to bet that level 1 trauma centers are money holes.

Succumbing to the demands of the community (even after a 20-25 year battle) isn’t exactly the same thing as what went on 60 years ago. While the university surely throws its weight around, the measures of yesteryear were in response to concerns about viability. Not exactly something that they’ve had to worry about for awhile now.

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^ I think it’s more complicated than that. My understanding from reading some articles on the issue was that people were dying because they had to be transported to hospitals with trauma units much further away. And the community perceived this as a critical issue that the UChicago was unwilling to address until they brought it to the forefront. The perspective was that UChicago had a responsibility to the community to tackle this issue and not turn a blind eye. Because if the victims were wealthy and white it would be a non issue.

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I agree we should create a new thread for this Woodlawn discussion, if you want to go deeper in it. It seems like it would be lively on its own thread.

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@goingnutsmom if the victims were wealthy, white and needed to be brought to a level 1, they’d be up the same creek.

Michelle O. was embroiled in a related matter. Dudes, this is about allocation of resources, not racism. Very few hospitals are like CCH. Level 1 is an ED provider’s dream come true but they are notoriously expensive and very limited in supply as a result. The lack of a Level 1 on the south side has more to do with systemic issues in the health care field than they do with UChicago specifically. The university is an easy target in this issue, not surprisingly.

Totally agree this discussion should move to another thread! My apologies for contributing to the hijack!

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It’s not completely a hijack, though. When I was 17, in the mid-70s, I barely considered the University of Chicago, even though I was well aware of its academic prowess. The problems of Hyde Park (and, yes, its reputation for unhappy students) were barriers that took it off the list. Now, it’s clear that students today who are like I was then will give Chicago more thoughtful consideration. But I think it’s also clear that neighborhood concerns – whether or not based in racism – are hurdles for Chicago to clear in becoming as popular and respected as it deserves to be. Some of the issues are self-inflicted, too. Hyde Park lacks the fun of most university neighborhoods in large part because the University of Chicago systematically squeezed the fun out of it to make it less attractive to people in the surrounding communities.

How Chicago handles its expansion, and how it engineers its relationship to its surrounding communities, will have a direct and nearly immediate impact on whether it is able to cement its status as a peer to the very top undergraduate institutions in the country.

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The tour guide on DD’s tour last October said something like “if you get run over by a car on the Midway, we’ll have our own level 1 trauma center for you”.

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^ Lol… love that comment. But since my D is over at BJ and has to cross the Midway, I hope it doesn’t happen to any kid.

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@JHS

My recollection of the neighborhood surrounding Yale on the one occasion I visited that campus was that it was also not very full of fun stuff for students - hence very unlike the neighborhoods Hyde Park is always being unfavorably compared to (Madison or Austin or Berkeley). In one respect Hyde Park might have the edge on New Haven as I remember it: while HP definitely lacks or once lacked stores, restaurants and hangouts that could be called fun places, it has many pleasant leafy residential streets with modest but attractive apartment blocks and houses (less modest and even more attractive once you get to Kenwood). Many faculty once lived in Hyde Park-Kenwood, though I’m not sure they can afford to now. All those students who no longer lived in dorms after first or second year also lived there - and in adjacent areas such as South Shore and Woodlawn (both neighborhoods in which I once lived). Hyde Park itself was cosy rather than exciting, a good place to live if you liked bookstores, not so good if you liked the night life (though the Hyde Park Cinema on a Saturday Night, especially if a Bond flick or a new Fellini was playing, was pretty lively). I never thought of Hyde Park as dangerous in those days, and it seems to be even less so today. Correct me if my impressions of New Haven are flawed.

Another point you were making especially interests me: True, we students and alumni are always complaining that the administration of the University has not sufficiently fostered the fun establishments in Hyde Park. I had always thought that this was just part of furthering the serious and even sombre ambiance of the place: the administration’s neglectful attention or else focus of that attention on merely sustaining the neighborhood as a place of residence. This strategy could certainly be objected to, but I haven’t before heard it said that its purpose was to render the neighborhood so devoid of fun as to “make it less attractive to people in the surrounding communities.” Is that speculation on your part, or are you aware of some memorandum or other source for that strategy?

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@lea111 - LOL - yes, beginning in 2018!

Things might be a bit different now but my visits to the ED in the early 90’s consisted of being triaged and waiting for over an hour while residents from the community were served first - many of them after I arrived. The reality is, my emergency was not as pressing as theirs. Wouldn’t have occurred to me that as a student I was moved to the back of the line - but you never know (personally, student health was awful in those days but if you could get an appt. in their regular clinics you usually got decent care).

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I think a lot ill turn on whether they have sufficient portable toilets in the Midway … PLEASE CREATE YOUR OWN THREAD

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@marlowe1 :

I am not certain where I heard that. It may have been college folklore from my kids. There is little question that there was a systematic effort to close down all bars and clubs in Hyde Park other than Jimmy’s. Who really knows whether the motive was to foster academic seriousness, to reduce opportunities for conflict between the UofC community and members of other communities that were patronizing bars and clubs there, or perhaps to make Hyde Park more attractive to faculty members and administrators with families . . . or maybe something of all three.

Re: New Haven and Yale. New Haven has not been much of a selling point for Yale, either, in the last 50 years. There are a few significant differences, however, which have meant that its neighborhood has been less of a drag on Yale than on Chicago.

First – in the past few decades, Yale has done a lot to spiff up the area around the campus. There are lots of restaurants, bars, and shops that cater to students and their families. The near off-campus is much livelier now than it was in the 70s and 80s. And even then, we didn’t have to walk more than a short block or two to get pizza or a grinder or a pitcher (or two) of beer at midnight. Second – because non-Yale New Haven was never much of a cultural mecca, and because almost all undergraduates lived in university housing, the expectation was always that the campus itself was the center of people’s lives and entertainment, much more so than is the case at Chicago. Chicago has gotten a lot better in this regard in recent years, but on a typical weekend night there is a lot more to do on campus at Yale, and more people doing it. Third – Yale essentially dominates downtown New Haven. It’s not in a remote satellite neighborhood. So you don’t see a lot of run-down, bombed-out residential neighborhoods when you are there. The few nearby residential areas are full of grad students. There isn’t anything that naturally takes students into the worse neighborhoods in New Haven. So its out of sight and out of mind.

Finally, New Haven is smaller than Chicago, and its crime rates don’t get any publicity. No one reads in their home town newspapers that murders there have spiked 30% this year, etc., or that someone is shot every x minutes. Crime rates there may be higher than in Chicago, but the general public is not likely to be aware of that. And of course the actual crime rates in either city has little or no effect on campus crime.

Mind you, I am not saying that New Haven is better than Hyde Park. Being in the city of Chicago is an incredible advantage for the university, and Hyde Park is a very nice neighborhood. Both Yale and Chicago are affected by concerns about crime and security. At Chicago, however, it always seems like more of an immediate concern than it does at Yale, whether or not that is justified.

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Talk about unfun places, try Palo Alto, great if you like living in the middle of a residential area with limited options for food, drink and general good times.