Power of Five Challenge #2: Montserrat Alsina @ Colibri Gallery

(Photo: Visitors at Colibri Gallery during Pilsen Open Studios. The woman on the left holds this year's "passport.")

Printmaker, dancer, performance artist and community-builder Montserrat Alsina was instrumental in organizing this year's Pilsen Open Studios. One of her bright ideas was to create a "passport" -- a small booklet which visitors could take with them and have the artists sign or stamp. Visitors were encouraged to tear out the last page of the passport with their comments and put it in a raffle to win free art classes, a t-shirt or a print.

Though the idea was to use this as a carrot to draw young people--the passports were distributed at three local schools before the weekend event--older folks used it, too. "When I was going on the bus, I saw the grownups were getting really into it! They were going up to the artists and getting their signatures," she said.

The studio/gallery space she shares with her husband, Roberto Ferreyra, was the starting point for this year's tour. The gallery features not only their own prints and drawings but also work from Mexican artists with whom they have arranged an exchange program.

As the weekend wound down, Alsina observed they had met the goal of drawing more local residents. "I'm seeing more people from the community." Though often artists' communities are associated with a rise in property taxes and changing neighborhoods, she and other West Pilsen artists see their role as based in the existing community. "We want to keep people here and the children here and the taxes down. There's a lot of things that can be done in the community."

It's tough to raise Pilsen's profile in a positive way without accelerating gentrification, but it can be done by building community from the inside out. "You take the risk that more people will want to move this way and it will change us. If we stay together as artists and communicate more with the Latino community, I think we can encourage people to stay here."

For more information about Alsina, check out this post from art pilsen.

Who owns Humboldt Park?

Forty years ago, it seemed people could not move fast enough to get out of Humboldt Park. Those were the days of arsons and people fleeing urban areas, not just in Chicago but around the country--when social scientists were predicting "the death of the cities."

Bickerdike Redevelopment Corp. was started in part to help good folks--hard working class folks, as a presidential candidate might say, who wanted to stay in their community. Today Bickerdike is still helping the same kinds of folks to stay in the community, but now instead of mass flight and resulting devaluation of homes, it's the opposite sort of pressure to get out: people with more money who want to move in to the area.

A snapshot from that debate: a video from Humboldt Park No Se Vende / Humboldt Park is not for sale, by Humboldt Park Participatory Democracy Project, Joe Zekas from Yo Chicago, part of the New Homes magazine publishing group, saying he's "disgusted" and some down the middle commentary from Justin Massa of MoveSmart (who happens to work on fair housing issues, as well).

Fair warning, the video is 10 minutes long.

The blogfest on this topic seems to revolve around whether it's OK for Puerto Rican folks in the neighborhood to say keep the yuppies out to keep the neighborhood true to its cultural heritage, or whether that violates the spirit or letter of fair housing laws.

The flipside of strong neighborhoods in Chicago is sometimes de facto segregation, right--thank you Robert Putnam (blog)? For me rhetoric aside we ought to be able to agree that folks who want to leave an urban community, can leave, while folks who want to stay, should have available all the resources that are practical to be able to stay--like affordable rental & homeownership options.

Folks can disagree about what's the right amount and intensity of such programs, but I hope that in this day and age we can also all agree that they need to be in the mix, and that development needs to strike some balance between growth and holding on to the cultural traditions that help to form a community in the first place. I think I'll just say: keep talking, folks!

Wanted: CDC for Third Ward

Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to attend a symposium at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration about how to revitalize a community without gentrifying it and displacing existing residents. Breakout sessions looked at questions like:

• Why is my child's school closing? Is there a connection between school closings and gentrification in North Lawndale?
• How have community organizations in Austin worked to help residents stay in their neighborhood?
• How do city and other governmental policies affect housing and economic development? What's politics got to do with it?
• How can community development help grow people's strengths and social resources?

I attended the session on government and how policy plays into development issues. We looked at the situation in Lathrop Homes, where the Logan Square Neighborhood Association has been working with residents to develop an alternative to the CHA Plan for Transformation process. Organizer John McDermott compared the Plan for Transformation to a set menu that doesn't fit everyone's nutritional needs. He noted that because Lathrop is so close to expensive neighborhoods like Bucktown and Roscoe Village, building market-rate homes there would only cater to the wealthiest residents of Chicago.

Instead, residents want to see Lathrop become one-third public housing, one-third affordable rental, and one-third affordable homeownership, to give existing residents the opportunity to "move up" in income without having to move out of their home community to buy a house. Alderman Manny Flores has publicly supported the plan, which is still under discussion with CHA.

Another guest in the session was Third Ward Alderman Pat Dowell, who spoke candidly about the challenge of managing development in a ward that ranges from "White Castle to White House" in demographics and mindset. A big question she faces is how to build homes for families earning $50,000 a year or less. (If you don't know Ald. Dowell, this profile from The Windy Citizen does a good job of capturing her unassuming style and thoughtful approach to her ward.)

She's working on an affordable homeownership project in Fuller Park, where homes would sell for between $160,000 and $190,000. But the median household income in Fuller Park as of 2000 was only $18, 412, putting those homes out of reach for many current residents. Also in 2000, about 30 percent of the neighborhood's homeowners were paying 40 percent or more of their income to keep their homes.

During the session I asked her if her ward had been able to take advantage of New Homes for Chicago, a city program which builds single-family homes, condos and two-flats for moderate-income buyers. Dowell said she'd like to bring in that program, but right now there's no active community development corporation to do the construction work. (The fastest way to find out more about New Homes for Chicago is to put it in Google. I tried to paste in the long and complex link from the City of Chicago web site, but it didn't work.)

I wonder if any of those bright-eyed social work graduate students have buddies in business school they could partner with to start up their own CDC. Social entrepreneurs, opportunity may await you in Chicago's Third Ward.

Is condo bust good for some 'hoods?

In my neighborhood of Rogers Park, the recent condo boom transformed whole blocks of formerly affordable (and often run-down) apartment buildings. A survey by Lakefront CDC counted 3,600 condo units created or converted since 2003, and my own walks around the neighborhood suggest the long-term numbers are much higher.

Is this a good thing? For Rogers Park and other hot 'hoods -- Logan Square, Humboldt Park, Pilsen, Albany Park -- the gut renovations and Euro kitchens will extend the lives of hundreds of courtyard buildings, six-flats and corner buildings. With millions invested by developers, and shops and restaurants following the money into the neighborhoods, these areas have a good shot at long-term stability.

That's mostly good, especially if the alternative is losing buildings to decay and demolition.

But thousands of renters have had to move -- and not just down the block, because those buildings are turning too. Next door on Pratt Avenue, we watched two corner buildings shift from rental to condo with 100 percent displacement. Down the block, condos took over a 60-unit string of courtyards that had been well-kept and affordable for decades -- housing many families who sent kids to nearby Kilmer School. The new occupants are noticeably younger, richer and whiter.

Not such a good thing. Which is why I've been heartened to see that the condo market is collapsing -- witness the auctions and extended sales periods -- and that in Rogers Park, at least, some buildings are being renovated for rental, not sale. One building at Pratt and Sheridan has all the characteristics of a condo conversion, from balconies to duplex units, but the sign says "Now renting."

Of course rents will be higher on the renovated buildings, but the slowdown in conversions means Rogers Park, and other places, can take a breather. Kids can stay in the school they've been attending, families can avoid the disruption of finding a new neighborhood, and the diversity that makes such neighborhoods interesting and healthy can be sustained and nurtured for a few more years.

That's good, no question about it.