Take a Tour of Pilsen - by Video or Phone

We've written here before about how neighborhoods are using multimedia tools to promote their work and their neighborhoods, but couldn't have imagined, even six months ago, how far the groups would come, and how fast.

• Audio slideshows are now available for 10 neighborhoods as part of the Chicago Community Showcase project, funded by the 2016 Fund for Chicago Neighborhoods and Boeing Company. The photos, maps and background info provide vivid introductions to neighborhoods that usually don't make it onto tourists' agendas.
• A virtual walking tour of Pilsen by TuMultimedia (below) captures many of the colors, sounds and flavors that make that neighborhood so interesting and vibrant.
• New mobile-device tours of five neighborhoods provide photos and audio narration via smart phones. If you've got your phone handy, just go to tours.lisc-chicago.org.

It's great stuff. Kudos to all the neighborhood people who put the tours together; Sally Duros and Amadi Jordan-Walker, who managed the program and saw to thousands of tiny details; and Sarahmaria Gomez and Alex Fledderjohn for their video tours.

¡La Villita Cuenta! Video Pitches the 2010 Count

Little Village is serious about capturing all the public money it can. With a series of interviews of local leaders, it makes the case to residents that every person counted will make a big difference in how much money is allocated locally -- the equivalent over 10 years of another top-notch facility like Little Village Lawndale High School.

The leaders repeatedly stress that Census data is completely confidential and that it is not shared with any other government agency (such as immigration, a big reason that some residents haven't filled out the forms in the past). One priest even suggests that not being counted is a "social sin, a sin of omission."

It's in Spanish with English subtitles, and was produced by Enlace Chicago's Dahriian Espinoza, with help from Jaime de Leon. Check it out.

One-Minute Video Packs a Lot of Punch

If it's looking like "all sports, all the time" on this blog lately that's only because I've been contributing to a flat-out effort by LISC/Chicago and its neighborhood partners to attract youth to Spring Into Sports activities at four high schools.

And it's working.

More than 1,270 students have registered and they're filling the gyms and hallways every day. What's startling about it is how much they're getting into the various sports on offer, including some they've probably never participated in, such as archery, table tennis and rowing. Read all about it at Neighborhood Sports Chicago.

Or take a minute to view this new piece by Sarahmaria Gomez and Alex Fledderjohn at TuMultimedia.


Spring Into Sports Spring Break Chicago from Tu Multimedia on Vimeo.

Video: Communities Respond to Foreclosure Storm

Just in from our colleagues at TuMultimedia, Sarahmaria Gomez and Alex Fledderjohn, here's a powerful video about the massive impact that the foreclosure crisis has brought down on neighborhoods, and how some communities are fighting back with trainings for homeowners as well as political and social activism. It's a nine-minute piece featuring trainers, organizers and people who have fought -- or are fighting -- to keep their homes.


Foreclosures Hit Hard; Chicago Neighborhoods Respond from Tu Multimedia on Vimeo.

If you'd like a copy of this video to use at community meetings about foreclosures, contact Gordon Walek of the Chicago Neighborhood News Bureau: gwalek@lisc.org

Three neighborhoods. No cars.

Chicagoans on bicycles, skates and sneakers will take to the streets this weekend for the second Sunday Parkways event as portions of the city's boulevard system are closed to auto traffic. The first such event on October 5 was a huge success with thousands of happy participants and this Sunday's version – running through East Garfield Park, North Lawndale and Little Village – is bound to be just as good.

It's from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday. See the route here.

Brooklyn videographer Nicholas Whitaker talked to several of the event's organizers and posted his piece on Vimeo, which is where I found it this morning. It features Jaime de Leon and Cristina Bronsing of Little Village Community Development Corp. and Adolfo Hernandez of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, who talk about the civic benefits that such events have brought to cities in Latin America.



Chicago Sunday Parkways from Nicholas Whitaker on Vimeo.

For more videos of ciclovia events in Chicago; Bogota, Colombia; Quito, Ecuador; and Guadalajara, Mexico, check out chispacechicago.ning.com