A Couple Links

I thought these unrelated links would be of some interest to the Community Beat community:

* National syndicated columnist Neal Peirce of Washington Post Writers Group covered innovative methods to combat youth violence, with a nod toward Chicago's CeaseFire program. http://citiwire.net/post/1480/

* The MacArthur Foundation has posted a video of Adolfo Carrion, urban affairs director for the Obama White House, giving an address to LISC/Chicago's recent "Chicago Rising" gathering. http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.4284677/apps/s/content.asp?ct=7655857&utm_source=pubaff&utm_medium=email&utm_content=enews&utm_campaign=nov09_enews&tr=y&auid=5623653

Marquette Students Tour the "Information Neighborhood"

Tomorrow afternoon, Trib columnist Clarence Page will visit Marquette Elementary to talk with middle schoolers about the news business and why news is important. About 150 6th-graders have been gearing up for the visit by studying a curriculum developed by the News Literacy Project. Last week Chicago coordinator Peter Adams told me about one of their activities--exploring the "information neighborhoods" in a newspaper--page one, metro, sports, advertising inserts. "We go through and talk about who produced this, what its goal is, things like that," to better understand the relationship between advertisers, reporters and the paper as a whole.

Last Friday students examined digital and viral media hoaxes to learn more about what a reliable source is. I know firsthand the worth of activities like this. Back in 2006, my neighbor Daniel, then 12 years old, stopped me on the street and said, "Mark Ecko tagged Air Force One."

"What?" I responded, shocked.

"Yeah, he tagged it. It's on You Tube," Daniel told me. So we went in my house and watched the video. (You can see it here.) It was so well done it had me going for a minute. Then we looked for reliable news stories about his feat and quickly discovered it was a very clever fake--he rented a Boeing jet and painted it to look like Air Force One. According to Ecko's own website, the fake was so good it had the military double-checking whether anyone had been on the runway to shoot it.

If people like me, who've worked in news, and even the Pentagon are doing double-takes at a video hoax, how is a 12-year-old supposed to know it's not true? That's what the News Literacy Project hopes to teach--the skills to separate the fact from the fiction, opinion and advertising that dominate the media landscape, especially in new media. It's great work, and more Chicago schools are looking to get on board in 2010. For more about the News LIteracy Project and tomorrow's event, check out this article on the LISC/Chicago website.

Life After 2016

Well, Chicagoans, by now you know we didn't get the bid. But take heart, we've made a splash on the world stage and we're still a great city to come and visit, or to be a tourist in your own town. Mark you calendars for October 10, when the Burnham Plan Centennial will sponsor a new round of community showcase tours.

Our friend Mandy Burrell Booth at Metropolitan Planning Commission put it well, writing in a Facebook status update: "It's time to move on. The Olympics were just one opportunity of many to reinvest in Chicago neighborhoods that are ripe for redevelopment." You can see her take on the neighborhoods here.

On Worldview today, Jerome McDonnell asked, "Does Chicago need a Carnival to spice things up?" But I think we're plenty spicy as it is. This weekend I expect to visit the Little VIllage Arts Fest and stop by Delicias Mexicanas for a Mexican hot dog--with bacon. Mmmm...bacon...mmmm....Gotta love the Hog Butcher to the World, whether or not the IOC loved us enough this time.

Bringing Retail to Underserved Neighborhoods

In case you missed it, LISC/Chicago was featured in a September 1 WBEZ story about "retail leakage" on Chicago's South Side. YOu can check it out here. The lack of retail on the South Side is a well-known phenomenon; what isn't so well-known--and what LISC regularly points out--is that South Side and other city low-income communities have more spending power than suburbs full of retailers.

The piece also features the Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation's efforts to lure in retailers. One of their promotions, the annual 79th Street Renaissance Festival, is coming up next weekend. It's a great opportunity to check out a great neighborhood.

In a related story on the same issue, The Chicago Reporter takes a look at the West Haven neighborhood and how longtime efforts to lure in retail only took off when whites began to return to the area. Earnest Gates and the Near West Side Community Development Corporation are featured.

Gardens Take the Prize in Great Places Contest

The voting has just begun for the "What Makes Your Place Great" contest that Mike Quinlan alerted us to in an earlier post, but the winner – or rather a category of winners – is already clear from the 40 entries in the photo-and-essay contest. It's gardens, and I don't mean formal places like Millennium Park or any of the other very nice park spaces that people nominated.

The "great places" that one-fifth of the entries reflect are community-oriented gardens built and maintained and enjoyed by local residents, from the Hoxie Prairie Garden at 106th and Hoxie to the Waters School Garden (photo above) to the Thomas Street Community Garden. Click through the photos and you'll discover eight special spots including the Gingko Organic Gardens near Wrigley Field, the River Park in Geneva, the Heavenly Garden of Bush and a NeighborSpace plot at 2227 N. Monticello. And of course there's the nomination that Mike wants you to vote for, the West Haven Garden tended by local teens. (Vote here.)

Riverwalks and park spaces were also nominated, but in my mind the gardens represent something much more powerful than a a municipal greenspace, however nicely trimmed and decked out with professional landscaping it might be. As the essays point out, the community gardens foster ownership, creativity, exercise, friendships and of course that miracle of miracles, growing something beautiful or delicious from a tiny seed.

Growing Home on CLTV

There was a nice clip on CLTV recently featuring Growing Home's urban farm at 58th and Wood St. Check it out:

 

Win a Free Bike!

If you, like me, missed Open Streets last Saturday, you might still want to take your shot at winning a free bicycle. Bicycling Magazine will be giving away free bikes on August 14. To enter the contest, all you have to do is submit a very short essay about how a new bike could change your life. You can submit your essay here.

Bicycling's Lois Moss sent a message today saying she had gathered a number of entries from women during Open Streets, but not so many from men. Fellas, it's not too late to step up. Good luck to all.

More Hoops in More Hoods

While B-Ball on the Block is taking Little Village by storm, Back of the Yards is also getting in on the basketball action. Over at the Neighborhood Sports Chicago web site, Cristobal Martinez has a report with photos from last Friday night's action at 48th and Marshfield. This is the first year Back of the Yards has had a full-scale Hoops in the Hood Friday night basketball league with food, fun and introductions to service agencies visiting different blocks all summer long.

Speaking as a neighborhood resident, I'm delighted to see this getting off the ground in Back of the Yards. I was out there myself last Friday night and can say firsthand that it was a lot of fun and clearly a new experience for kids and families. Many of the kids couldn't believe they could just go up and get a hot dog, an icie or a bag of popcorn for free. Neighbors not just from the target block but from a three-block radius stopped by. Some of the kids on my own block played for a team sponsored by the UNION Impact Center. Part of the point of the effort is to bridge the various divisions of the neighborhood--race, ethnicity, language, gang territories--and I'm very proud that my neighbors on the UNION Impact team were part of one of the few where a diverse group of kids were playing on the same team.

In recent years the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council has gone through some transition in leadership and focus, and "Hoops" is helping the council raise its profile in the neighborhood in a new and positive way. Martinez's story quoted BYNC executive director Craig Chico giving a key stat to measure the impact to date: "If you want to measure our success with a number, we've served over 600 hot dogs each week."

Youth Noise: B-Ball on the Block Is Back

Got an email from Cesar Nuñez this morning turning me on to a $500 fundraising challenge for Beyond the Ball, the group that's using basketball and soccer to bring youth onto the streets on Friday evenings in Little Village and North Lawndale.

BBall on the Block has been going for three years now and it's great to see that they're still innovating – adding soccer, for instance – and that they've connected with Youth Noise and Nike on this fundraiser. They need another 32,600 clicks to get that $500, and you can click all you want, so get on over there and help make it happen.

Trina Chiasson, Chicago blogger for Youth Noise Play City, caught some great quotes in that video above. Here's one of them:

"I grew up in this neighborhood, I've seen a lot of violence and poor choices," says Ken Alvarado, soccer director. "And then just getting older, you see that there aren't that many opportunities to escape those places."

BBall on the Block provides that opportunity: "You know you're safe, you know there is nothing to worry about, we have food, you have nice people working here too, so it's just a blessing for the community. And I'm definitely taking it as a blessing for myself as well."

What's a Portal? Pilsen Shows the Way

Mayor Daley was in Pilsen yesterday promoting "digital excellence," but what does that mean? The hope is that in the four demonstration communities of Pilsen, Englewood, Chicago Lawn and Auburn Gresham, use of digital tools and the internet will become commonplace for residents young and old, well-off and poor. It won't be easy because so many residents lack broadband access and don't have experience with on-line tools, but that's all included in the digital excellence plans that the communities are beginning to implement.

One thing is certain. A community will use the web more if there is relevant local content that is of value to residents, businesses and other stakeholders, and that's where the Pilsen Portal comes in.

Launched last week and still in beta form, the portal is intended to be a place where many, many local people contribute content, find content, and comment about what others are putting up. Already about 20 beta users have signed on as contributors and they're starting to fill up the calendar and the directory (check out the listing for Studio One Tattoos). Jaime Guzmán, on organizer for the project, is putting his videography skills to work profiling local businesses (Kristoffer's Cafe) and even the churches are getting involved putting up the schedules of masses and kermeses (summer festivals).

A dynamic community-created web portal won't bring digital excellence all by itself. But my hunch is that if the portal can engage scores of local people in the telling of the Pilsen story, circa 2009, that will be an important step on the road. And once Pilsen does it, others will follow.