This is something that's been bothering me for awhile, and maybe someone hear could provide an answer. As anyone in Chicago knows, two of the most notorious housing projects in the country have started to come down in the past few years - the Robert Taylor Homes and Cabrini Green. My question is where do all the people who lived there go? Combined, that is a lot of people who would not be welcome in a lot of areas. Are a lot moving to Gary, Ind? Just something that I've been wondering about for awhile...
Pretty much attrition. At Cabrini the city would wait until buildings were about 80% vacant and then offer alternative housing to those remaining. You'll notice the FHA and HUD have "preserved" the core of buildings on Division just east of Halsted. With section 8 vouchers poor blacks are now free to move into privately owned buildings. Hence a city that's become increasingly integrated. Many are moving to Milwaukee. In the 60's Milwaukee was 5% black. Now it's 30%.
I do hope the city continues to integrate. I've heard that there has been some crime problems in those new 500k homes that now surrounds Cabrini. I guess some crime there is inevitable.
They had a program in New Jersey back in the day. The Dems and priests lobbied for rent control to help the poor, the buildings did not bring in enough so upkeep could be done, eventually mob guys would buy them, squeeze every penny they could out of the places and eventually burn them [with the tenants in them] for the insurance money. The best thing my little town did was to say no to secition 8. Crimes of all sorts went way, way down immediately. There might be some jaywalking going on or some meth being cooked up in a coffee pot somewhere but hey, no place is perfect. We don't have to worry about locking the house or anything. More towns should know that they can override the real estate money and opt out of section 8 with ease. It's good for the homeowners and values go up once the publicly subsidized criminals are shown the exits.
One of the most interesting and underreported stories of the last decade has been the exodus of the inner city poor to rural and ex-urban america. It comes on the back of 'gentrification' - the reclaiming of neighborhoods consumed by urban blight. The process is pretty predictable - a neighborhood is targeted by the city as 'undesirable' and the artsy creative types move in (c.f. Richard Florida's rise of the creative class) pushing out the entrenched welfare class. The area now becomes 'edgy' and 'trendy' with commerce resurgent, upon which the yuppies move in to enjoy the 'high quality lifestyle' that has now been created. The whole process usually takes about 10-20 years. Saw this happen time and time again in NYC - Soho in the 70's to 80's and then the Upper West side starting in the mid 80's. Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation touches on this a bit using colorado as an example. Here's another link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-06-29-slow-cities-inside_x.htm (while not a direct parallel, consider that with rising real estate prices, there will be a certain gentrification in the mentioned cities. Rising prices + declining population = wealthier people living there.) Of course, this does tend to diminish the inner city demographic's political voice as they move to red areas. "A second migration appears to be underway, with African Americans from the North moving to the South in record numbers." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Southern_states All quite interesting, in my opinion. Mod, do you want to move to economics?
Almost totally off here. A few years back the residents had a major altercation with the CHA police and the Chicago police department in which they were able to hold off the both forces for a while. It was at this point that Cabrini was added to the list of projects that would be dismantled. At that time Cabrini was 68% occupied. Residents from there, Robert Taylor and IDA B. Wells projects were disbanded to neighborhoods like: Bollingbrook Harvey Markham Dolton Riverdale Calumet City Hazel Crest Joliet Matteson Richton Park Chicago Heights Chicago (South and west sides) I have relatives that live in many of those areas (or close by) which have verified this population shift for me for the past six years or so. Section 8 programs are a real joke. There was a special radio show on WVON just today (10/11/06) addressing this very topic. I can easily speak to the increase in high end replacement units for these areas also. As an example, this past weekend I stopped by a new trailer in the Cabrini area where a builder is planning $300,000 units as the low end for his development. That core building that you speak of is the planned first stage in the redevelopment concept of the existing structures for the area. That particular building happened to be one of the ones that was filled with shooters during that police standoff. It is my understanding that this building will follow the same plan that was used for the buildings over in Sandburg. In case you don't remember, that too was at on e time a project property. There is no plan for the bringing back of the residents in any substantial number. Sort of sad on both sides of the coin there.
A good portion of these crimes are being associated with residents who live in the near west and northwest sides. Very close proximity to the crime areas also. A quick check with the local police rolls at hearing time will show you just what you are dealing with as far as those committing the crimes are concerned. I lived in the west loop area until about five years ago and I watched the area hit morph level two. The initial groups of residents had long given way to the gentrification move. It was time for the second tier to happen. And I was there.... There's no real integration happening in the true sense of the word. Sure there are pockets, but even they are shifting. I have just taken a second residence in the south loop area. The next arena of upgrade. Just a few blocks away are residences in the $750,000 plus range. And belive me, the African American residents from Cabrini will not be bringing Section 8 vouchers there.
"CHA officials dispute that claim.......We're talking about seven buildings at Cabrini that have a vacancy rate of as much as 70 percentand that cost $5 million a year to maintain with chronic heating, plumbing and water problems." http://www.lafchicago.org/articles/cabrini_residents_sue_over_evict.htm
I'm from the far North Side (Edgewater, Rogers Park). The Kenmore-Winthrop corridor is virtually 100% Section 8. Ain't no 750k condo's up there.
The seven buildings that they were talking about were mostly the low rise properties that started right off Chicago avenue and went north. The CA study for the high rise buildings was never totally released. They did address one of the larger buildings on the Clyborn end, but it was one that had had several fires. It averaged 30% occupancy for many years and has been torn down. The larger buildings were generally almost all about 50% occupied legally and about 10% squatters and illegal activity. The complex gang ran drug sales operations regularly from many of the closed units. I have a neighbor of my cousin who was a CHA police officer and he talked about it regularly. The CHA was called out about that slanted report almost two months after they made the statement by the residents and the Citizen newspaper reporter that ran a four part article on the changes and the city pushes.