Bankrupt and deserted, the Michael Reese Hospital on the 2900 block of Ellis Avenue is an unlikely site for Olympic grandeur. But across the street from the hospital, flags wave in the parking lot of the Prairie Shores apartment complex to welcome members of the International Olympics Committee, who visited Chicago this past week, to the projected site of the Olympic Village for the Chicago 2016 Games. Read the rest of this entry »

Of all Chicago’s neighborhoods, Bronzeville boasts some of the most hotly contested real estate in the city. Developers of the South Loop’s upscale condos threaten to build their way down State Street, gentrifying Bronzeville from the north. The University of Chicago campus extends in an ever-encompassing radius from the south. And now, with the possibility of a 2016 Olympics promising extensive redevelopment in the neighborhood, territory wars are set to escalate. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Saturday afternoon, a small but enthusiastic group of activists and community members gathered in Washington Park to play kickball. Class-conscious kickball, that is. The event was part of the Unlympics, a movement that seeks to raise awareness and questions about the prospect of a 2016 Chicago Olympics. Characters dressed as wealthy corporate representatives from Phillip Morris and Walgreens played alongside people playing blue-collar workers and asthmatics lacking proper health care. The events on Saturday were part of a series of “games” organized by the Unlympics Committee. Future competitions include a spelling bee, jump-rope, and karaoke. Read the rest of this entry »

The galvanizing effect that Barack Obama’s campaign has had on the South Side community is reflected in the recent organizing success of SOUL, a nonprofit coalition of congregations known as the Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation. By its own estimates, approximately 600 Chicagoland residents turned out last Sunday for its annual Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration. Local politicians graced the stage of the St. Mark United Methodist Church as they vowed to stand behind SOUL’s three main goals: uniting the CTA and the Metra to create the “Gold Line”; ensuring that the 2016 Olympics will bring positive change to the South Side; and increasing gun control and youth violence prevention in the city of Chicago. Read the rest of this entry »

While everyone has analyzed and reanalyzed the presidential campaign this year, it’s easy to forget that Chicago’s many ballots contain a long list of judges to appoint or retain, a proposed constitutional convention, and individual ballot initiatives about various local issues. One local issue concerns Chicago’s prospective hosting of the 2016 Olympics. Voters in certain precincts in Wards 2, 3, 4 and 20 can encourage Mayor Daley and the Chicago 2016 Olympic Committee to use part of any potential Olympic windfall to benefit Bronzeville residents. The ballot initiative asks that at least 26% of the city’s vacant lots in Bronzeville be used for affordable housing for moderate-income residents. Generally, “affordable” means residents are spending no more than 30% of their gross (before taxes) income on housing. Moderate-income residents earn between 80% and 120% of Chicago’s Median Income, targeting the middle class. Read the rest of this entry »

“Chicago is a city that is frequently a tale of two cities,” said Terri Johnson of the Jane Addams Hull House Association; if anything, she may have been underestimating. Johnson was introducing a panel of speakers on the 2016 Olympic Games that included members of the city’s bid committee as well as Allen Sanderson, a Senior Lecturer in the University of Chicago’s Department of Economics and one of the Olympic bid’s most prominent academic critics. The panel, which took place in the UofC’s Harris School of General Studies on Thursday, May 29, was attended by forty or fifty concerned community members. Read the rest of this entry »

In their eagerness to bring the 2016 Summer Olympics to Chicago, four of the city’s largest foundations have created a multimillion-dollar fund to help neighborhoods on the South and West Sides. These areas would likely see the greatest improvements in infrastructure as a result of the Games, yet they are home to the strongest opposition to hosting them. With this in mind, the fund aims to bring residents into the planning process for the Olympics while offsetting some of their potentially adverse effects. Read the rest of this entry »