Challenges
in Rebuilding Bronzeville –
A Chicago Case Example
The Black Metropolis
Chicago’s Bronzeville community exemplifies the need for commercial development
in poor urban communities. Bronzeville is a community of roughly 100,000 residents
located on the Southside of Chicago . Bronzeville enjoys a rich history as
the “Black Metropolis”, a primary destination point for blacks migrating
from the south from the turn of the 20th century to the 1930’s and 1940’s
in search of opportunity. Denied housing elsewhere in the city and with limited
access to downtown stores and other opportunities, blacks created a vibrant
community around a strong, local consumer-driven economy and a large number
of attractive entertainment venues.
Commerce was the glue to the community and diversity of income and occupation
marked each neighborhood. Shoe shiners in kitchenette apartments lived next
to barons of business in lofty mansions. Ebony Magazine, Soft Sheen, The Chicago
Defender, The Supreme Life Insurance Company, Binga Bank and many other black
businesses were born in Bronzeville in this era. Culture and the arts flourished.
Decline and Despair
Bronzeville’s fortune began to decline in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
With the elimination of restrictive housing covenants, middle class blacks
followed the broader societal trend to the suburbs. At the same time, local
businesses lost many of their customers to well-capitalized downtown and suburban
competitors that were newly opening their doors to black patrons. These trends
were worsened by three other key external factors:
• The placement of large numbers of publicly-subsidized
housing units in Bronzeville, which brought many additional low-income residents
to the community;
• Decreased access to opportunity-rich
communities west of Bronzeville, due to the building of the Dan Ryan Expressway,
which acted as an effective barrier; and,
• The overall decline of the Chicago economy
including, the intense difficulties of two major Southside industries, the
stock yards and steel mills;
Together these forces drove a decades-long decline of the economic and resident
base of the community. Between 1960 and 2000, Bronzeville lost a large portion
its residents and housing base, most major businesses closed or moved out,
and virtually all of its quality retail and entertainment, venues shut downat
one point, Bronzeville included several of the poorest census tracts in the
nation.
Bronzeville’s economic problems persist. According to the 2000 U.S. census,
more than 35% of Bronzeville residents live below the poverty line and roughly
25% are unemployed. Moreover, a McKinsey & Company “deep dive”
study performed in conjunction with the Grand Boulevard Federation, a group
of leading social service agencies, and focused on an extended Grand Boulevard
community, comprised of nearly half of Bronzeville’s residents, revealed
needs that are even deeper:
• The median household income of Grand
Boulevard families was less than $25,000, with over 40% of households living
below the poverty line of $16,500 for a family of four;
• More than half of the residents of working
age are not employed, the majority of which are no longer in the workforce;
• Less than half the community’s youth
graduate from high school;
• The infant mortality rate is almost twice
that of the state average and Grand Boulevard ranks among the 10 worst in
almost every maternal and infant health category of 77 Chicago community areas;
and,
• Crime is a serious problem with violent
crime occurring five times more frequently than in the rest of Illinois.
Bronzeville’s dismal economic condition prompts large human services
expenditures. The study found that over one-quarter of a billion dollars annually
is spent to serve an estimated 60% of Grand Boulevard’s 47,000 residents.
This funding comes from a number of federal, state, city, and private sources
and supports a wide array of services intended to stabilize the community.
In the Turnaround - A Place for Everyone?
At the turn of the 21st century, another wave of changes seems set to transform
Bronzeville. The Chicago Housing Authority under its Plan for Transformation
is demolishing all of its galley-style, family-focused, high-rise housing
developments and investing roughly a billion dollars in Bronzeville to replace
them with low-rise mixed-income housing meant to blend in with and support
the surrounding neighborhoods. At the same time, a Chicago-wide housing boom
has begun to bring significant numbers of middle class African Americans to
the community, reversing a pattern of out-migration extending for over 4 decades.
In aggregate, these trends are creating a substantially increased pool of
market-rate housing and are likely to attract middle-class residents looking
to take advantage of the community’s proximity to downtown and what remains
of the gracious, century-old housing stock.
Commercial and industrial development is required to create local jobs that
would help lower-income residents find an economic footing as well as to provide
the basis for the interaction between all residents that is critical to building
cohesive communities. Unfortunately, commercial lags far behind residential
development. The lack of local jobs will make it extremely difficult for long-time
residents to remain in the community in the face of rapid gentrification.
Moreover, an impending half-billion dollar reconstruction of the Dan Ryan
Expressway threatens to eliminate a dozen ramps, further reducing access to
jobs and isolating community residents and institutions. Consequently, Bronzeville
faces the possibility that rather than returning to its latter day role as
a commercial and residential haven for people from all walks of life, it will
become an exclusive refuge for middle and upper-class Chicagoans, a suburban-style
bedroom community 15 minutes from the Loop. Long-time lower-income residents
are likely to be pushed further out the economic margin, to southern suburbs
that offer even less economic opportunity and access to the regional economy.
Bronzeville may grow, but Chicago and our nation would continue to pay the
high price of supporting failing lower-income communities.
*Bronzeville is generally considered to be bounded by
22nd Street on the north, 67th Street on the south, Stewart Street on the
west, and Lake Michigan (north of 47th), Drexel Blvd. (47th to 51st), and
Cottage Grove (51st to 67th) on the east.
