The Global City: Chicago, Pilsen and Gentrification

 
Pilsen by Vivián Álvarez.

Interview with John Betancur 

John Betancur started his academic career in Latin America teaching and writing in the fields of philosophy first and urban sociology next. In 1981, he completed a major research project on the conditions, forms of reproduction and struggles of the poor in five low-income communities in Medellin, Colombia (conducted with Albalucía Serna and Patricia Londoño, two professors from a major local university). After immigrating to the U.S. and earning a PhD in Public Policy Analysis, he was part of the team that brought the University of Illinois at Chicago Center for Urban Economic Development to the forefront of engaged scholarship assisting nonprofits and governments in pioneer initiatives at the local level. He continued this work as a faculty member of the Urban Planning and Policy Department at UIC, pioneering with other colleagues the study and development of black-Latino coalitions and publishing on urban restructuring, gentrification and the conditions of blacks and Latinos in U.S. cities.

 

The landscape of Chicago has changed beyond recognition in the past two to three decades.  One of the most obvious changes has been in the neighborhoods, especially those around the Loop and Lakefront. These neighborhoods, such as Pilsen, Lakeview, Bronzeville, have moved from working class neighborhoods to so-called  “yuppy” and “hipster” communities. Can you explain when these changes began and why? 

Cities are always in flux and neighborhoods are always changing; therefore, we can only assign times on a metaphorical or event basis. The starting point is the transformation of capitalism from manufacturing-based to FIRE-based (finances, insurance and real estate). Although manufacturing started relocating to cheaper labor markets in the forties, its relocation peaked in the 1970s and 1980s removing nearly 400,000 industrial jobs between the end of world war and 1980. Then, the new economy produced hundreds of thousands of service jobs divided between highly-skilled and low-skilled with limited numbers in between; as manufacturing workers could not transition into high service workers, many of them retired or moved into low-wage service jobs. These service jobs accrued principally to new immigrants and minorities while the well-paid jobs went primarily to educated whites and some minorities. The result of this shift was devastating for working class neighborhoods as many householders were unable to keep up with payments and maintenance and as FIRE focused on suburbanization and downtown revitalization disinvesting in the more peripheral neighborhoods. At the other end, the entry into the labor market of recent graduates produced a huge number of people who were not necessarily attracted to suburban living. Government then worked to entice them to the city starting with urban renewal (e.g., near north, Lincoln Park, Hull House, Lakefront locations like Lake Meadows…) and then throwing its support behind gentrification. In this way, many of the high workers of the new economy came to live in these environments increasing the demand for them and creating the market for a real estate industry adding gentrification to its list. Most recently, the city carried out a process of transformation of public housing that freed up critical spaces near downtown for what they call mixed income housing but that ultimately is about reducing it to a minimum and eventually ending it. Other public actions reinforcing this were investments in the aesthetization of these areas, in the replacement of public housing for special schools, also in these areas, investing heavily to improve their infrastructures, partnering with the FIRE industries to develop sites such as Dearborn Park, and so forth. In short, this transformation was a result of a major shift in the economy and the actions of government to reinforce it. At the other end of the spectrum, government started removing itself from social services to low-income populations, disinvesting in neighborhood institutions such as schools and health centers, neglecting the infrastructures of low-income neighborhoods, sending police instead of investing in people in these neighborhoods… FIRE did the same as it disinvested in these neighborhoods; combined, the actions of the city and FIRE turned low-income neighborhoods into disposable places to be surveilled but not helped. Thus, the city has been again broken into areas of privilege and inclusion and areas of abandonment and neglect (largely coinciding with race) with some neighborhoods in between either becoming targets of gentrification or becoming ghettoes.

 

You have studied the case of Pilsen. In the case of pilsen, what has been the process of the gentrification of this neighborhood? Who are the winners and losers of gentrification?

Each neighborhood has its own story and so does Pilsen. Its Mexican/Latino story starts with the establishment of a beachhead before 1960 and continues with the mass displacement of Mexicans from the Hull House for construction of the University of Illinois of Chicago under the urban renewal program. Trained in the struggle against urban renewal in Hull House, Mexicans knew that they could be displaced again if they did not form a compact against displacing development. The first test was the enactment of the Chicago 21 Plan for the central communities that sought to redevelop Pilsen to be part of a ring of middle class neighborhoods and institutions to buffer the Central Business District (CBD) against deteriorated neighborhoods. Working with a citiwide neighborhood coalition, West Town and Pilsen opposed the citys plan and were left out of the plan (temporarily). But pilsens location enticed many more initiatives of displacing redevelopment. But a combination of factors undermined the compact: the pressure coming from gentrifying forces immediately to the north of Pilsen, the change of guard in community leadership (from activists closely associated with the Chicano Movement to a new generation anxious to bring development to the community), the appointment of a pro-gentrification alderman by the Daley administration, the actions of developers such as Podmajerski, and the gentrification industry itself. Whereas some middle class local leaders, tired of the disinvestment and neglect of the neighborhood, opened up to some development, other pragmatics believed that gentrification was inevitable and they rather rode the wave than be left behind. As a core member of the Daley machine, the alderman introduced a gentrifying agenda and, taking advantage of the ambiguous position of some leaders afraid of losing government and foundation funding should they oppose Daleys gentrification agenda, went all out for it. Community resistance, however, slowed down or kept in check gentrifying forces making the process more complex that the gentrifying forces would expect. But as gentrification continued making inroads, it became a snowball raising property prices throughout and enticing others to try their fortunes in pilsen. So the main forces of gentrification in Pilsen have been City Hall through its aldermen, developers securing the necessary approvals through the aldermen to develop condominiums, flippers and rehabbers.  Starting with PodMajerskys East End art colony, it then was strengthened by condominium and other developments moving east west, accompanied by flippers and rehabbers to the point it is today. Although prices throughout the neighborhood are comparable to those of gentrified neighborhoods, gentrification proper has still a long way to go concentrating principally on the east end of the community but advancing along 18th  Street; a second major cluster is now forming around 18th and Blue Island; then there is another gentrifying corridor along Cermak Road.

Winners? Mainly the city and large developers; also realtors, bankers, flippers and rehabbers. Compromised? Lower income homeowners, renters, and in general the traditional Mexican community in the process of being dismantled and displaced.

 


Changing Faces in Pilsen. Photo: The Gate by Lucía Anaya.

 

As the wealthy gain at the expense of the poor when it comes to living in Chicago, how could the working poor struggle to preserve their neighborhoods? Is it a losing struggle? If not, why? 

A major issue often ignored by people writing about gentrification is the issue of power. At the end of the day, gentrification results from the exercise of power on the part of those that control the resources necessary for gentrification to make a killing at the expense of what some authors call neighborhoods of opportunity (that is in good locations, with valuable architectural stock, whose real estate values have been depleted by disinvestment — notice that the same industries that carry out gentrification are the ones that produce disinvestment — and thus are perfect candidates for a process that buys cheap and sells high.) Some people refer to this power as class power. Lacking the type of power of gentrifying forces, residents in low-income neighborhoods are overpowered in the market place. But if they resist in class terms, that is through organized opposition, they can slow down the process, bring it to a halt, even if temporarily (Pilsen did this pretty much between 1970 and 1990).  This organized opposition can certainly give gentrifying forces a hard time. But in the absence of organized resistance or when resistance gets eventually broken and fragmented as occurred in Pilsen, gentrification overpowers residents who then are displaced to other locations. Is it inevitable? The Resurrection Project people say it is. Those who organized between 1970-1990 showed that it isnt. To the extent that people reduce the discussion to what is depicted as a neutral marketplace, they give up without even putting up a fight. Class power from below can put laws in the books that force the industries involved to compensate the Displacees, that assess properties on the basis of the income of residents rather than of the potential value of properties, that create affordable conservation areas, that remove the extra earnings and speculative practices coming from flipping, and so forth. I would say, cities have become big money-making machines through processes such as gentrification, red light cameras, fees imposed on practically any transaction, police dedicated more to produce income to City Halls rather than to serve and protect, and so forth. To the extent that movements do not emerge to keep these things in check, the forces controlling the material and legal resources will continue having their way.  To the extent that people build their power and keep government and the private sector accountable, they can put laws in the books that make a difference. To give an example, if the housing market operated under the principle of housing as a right and the construction industry were divided between a non-profit segment producing homes for rent at cost, housing would be rather affordable to low, working and low-middle classes. Then, those above this level can purchase their homes from a for-profit industry. In Europe, for a long time, this is how the market worked and most people preferred to live in rental housing; they did not see the need for nor the advantages of homeownership. But the obsession of homeownership and the businesses associated with it have made housing unaffordable now for a majority of households who end up paying more that 30 per cent of their income in housing.

 

The gentrification seems to be a global phenomenon. It can be perceived in London, Paris, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Chicago, why it has become a global tendency?

Gentrification started in old industrial cities in the transfer from a manufacturing to a finance-dominated economy. I explained this in the answer to the first question. Through trial and error, it became a huge money-making industry. The scheme was then copied by others and exported to the third world. It is not a natural process evolving out of existing markets but one generated by the factors and forces I described in my responses to the other questions. It also has to do with the fact that cities have become big money-making machines selling spectacle, culturalized environments, tourism, and so forth. I did write an article on gentrification in Latin America explaining that as economies get financialized and as FIRE become the central money-making industries of economies, gentrification comes with the package. Actually, entities like the World Bank and the Interamerican Bank are promoting it in the third world; cases in point are the transformation of historical centers into tourist destinations and living quarters of segments of the elites, the development of what has become known as large projects and that are supposed to produce spillover effects in the redevelopment of cities (cases of Puerto Madero in Buenos Aires and Santa Fe in Mexico City), mass beachfront redevelopments such as the one taking place in Rio as we speak and the one in Barcelona, festival marketplaces and Disneylands in the core of cities such as Faneuil Hall in Boston, the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Navy Pier in Chicago, and so forth.

 


The Faneuil Hall Marketplace Boston, MA. Photo: Dillard Morrison

 

Juan Mora-Torres. Historian. Author of The Making of the Mexican Border.

Franky Piña. Editorial director of El BeiSMan.