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This
article is from the Spring 2000 Camiros Newsletter. The full
newsletter (6 pages, color) can be downloaded from the following
links as a pdf file: Pg.1 Pg.2 Pg.3 Pg.4 Pg.5 Pg.6
Broadening Our Urban Options
NEIGHBORHOODS OF CHOICE,
EMPLOYMENT OF CHOICE
The economic success of the 90s has helped our major cities.
Many of them, from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles, show
a rekindled interest in central city living, the growth of
good job opportunities, reduction in overall crime and an
aura of vibrancy. New attention is being paid to how best
support our cities’ principal strength - their people - by
finding ways to maintain good paying jobs and improve the
quality of their neighborhoods.
Two related themes - communities of choice and strengthened
economic investment - are helping to achieve this.
BUILDING COMMUNITIES OF CHOICE
Many cities are working to build "communities of choice"
- neighborhoods where people choose to live because of the
quality of life found there. Often these neighborhoods are
emerging from troubled times, but they often benefit from
excellent locations and are attracting people with higher
incomes. The challenge is to find ways to create a balanced
community which does not "gentrify" - in other words, move
the original residents out as the neighborhood improves.
Cabrini/Near North Initiative
 The
City of Chicago is working to create one such community in
the area of the Cabrini-Green Public Housing Project. The
Near North Redevelopment Initiative calls for redevelopment
of the Cabrini area to create mixed-income family housing
which will bring together many of the present public housing
residents and higher income families. The plan, as reflected
in the Tax Increment Financing Redevelopment Plan prepared
by Camiros, proposes a new high school, park, retail commercial
development, and private and public housing.
And the plan is progressing. Development is currently underway,
witnessed by the opening of a new grocery store, major residential
development, and the construction of a new library, park and
schools.
"We are working hard to encourage the mixing of income groups
in the Near North area and a number of actions point to success,"
says Alicia Mazur of the City of Chicago.
Local Initiative Support Corporation
The Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC) is investing
in three Chicago communities through the development of quality
of life plans. Each community offers different challenges
and opportunities. Camiros, under contract to LISC, has been
charged with assisting Community Development Corporations
(CDC) within these neighborhoods to develop their respective
plans.
 In
the Pilsen neighborhood, Camiros is working with The Resurrection
Project to develop a plan which strengthens Pilsen’s role
as the focus of the Mexican community within Chicago - a plan
which reinforces the community’s role as a port of entry to
new immigrants as well as a neighborhood of choice for established
Mexican-American families. The plan’s strategies emphasize
creating a central gathering place comparable to a traditional
Mexican community, increasing economic investment, improving
health care, increasing opportunities for youth, and improving
the quality and condition of Pilsen and its infrastructure.
These strategies, and related projects, emerged from a community
Task Force effort.
In Woodlawn, members of the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment
Corporation (WPIC) Task Force are developing a plan that stresses
support of the emerging new, and rehabilitated, housing market,
and improvement of the infrastructure, commercial base, health,
and youth opportunities in the community.
"The challenge in Woodlawn," says Bill Jones, Executive Director
of WPIC, the CDC working with Camiros, "is to assure that
the momentum of new housing investment does not overwhelm
the needs and capabilities of old time residents who have
stayed with the community through hard times."
South Chicago, the third community of the LISC program, builds
upon different opportunities. Home to the abandoned 550 acre
South Works Steel Plant, which was once the economic engine
of the community, it has received significant attention from
the City through a commitment to support the redevelopment
of this site as a mix of housing and industry. Some success
has already been realized in the committment of a major manufacturer
to redevelop 103 acres of the site for a new facility. The
challenge to the Southeast Chicago Economic Development Commission
(SEDCOM), which is working with Camiros on its quality of
life plan, is to extend these successes into the community.
The SEDCOM plan builds upon the infrastructure and redevelopment
investments of the City to assure an improved delivery of
services to the existing community. A key approach is the
location and timing of local investments so that they can
piggyback upon the actions of the City’s program. The SEDCOM
plan builds upon the infrastructure and redevelopment investments
of the City to assure an improved delivery of services to
the existing community. A key approach is the location and
timing of local investments so that they can piggyback upon
the actions of the City’s program.
"Timing is everything here," says Les Pollock, who is directing
the plan for Camiros. "The new US-41 Boulevard planned for
the community will change the image of this community for
current residents, investors and potential new residents.
The community’s plans have to be linked to, and timed with,
specific City strategies."
FOCUS: Forging Our Comprehensive Urban Strategy
 Another
way to create a community of choice is to build upon the human
resources of the city. This is part of the approach taken
by FOCUS (Forging Our Comprehensive
Urban Strategy), a citywide strategic plan
for Kansas City, Missouri. While addressing traditional physical
planning issues, this plan went further to address ways to
best invest in its human resources to create a better community.
Camiros had responsibility for the development of this aspect
of the plan, which received the 1999 APA National Planning
Award.
"It was exciting to see how the city’s broad-based leadership
Task Force could focus on, and identify, useful projects to
turn what are often platitudes into actions," says Jacques
Gourguechon, the Camiros Project Director who also played
a central role in "weaving" the physical, governance and human
investment strands of the plan into a unified community investment
strategy.
For each of these strategies, Camiros developed indicators
to measure how well proposed projects worked to achieve the
stated human investment objectives. For example, the anti-racism
aspect of the plan continues to measure how well its projects
encourage equal lending ratios between African Americans,
Hispanics and whites in the housing market and collects information
as to the increasing racial diversity among managers and other
high-skill personnel in the job market. In granting this project
its National Planning Award, the APA noted its uniqueness
and willingness to chart new territory.
The success of this plan was, in large part, due to the commitment
of the people involved in the process to establish all of
Kansas City as a community of choice for all residents of
the larger metropolitan area.The success of this plan was,
in large part, due to the commitment of the people involved
in the process to establish all of Kansas City as a community
of choice for all residents of the larger metropolitan area.
ECONOMIES OF CHOICE: STRENGTHENING
ECONOMIC INVESTMENT
While not a familiar national catchword, many cities have
been working hard to assure that their economic base consists
of a diversified economy which offers a mix of good paying
jobs to help maintain them as emerging communities of choice.
Two examples - the Empowerment Zone of Gary, Hammond and East
Chicago, Indiana and the Planned Manufacturing District Program
of Chicago - reflect these efforts. While not a familiar national
catchword, many cities have been working hard to assure that
their economic base consists of a diversified economy which
offers a mix of good paying jobs to help maintain them as
emerging communities of choice.
The Calumet Empowerment Zone
Gary, Hammond and East Chicago, Indiana, which together make
up the Calumet Region of Northwest Indiana, have seen difficult
times yet remain the "Forge of America." While a significant
portion of the nation’s steel making capability remains in
this region, it has also seen some of the worst poverty within
its inner cities.
The Empowerment Zone Strategic Plan seeks to use the region’s
strengths to overcome these problems.
As developed by Camiros, working with a Task Force of over
100 people, this award-winning plan stressed a 1,000 Day Implementation
Agenda which is directed towards training and employing local
Empowerment Zone residents to become eligible for high paying,
industrial jobs as a significant number of the present steelworker
workforce moves into retirement. This agenda is supported
by a range of strategies which strengthen local industry,
assure adequate employment training, build employment support
systems in the areas of day care, health and transportation,
and improve the residential and industrial environments of
the region.
"Building on traditional strengths with a major investment
in education and training is at the core of this successful
EZ application," says Camiros’ Jacques Gourguechon.
The plan uses Empowerment Zone incentives to advance two
key job creation strategies. First, the retention and expansion
of existing employers to create more jobs and, second, the
attraction of new industry to sites developed under the Empowerment
Zone land development and brownfield projects. To that end,
the plan also proposes actions to prepare certain key brownfield
sites for new industry. Over the next ten years this plan
calls for the redevelopment of existing sites to create 400
acres of quality industrial land which can accommodate up
to 1,600 new jobs.
As noted by HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo, when he toured the
region recently, "It is significant to see how three communities,
working together, can work to put in place plans and actions
which use the area’s strengths to overcome its weaknesses."
The Planned Manufacturing District
An element of Chicago’s approach to job development also
reflects its heritage and strength as a diversified manufacturing
center. Over 10 years ago Mayor Daley, recognizing the need
to maintain industrial jobs in the face of residential and
commercial impacts upon industrial properties, established
the Planned Manufacturing District (PMD). This zoning district
effectively limits residential intrusion into areas which
have a manufacturing basis and, therefore, keeps properties
from inflating beyond industrial real estate values, protects
industry from becoming a nuisance as viewed by residential
development, and keeps high paying jobs in areas where the
infrastructure is in place to accommodate them.
Continuing residential loft development pressures have occasioned
expansion of this approach. Originally used to stem the tide
of residential conversion of industrial property in the popular
north side Lincoln Park area, Camiros was retained by the
City to explore the implications of its expansion on the western
portions of the Chicago Loop.
 One
key area is known as the Kinzie Industrial Corridor - an area
of over 600 acres containing over 400 firms and approximately
14,000 employees. Meetings with business and property owners
within this corridor found strong interest in assuring the
long-term stability of this industrial neighborhood. However,
as expected, challenges existed to accommodate certain areas
which were clearly trending toward future residential development.
The Camiros Strategic Plan for Kinzie divided the larger
corridor into several districts which reflected predominant
land use trends. Thus, the western portions were maintained
as areas of residential redevelopment, the central portions
established as the key industrial core and the eastern portion,
containing the Randolph-Fulton Market, marked as an area where
actions are needed to manage residential loft and food market
conflicts.
The PMD was placed upon the core industrial district to protect
its long-term use. Given the conflicts between the goals of
industrial operators and land owners, the project presented
a range of challenges.
"Land use negotiations are a key component of any PMD
type planning process,” says Les Pollock who directed
the project for Camiros. “The goal is to fairly recognize
the long-term potential of an area given local market conditions
and City policy."
The merits of this program are already in evidence. Major
industrial reinvestment has occurred since the approval of
the PMD in 1998. Camiros is also assisting the City with the
review and planning of several other potential PMD sites to
protect the long-term integrity of local business investment.
Urban Options and Economics
These are only a few examples of the ways in which neighborhoods
and cities are reborn and economies revitalized. Camiros’
work illustrates the scale in which these changes are occurring
and it is impressive - from small neighborhoods like Pilsen
in Chicago to the three major cities in Indiana that comprise
the Calumet Region. And each of these projects has one common,
key element - their people: how they live, where they live
and what they can do.
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