Pt.1--The Invitation: Dave Mathews Caravan 2011

Three Day Concert Highlights Citywide Differences of Race and Place

The Dave Mathews Band Caravan, a three-day, 38-artist concert took place last July on the former grounds of the U.S. Steel South Works plant. 

The steel mill that between 1880 and 1992 drew people by the thousands to South Chicago and the Bush once again attracted people in similar numbers. The never-before used as a concert venue space is a 600 acre area stretching from 79th to 87th and hosted roughly 40,000 people on the most attended day, Saturday.  

Although the concert occurred without problems, residents of the area expressed critical opinions about the event.  

“Call a Spade a Spade”

The picketers were not the only people that took issue with the event. 
 
By Friday afternoon, concert-goers entering the neighborhood on public transportation by the thousands created an unprecedented need to increase service.

Without prior notice, residents of Brandon St. were forced to move their cars until midnight  to accommodate the extra buses lined like train cars along their street.  Those unaware of the last minute arrangements had their cars towed.  Complaints by residents of the Bush and South Chicago about traffic, towing and the inability to drive down their own street were widespread.

“Look at all the people on the bus,” commented one South Chicagoan to his friend, both of whom did not share their names (Resident 1 and 2 for clarity), pointing at the buses packed to capacity, sweaty concert-goers hands pressing up against the bus windows. All were driving west on 87th.  
 
Flashing the words “Going Your Way,” and “Chicago is My Kind of Town” in bright orange, these contract buses-- CTA buses contracted for a private service-- provided free transport to the red-line for concert goers.  Residents of South Chicago were not allowed on the buses.

“No, you mean look at all the white people on the bus,” responded Resident 2.  “One hates to talk like that but I’m going to call a spade a spade.”

The contrast of race and residency between concert goers (mostly white, from the suburbs, the north-side or out of town) and South Chicago/Bush residents (mostly black and latino) reflects one of the uneasy truths about Chicago: the city has not overcome racial segregation.

According to a 2011 study titled The Persistence of Segregation in the Metropolis, by Brown University professor John Logan and Florida State University professor Brian Stults, Chicago’s Index of Dissimilarity-- a measurement of segregation-- is 75.9 percent, the 5th highest in the nation, not far behind the most segregated city, Detroit with a Dissimilarity of 79.6 percent..  The average Index nationwide is 62.7 percent.

The concert collapsed the distance segregating races and classes and brought them into sharp relief.  Resident 1 explained that it was not the color of the concert goers skin directly that was his issue, rather, “its our government, our country, our city...It's just sad how our system is so screwed up.” 
"Investment" pt.1

Though the number of concert-goers marching through the neighborhood was a shock to residents, police too patrolled the streets in never before-seen numbers.  

Four-wheelers, sedans, SUV’s, bicycles and several helicopters with spotlights all kept a watchful eye throughout the concert weekend.  Some police officers donned the traditional blue while some dressed more casually, wearing dark blue polos simply stating, Security, with little indication of belonging to the Chicago Police Department.  Many more weaved through the neighborhoods in unmarked cars revealing themselves only as they sped by, small blue lights flashing, their sirens wailing.

Police officer George Rose, who coordinated police security throughout the weekend stated that one of the primary missions of the police was “keeping people out of the neighborhood” to decrease the impact of the concert on residents and to secure the safety of concert-goers.  

Yet the disparity of protection for those that come from outside the neighborhood to those who live in the area was another clear indication of the difference of treatment enacted by the city.

“Its amazing,” said Bush resident Sheila Williams as helicopter spotlights scanned her street a block away from the concert venue on Makinaw Ave. In general, said Williams, police arrive well after emergency calls are placed or simply drive by without stopping, “if they even come at all.”

Referencing the recent death of a child caught in gang-crossfire on 83rd, Resident 2 questioned who by the city is valued enough to be protected.

“There are little kids who go to school around here everyday and deal with violence and gunshots...You don’t see the police patrolling to protect them,” he said.  “But now because someone wants to play a couple of guitars and some music and because all these people come from neighborhoods that are far, far away they are going to make sure they are protected.”

Although not explicitly racial, the visually obvious difference of race between concert-goers and residents made the emphasis on maintaining a distance between those living in the neighborhood and the increased levels of protection for “outsiders” a racial issue for the majority of South Chicago and Bush residents interviewed.    

“This is like an investment,” said Resident 2.  “People who live around here are not an investment and I think its wrong.  I think it is really wrong.”

"Investment" pt.2

McCafferey Interests, partnered with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP, Sasaki Associates, Inc., and U.S. Steel have estimated the costs of the project at nearly four billion dollars. 

Phase 1 of the construction, Market Common, a shopping center with 13, 000 residential units and the extension of South Shore Drive, received $98 million in TIF funding from the city in 2010, about a third of its total cost.

That same year, South Chicago received four million dollars in TIF despite having had more than six million dollars taken out from resident's property taxes.  

The city is already economically imbalanced as evidenced by inequitable property taxes. Residents of Washington Park, a neighborhood with a poverty rate of over 50 percent, pay, on average, more than Hyde Park residents, the university of Chicago neighborhood with a poverty rate under 20 percent.  

Lakeside is described by its developers and political supporters as the Southside's savior.  According to Ald. Sandi Jackson, Lakeside will be the "third tourist destination" of Chicago and a "gateway to the future" for the South Side.  For Ald. John Pope, Lakeside will be "the envy of Chicago."  McCaffery representative Joe Antunovich says Lakeside will be a "new city within a city."

The project fits technically within the city's parameters for being able to receive TIF money (blighted area, project meant to stimulate the economy, etc.)  Yet, where the City chooses to allocate public funds, provides window into who and what is valuable to the city and raises the question of development and what that process would mean, in the immediate, for the current residents of South Chicago.  

Although the Lakeside project is unique in that it does not require the demolition of homes in the name of development as did the 'development' of Cabrini Greene and the Robert Taylor Homes which displaced more than 12,000 people, development affects communities in more than one way.

Advocates for the project say that the development will trickle out to the surrounding neighborhoods.  Tourism, high end shopping, research and office buildings and a boat slip are defended as the most effective and inclusive means to revive the Southside.  Unemployment, underfunded and mismanaged schools, foreclosures, police brutality, and lack of healthcare are not addressed.  

The increase in property taxes due to more 'desired' property (lakefront, newly constructed, affluent oriented), will likely cause property taxes to increase.  Lakeside promises to create 1,000 permanent jobs but over 2,000 of South Chicago residents are unemployed.  With no remedy for the extreme foreclosure and unacceptable poverty and unemployment rates, Lakeside seems to benefit only those moving in and not those already present.  

The connection between the development project and the concert was not lost by residents.  Bush residents especially criticized the concert as a means of drawing interest in Lakeside and as an indication of who the project targets. 

“If they are counting everyone in, if its helping everyone, then I’m for it,” Williams continued, “but I feel its pushing people out...I think the purpose [of the concert] is to bring private development into the area, just for an agenda.”

No doubt there is need for investment in the Southside, however the way money is distributed raises the question: why would the city choose to spend close to 24 times more on a neighborhood that does not yet exist while the neighborhood, the people, the families, bordering it are forced to endure prolonged economic hardship?

With 40 percent of homes foreclosed, a population drop of nearly four thousand people in less than ten years and a poverty rate of 30 percent, it is clear that South Chicago and its residents are struggling economically, socially and, inevitably, politically for the area's struggles are not new, they simply have never been addressed honestly.  Instead, conditions have worsened.    

Boom to Bust: South Chicago and the Bush

The sense of different treatment played a key role in the surprise expressed by many residents concerning the concert.  Since South Works closed, the area has received little attention from the city.  As Germano-Millgate resident Tasha Brown said, “they (the city) never have anything down here.”  

South Works broke ground in the 1880's as the south-side branch of North Chicago Rolling Mill Company.  In 1901, J.P. Morgan spearheaded the merger of several steel companies, including South Works, into U.S. Steel, the world’s first billion-dollar corporation.  At the time, U.S. Steel controlled two-thirds of all steel production in the U.S. and was a dominant force in steel production world-wide.  

The plant’s pollution turned South Chicago’s church-steepled sky-line brown and its infamously dangerous working conditions lead to many untimely deaths, yet South Works continued to expand. 

Although Eastern European migrants were the majority at the beginning of the 20th century, the neighborhood also began to attract Black and Mexican migrants following jobs and myths of reduced racism.

As time passed and as steel production began to decrease, the Eastern European majority began to move out of the neighborhood while continued racist zoning practices forced Black and Latino residents into South Chicago and the Bush (for more information, read Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960 by Arnold R. Hirsch).

Employing 30,000 people at its height, the plant produced the steel used for constructing many Chicago landmarks including the Sears (now Willis) tower and the John Hancock building.
 
A sharp decline of employees due to outsourcing was followed by South Work’s shut-down in April, 1992.  Between 1970 and its close, the plant went from producing over seven million tons and employing more than 10,000 people to producing only 44,000 tons with 690 employees.

The demolition of one the world’s leading steel factories was not only an economic blow for U.S. Steel but also for the residents of South Chicago.  

According to a 2000 Poverty Atlas report by the Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights, between 1990 and 2000, South Chicago’s poverty rate had the third largest increase of all Chicago neighborhoods with about 30 percent of its residents living at or below the poverty line.  The current economic depression has only increased this number.

This history of boom to bust of these neighborhoods was followed by financial abandonment by the city.  

Since 2000, zero development projects in the 7th Ward (Ald. Sandi Jackson) were given Tax Increment Financing, TIF, money.  In 2001, the 10th ward (Ald. John Pope) was allocated $17.56 million for the construction of a Solo Cup Co. factory, one of three TIF projects since 2000, that was never completed. 

In 2010, the same year Lakeside received $98 million in TIF funds, South Chicago received $4 million, the majority designated for street and sidewalk repair.
 
The lack of concern for the neighborhood was also reflected in the feeble attempt to inform residents of the concert.  There were no street advertisements or announcements in the neighborhood.

Although a meeting was held on April 6th, 2011, to inform residents, the majority interviewed expressed no knowledge of the meeting or the concert.  A press conference announcing the concert was held the next morning, effectively denying residents a voice and participation in the decision.  
 
Williams stated bluntly, “they just take over and we don’t have a say.”
 
The few who mentioned knowing about the concert beforehand did not know the details of when and where the concert would be held. Although numerous newspapers, including the Southeast Chicago Observer, ran ads for concert, the location was announced as Lakeside, an area unknown to the majority of Chicagoans for the simple reason that Lakeside does not yet exist.
 
“A City Within the City”
 
Although not much has been done to address the increasing levels of poverty, foreclosures and empty lots within South Chicago, much attention has been given to the former South Works site.  It is well known among developers and city officials that this land is the last stretch of undeveloped lakeside property in Chicago.
 
Beyond the fenced-off east end of 87th, one of three designated parking lots for the concert, small eye-level billboards announced the future Lakeside neighborhood.  On the boards were two photos titled Present and Future.  Present showed the now blighted land of South Works along the lakefront while Future featured endless rows of white buildings of different heights, a marina with minuscule boats stretching into the lake and a spectacular view of downtown.  
 
According to McCaffery Interests’ Website, the lead developer of the site, “the redevelopment will provide an economic boost to the City and will revitalize the historic South Shore.”  

The master plan includes zoning approvals for approximately 13,575 single family dwellings and high rise units and 17,500,000 square feet of retail.  Expansion and relocation of South Lakeshore Drive, 125 acres of parkland and a new high school are also part of the plan.
 
While the concert may seem removed from the mega-development plan, Lakeside developers and supporters made it clear that the choice was strategic.  
 
“The Dave Matthews Band will be the ambassadors for folks who’ve never ventured south and have no sense of what a hidden gem this area is,” Jackson was quoted saying in a 2010 New York Times article.  “This is really the opening salvo in our opportunity to build a city within the city.”
 
Residents of South Chicago, many of whom are still unaware about the development plans, have already expressed critical views of who the concert was designed for.

The feeling of being excluded from the concert economically ($85 per day, $195 for all three, and $825 for a VIP pass), informatively (most residents found out the opening day) and in terms of participation in organizing the event is mirrored in the every-day exclusion of residents from the land.  Walled and fenced off from the community since the South Works plant closed, the expanse of land used for the concert was only opened up for the concert-goers.  By Monday, the land was once again sealed off.

“We weren’t invited,” was a common refrain among Bush and South Chicago residents with variations such as “they don’t want us,” and “this isn’t meant for us.”   

The lack of job opportunities for residents of the area (restaurants were allowed inside the concert as vendors but only about 75 South Chicago residents were employed to work the concert) also lead to comments questioning who the concert, and by extension, the development plan, is meant to benefit.

According to city officials including Alderman Sandi Jackson, former Mayor Daley and project manager Nasutsa Mabwa, the redevelopment of South Works into Lakeside provides an opportunity to revive the hard-hit area by creating new employment opportunities and attracting new residents.  Yet the large investment in Lakeside is for many residents another reflection of the city’s unequal treatment of neighborhoods and communities.  

The concert required about one million dollars in slag clean-up.  The entire project will cost about $4 billion in public and private money over the next thirty years to complete.  Phase 1 of the project, infrastructure construction, has been awarded $98 million in TIF assistance and Chicago Lakeside Development will invest another $397 million to construct The Market Common, Lakeside’s retail center.

“Its amazing how much money they put in over there that could’ve went to schools, to homes.” said Resident 2.  “We need to balance it out.”

Although developers state that Lakeside is an inclusive project meant to improve the surrounding communities by creating more than 1,500 temporary construction jobs and 1,000 permanent jobs, the cost of living has the potential to function as a means of excluding most neighborhood residents from Lakeside.  

The average price for a home in Lakeside is estimated at $250,000 while South Chicago’s median household income is $26,149.  Affordable housing rates are set at 60 percent of average income and will make up 20 percent of all residential units. 

Those who have heard about the development have their own questions while others offered sobering predictions.

“Are they going to move us out of here?” asked Brandy Moseley, a Germano-Millgate resident, as she and her family sat outside on 87th street.  

“I guess they are just going to move us again,” said Danta Parker, a J.N. Thorpe student as he walked past the lot sectioned off for an independent but related project of the development plan: the construction of Chicago’s first indoor velodrome between 86th and 87th St and Burley which broke ground the Monday after the concert.

The Lakeside development project is set to begin in 2012.  Although the effects of the development remain to be seen, the opinions of neighborhood residents express a single point: the concert was not inclusive and much more needs to be done by developers, city officials and neighborhood residents to ensure that the differences highlighted in the three days are not mirrored in the construction of Lakeside.

“We need people with voices who are going to do the right thing” said Moseley.

Source List

Brown, Tasha

Figueroa, Eddie

Illinois Poverty Atlas: http://www.heartlandalliance.org/whatwedo/advocacy/reports/atlasofillinoispoverty.pdf

International Association of Theatrical Stage Employeess. http://www.iatse-intl.org/news/pr_07052011.html

Logan, John and Stults, Brian. Persistence of Race Segregation in the Metropolice: New Findings from th 2010 Census. March 24, 2011

McCaffery Interests: http://www.mccafferyinterests.com/content.cfm/lakeside_1

Moseley, Brandy
Property Tax: http://chicago.blockshopper.com/taxes/order_by/median_tax/asc

Residents 1 and 2: Did not wish to be named. Film available for source verification.

Sharoff, Robert. Chicago to Redevelop U.S. Steel Site on Lakefront. Dec 28, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/realestate/commercial/29chicago.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=enquist&st=cse

TIF information: http://chicagotalks.org/TIFstory2011/

Williams, Sheila
Workforce Information and Resource Exchange:
http://wire.cjc.net/wiki/Unemployment
http://wire.cjc.net/wiki/Poverty

U.S. Census: 2010 and 2000