Millennium Park

Millennium Park is no doubt one of the most beautiful places in Chicago but was it worth the millions of dollars spent on it? The simple answer is NO.  Tourism is not guaranteed thing. With hard times in the recession less people are taking vacations to other places. Sure people from other countries may take a vacation but let’s go see Millennium Park. Nope lets go see California or the Statue of Liberty in New York. Face it Chicago will probably never be on par with the states against the ocean when we are landlocked in the middle of the United States.

The cost of the park far outweighs the beauty that it leaves the residents with. They throw  concerts there and they have the ice rink there in the winter. But really let’s put ground cover over the parking garage and cover that with grass and sand to absorb the water and lets build a giant fish skeleton. This was a huge waste of money on their part. The money could have been spent on much better things like transportation. They want to raise out IPASS rates because they need more money. But all the money that went towards Millennium Park could have went towards our infrastructure.

If we were to fix our transportation and increase the flow of traffic in and out of the city. Possibly get the individual pod system working in a big city we could save the hassle of traffic jams and waiting for express trains and we can just go to where we need to go in minutes. Widening our highways we can push our supposed deadlock timeline back several years and make our city one of a kind. No traffic jams, we could become a punctual city putting us on the map in the world.

Speaker Teachers Union

                During last week’s class we had a guest speaker that was a part of the teachers union. He discussed several of the points I was wondering about charter schools. Such as how most charter schools can fire teachers at will based on performance. After seeing the movie I thought this was a good idea but then he explained to us, what criteria do we go off of? You can’t really make criteria that everyone can follow. You may make a certain percentage of kids having to pass. But this in no way reflects the kids who are not going to pass. Usually because they do not want to be in school. I met plenty of kids that were like this. They were smart enough to pass their classes but they didn’t want to be there. They only tried in automotive and P.E.

                The other one is taking a bonus and getting paid more in return they have to abide by this system and they can be fired almost at will. Doing this would coincide with the earlier example. How can you analyze all the teachers the exact same and have their separate teaching styles be evaluated the same? It is simple, you can’t.

                So the question is being a modern country with money why do we not value education like other countries? Is there anything we can do that would be able to change our system that most people would agree with? The main group we have to please would be the teachers meaning we have to please the union. This is never easy to do; they usually want the extreme side of one end of the contract. Not that this is wrong but they usually threaten strike. Most unions do this at times, such as the construction union last year. Can anyone think of a compromise that they could agree on?

Racial Segregation

                 I believe that the city still has racial segregation I believe because of how Chicago was built in the past. Chicago has traditionally been built upon segregation and immigration. They have always had people separated from others. The politicians did not want certain where they lived, so the made property values higher there and did not necessary want people of a non-white descent. Let’s face it America was very strong on racism in the past, technically our country was found on it, the South relied on slavery for everything. Their economy was based on this and the North is the first to have changed that, resulting in the Civil War dividing the country.

                Politicians have always been racist with setting voting lines strategically so other races cannot have a majority vote so they can stay in power and by also creating laws that affect only certain people. Such as the voting laws that forbade men from voting if their father’s father did not vote. They knew this would only target certain people and did this for their benefit. So I believe that politicians are inherently racist and they do this so that that may stay in power. But how can we dismantle the segregation that exists. It will not be easy but I believe it can be done.

                The only conceivable way that I can see this happening is a COMPLETE transformation of not only the state but also federal government system. The racism is inherently present regardless of the time and place. But the odds of convincing everyone in power to completely redo the system that they have in place and control, would never happen. Do you think that the people in power would ever agree to give up power to let everyone be equal?

Pilsen

Pilsen is a community based on family and culture. The culture of the area is very prominent, the greatest example of this is the Spanish History Museum. The museum shows not only the history of the Mexican people but what they do for Dia Day Los Muertos. There were people creating handbags and sugar skulls from scratch and decorating them as anyone would like them.

                The family owned shops and the small restaurants further exemplify this fact, by providing a little taste of home so to speak. So why has this little community flourished over the years and become what it is today? It is because of the constant flow of family and immigrants contributing to the community. This has happened more than once in our history of the United States. Another example is the neighborhood of Little Italy in both New York and Chicago.

                The reason I mention this is because I had family that took roots in both these communities over the years when my family first immigrated to the states from Italy. The communities of Little Italy still flourish today, not as well as Pilsen has but they have helped the surrounding communities through the years. But Pilsen is a special case. It was not always a Mexican neighborhood. We mentioned it being Polish before the current residents. So my question is how can such a transformation take place. From one culture to another that is vastly different than the one before hand.  Can anyone think of  other communities that have undergone such a change?

                Pilsen is built upon community and culture. Is this a good way to build a new community? Is Naperville a community built on culture? How about out communities we are doing our research on for Corsino’s class?

Hull House

Hull House is a very interesting building to say the least. But what surprises me is that it is no longer acting in the community as it should be. I don’t think that anyone would argue it was a bad thing from what we learned. Giving everyone jobs, skills, and milk. But it is now just a portion of the size it was all those years ago and why is that? The city once again had to go and ruin something that worked. It wanted a bigger campus for the university  so they had to make room. All because the Hull House did not fit into their “vision” of what Chicago should be like.

                But I wonder why there are no modern day Hull Houses that we know about. I am sure it costs an enormous amount to run, staff, and provide for all the people that would be there.  Because of the nature of a house like this there should be no problem getting funding. Humanitarian groups would donate, if the house did a study like Hull House Sociological societies would give funding, as would anthropological.

                But something like this taking hold in society today would most likely not happen without a fight. Plenty of people would say it’s like a misappropriation of funds and they would be better spent on our roads. Others would say it will fail in a few years, or that no one would use it. I personally think that it would depend on location more than anything else. If we put this in a struggling neighborhood than there is a definite chance that we can change hundreds of lives. Than by piggybacking on this success we can move into bigger areas, eventually into a possible city wide Hull House of sorts? My main question to you guys is can you think of anyone that would have a chance at running something like this?

Cabrini Greens

Last week while seeing Cabrini Greens one major thing came into my mind yet again. The city really needs to get their stuff together and finish what they start. While rebuilding the housing instead of finishing one building and then moving to the next they build multiple at the same time kicking everyone out to rebuild it when they could have made it so much easier to just remove some tenants and relocate a much smaller number. But what really gets on my nerves is the fact that they displaced everyone and never finished what they were doing and ended up with less people than the first time! This makes me feel like the “upgrades” and I say that loosely was through a contractor that someone knew and they were making a friend money. Or the building with the wind tunnel on top that is non-functioning.  

            The Chicago government also seems to enjoy building structures to seem more ornate or to connect different parts of the city. A prime example is the new buildings in Cabrini Greens or the river walk that they are building along the disgusting river. But is all this worth it for the mixed income housing that the city wants in its place? The city has huge plans for everything but they always think of the moment. They don’t think of repercussions that could happen when they start to implement these things.

            While doing our interviews for the SOA 494 class one of our first interviewees had a good point. I asked him what he thought of the mixed housing in the area and he said it was a horrible idea and it would never work. His reasoning is that you have someone paying thousands a month to live there and the others paying close to nothing. He said that these are two cultures that would not get along with each other and that they would not want their kids to see hang with each other. So on an ending note, is he right? Will these two cultures conflict leaving the city out millions and possibly another gang ridden area down the road?   

Gentrification

            The topic of gentrification comes up many times while in all Sociology classes, and one thing I have noticed is how not many people realize that this happens all the time and usually under the radar. When we were in Lincoln Park last week all we saw were big houses, decorative houses, and famous houses. Not many of the houses around us were small, old looking, or cheap. The area was built up in some places with apartments and condos leading the way into the new century.

            What we do not tend to realize is that in order for us to build these houses and high rises that we must kick the old residents out or buy them out. But when they refuse to buy what do we do to them?

            In the paper earlier in the week I found out. A family that had owned the house for many years refused to sell to developers no matter what the price and after an “anonymous” tip police RAIDED the house. The false accusations to which they raided were dog fighting and drug dealing.  All because the son had a pitbull and would hang out with friends on the side of the house. After finding no evidence of either accusation the fire department arrived. And put so many code violations into effect that the house was deemed unlivable and a hazard. They were evicted and since they do not have the money to fix the violations within the time period they are basically forced to sell.

            This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard, just because the neighbors do not like one particular family because they do not fit in is in no way right to get them kicked out using loopholes. Granted if they were a threat to the neighborhood I could agree with getting them out. But is this what we have come to? A society that has to do what the rich people want one way or another? Is this how all gentrification works? When you cannot get them out the easy way you resort to tactics that are unconventional? 

Make no small plans?

                In a city like Chicago we can look ahead in quite a few different ways. We have to estimate how much we will grow and how quickly. And we also have to estimate our costs of renovating buildings that are going to be redone. Most of all we have to watch the politicians.

                The politicians are the biggest problem that we will have. Our track record with politicians is that they are corrupt and LOVE money. Unfortunately this is very bad for us because it causes the city and sometimes state lots of money and this puts us in a worse off place than before. Our city has a very colorful history in out buildings and they are not exactly young. Some dating as far back as the early 1900s we have to fix these eventually. Unfortunately this will cost a fortune. Unlike Las Vegas which had an interesting policy. You want to replace a casino, ok use this dynamite and make the old one collapse. Than just rebuild yours with all new stuff. In Chicago we have plenty of organizations and architectural experts that would not allow us to make the old buildings disappear to create a new Wal-Mart or Target; instead they have to build in these buildings renovating them and fight the city to hang up neon signs.

                The population factor is going to be the hardest to look into the future on, but it will be the biggest impact for generations to come. Rush hour is already horrible, but if it were to get worse and become gridlock in 2020 like it has been predicted you would basically live in your car, and never leave the city for work. Instead working at home or living in your office would be the only way to do it. Immigrants have been coming to this city for decades and it is not going to change overnight. Nor will it change anytime soon. Rather we should start building now for what we expect in 50 years and not what we expect in 10-15 years.

                We may have to try and predict where everyone will move to if they come out to live here in the Chicago area, but we have to figure out where they are going to work. If it is in the city we have to change where pedestrians walk, how they train, L, and bus system works, and where they are going to work, because we can only build so high.  

Urbanism as a Way of Life

Louis Wirth's definition of a city is that it is dense, it is a permanent settlement with a high population, and that it has heterogeneity of people. His definition seems to hold true today but it is a little off when you look at it. The city is a permanent settlement but most of the people that are there seem as if they commute there rather than live there, so it’s a settlement for some but more of a place of work or entertainment for others.  As for heterogeneity it is almost wrong. If you look at it as the types of people that are around you everyone is different in various ways. But if you were to look at them as a whole you would notice that they are all the same. They are all rushing from point A to point B, dodging vehicles and running lights to get there as fast as possible. They all seem to move as one huge amorphous blob.

He fails to mention the fact that the city can change drastically. When you walk around the city the environment and people change with the neighborhood. While at the Harold Washington library the population was diverse and relaxed. But while on Adams street it was the bustle of city life that all the Hollywood movies show.

I strongly agree with Wirth when he mentions that people in the city are more secondary contacts rather than primary. I know that in Naperville you have more friends rather than acquaintances but in the city you are more likely to have acquaintances over friends. This is due to the fact that the environment is vastly different. As you spend more and more time in the city you get the feeling as if you must hurry to get where you are going. As this feeling takes over you do not really stop and get to know those around you. Working in the city you would do what you need to do to finish the day, while in the suburbs the pace is a bit more laid back. Although you stay busy you get the chance to get to know the people around you.

This reading was informative; it made me think a bit differently about Chicago and about Las Vegas, realizing that although I lived in the suburbs in Las Vegas it was more closely related to a city.