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Executive Summary
"(Anthro)policy in Chicago Lawn: Answering the Call for Collective Community Experience"
Research Intern: Ryan Hollon, University of Chicago
Community Partner:
Southwest Youth Collaborative
 Chicago Lawn was once known for its white working-class families, Nazi flags, and the stoning of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Despite a drastic shift in demographics, the current class and race tensions in Chicago Lawn are intricately tied to this history of socially constructed racism. Chicago Lawn has a population of 61,412 (2000 Census). Fifty-two point five percent of its population is African-American, 35.1% is Hispanic, and 10.1% is White. Twenty-one percent of the population is foreign born, and 19.8% lives below the poverty level.
go to map of area land use >>
The Research Question(s):
How inclusive are community planning efforts? What are community gathering spaces and are they used for collaboration? How can greater participation in social, political and community planning efforts be achieved? The research focused on organizational relationships, formal and informal service provision, resident activity patterns, and neighbourhood dynamics from class to race tensions.
Methods:
Interviews drew from over fifty-five informants from across the spectrums of age, ethnicity, class, and gender. The community narratives were gathered using ethnographic methods that interwove structured interviews, semi-structured interviews, and participant observation.
Key Findings:
 Chicago Lawn lacks sufficient constructive gathering spaces that would enable multi-cultural interaction and resident-based political participation.Today - as more and more people move to the area from Pilsen, the projects, and prison - Chicago Lawn is one of a shrinking number of areas available for low-income Chicagoans of color. Despite a drastic shift in demographics, the current class and race tensions in the neighborhood are intricately tied to a violent history of socially constructed racism. While the large majority of those who once sympathized with Nazi flags in the area have either died or moved out, current neighborhood divisions are still premised by an inherited social space that is based on community patterns of exclusion.  Chicago Lawn's physical infrastructure was largely determined at a time when the community sought to keep out non-whites. Today a neighborhood of extreme diversity is largely separated into ethnic enclaves and very few have stopped to create the type of broad-based multi-cultural spaces that are necessary to challenge the obstacles posed by such a legacy of racism.
The lack of resident-based political participation is especially clear amidst current community planning processes. There is a clear need to increase the number of low-income stakeholders in the neighborhood in a way that will build the community's capacity to mobilize for extra-neighborhood resources in the future.
Findings in Action:
A poster map of the community areas surrounding Southwest Youth Collaborative was created by intern Ryan Hollon and CCUC staff. It details suggestions for spaces that can be used to increase the local involvement, and has been displayed for SWYC staff as well as at Mess Hall in Rogers Park. Below are additional reccommendations from Ryan's research:
Use mainstream organization's capacities to secure spaces that can foster grassroots political participation; create spaces that build multi-cultural and intergenerational interaction with leadership that represents Chicago Lawn's composition.
- Work with other grassroots agencies to develop a plan for "Homebase Community, Family and Youth Organizing Centers" modeled after the previously existing West Englewood Youth and Family Center run by SWYC. Shape the proposal to provide holistic community programming that will counter the division of social service labor in the area.
- Work with pre-existing resident organizations (e.g. block clubs) wherever possible around the government of these spaces. Help develop a block-based network to work with the already growing youth empowerment movement in the area. Create intergenerational organizing strategies that allow these groups to work collaboratively, while maintaining spaces for both adult and youth ownership (e.g. 2nd floor/converted living room).
- Create spaces allowing for cross-organizational programming. Continue pattern of collaboration between fellow grassroots organizations and youth-led groups.
- Work with residents near Homebase Centers to create awareness that, as one NHS employee says, "there aren't problems with Section 8 renters, the problems are with absentee management."
- Co-develop community organizing curriculum with area organizers interested in creating resident power bases (e.g., "how-to" organizing for changes in schools, etc.).
- A regular workshop designed by SOUL and SWWT to address the rise in teen dating violence and create dialogue among parents/adults and youth.
- Work with CeaseFire to create more spaces for programs like "In These Shoes" that catalyze intergenerational dialogues and the pressures of gangs.
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