Our City, Our Future
Recommendations for Building Resilient Chicago Neighborhoods
Resources
Report Summary:
ULI Chicago created the Chicago Resilience Initiative and convened interdisciplinary task forces to discuss the barriers to building equitable and sustainable neighborhoods, and to develop solutions to help overcome them. This report is a framework that aims to foster action towards a city that serves all residents.
Background and Assignment:
Our City, Our Future, develops a framework to help build equitable and sustainable neighborhoods as buildings blocks of a thriving, resilient city for all Chicago residents. While Chicago is known to many as “The City that Works,” it does not work for everyone. Black and brown communities experience persisting inequities because of decades of neglect and lack of investment. Its result is a city split by two distinct sides – one with bustling, new development, vibrant businesses, and parks, and the other with vacant land, broken infrastructure, and a lack of job opportunities. In partnership with the City of Chicago and as part of the Resilient Land Use Cohort, ULI Chicago saw an opportunity to leverage member experts and develop the ULI Chicago Resilience Initiative to inspire an inclusive vision for the future of the city that serves all neighborhoods and residents. Officially launched in October 2020, the initiative convened over 60 ULI member experts and community leaders to:
- Identify key characteristics of resilience and the barriers to promoting and sustaining these characteristics in Chicago’s neighborhoods
- Prepare recommendations, which through the collective action of public, private and non-profit partners, can help overcome barriers and create more equitable, sustainable neighborhoods
Members of the initiative were organized into interdisciplinary task forces based on four distinct yet interconnected pillars of resilience: Social Infrastructure, Housing Diversity, Economic Opportunity, and Physical Infrastructure. Over a nine-month period, the task forces convened six times to engage in discussions on the existing challenges and to create actionable solutions to advance resilience both at the neighborhood- and city-scale.
Key Recommendations:
At task force convenings, participants shared insights on the most significant existing barriers to equity and sustainability which include historical patterns and persisting legacies of segregation, lack of adequate funding and access to capital, policy barriers, and limited community engagement in decision-making processes. With those barriers come opportunities to tackle systemic challenges and create practical solutions. To this end, task forces participants elevated the following recommendations while recognizing that there cannot be a one-size-fits-all methodology for different neighborhoods that make up the city.
- Focus on preserving and creating housing units that are affordable and support the health and safety of residents at different stages of life
- Use a multi-faceted approach that in addition to attracting new larger scale, catalytic developments to neighborhoods, also invests in neighborhood residents and entrepreneurs to help create a diverse, rich, and more resilient economic base
- Prioritize projects for investment by engaging the community in the planning process and creating a longer-term capital infrastructure plan that underscores the need for physical infrastructure to serve all residents equitably
- Promote contextual neighborhood development that enhances access to services and resources such as fresh foods, healthcare, recreational spaces, and the arts, and that celebrates the rich architectural and cultural heritage of Chicago’s neighborhoods
Report Summary:
ULI Chicago created the Chicago Resilience Initiative and convened interdisciplinary task forces to discuss the barriers to building equitable and sustainable neighborhoods, and to develop solutions to help overcome them. This report is a framework that aims to foster action towards a city that serves all residents.
Background and Assignment:
Our City, Our Future, develops a framework to help build equitable and sustainable neighborhoods as buildings blocks of a thriving, resilient city for all Chicago residents. While Chicago is known to many as “The City that Works,” it does not work for everyone. Black and brown communities experience persisting inequities because of decades of neglect and lack of investment. Its result is a city split by two distinct sides – one with bustling, new development, vibrant businesses, and parks, and the other with vacant land, broken infrastructure, and a lack of job opportunities. In partnership with the City of Chicago and as part of the Resilient Land Use Cohort, ULI Chicago saw an opportunity to leverage member experts and develop the ULI Chicago Resilience Initiative to inspire an inclusive vision for the future of the city that serves all neighborhoods and residents. Officially launched in October 2020, the initiative convened over 60 ULI member experts and community leaders to:
- Identify key characteristics of resilience and the barriers to promoting and sustaining these characteristics in Chicago’s neighborhoods
- Prepare recommendations, which through the collective action of public, private and non-profit partners, can help overcome barriers and create more equitable, sustainable neighborhoods
Members of the initiative were organized into interdisciplinary task forces based on four distinct yet interconnected pillars of resilience: Social Infrastructure, Housing Diversity, Economic Opportunity, and Physical Infrastructure. Over a nine-month period, the task forces convened six times to engage in discussions on the existing challenges and to create actionable solutions to advance resilience both at the neighborhood- and city-scale.
Key Recommendations:
At task force convenings, participants shared insights on the most significant existing barriers to equity and sustainability which include historical patterns and persisting legacies of segregation, lack of adequate funding and access to capital, policy barriers, and limited community engagement in decision-making processes. With those barriers come opportunities to tackle systemic challenges and create practical solutions. To this end, task forces participants elevated the following recommendations while recognizing that there cannot be a one-size-fits-all methodology for different neighborhoods that make up the city.
- Focus on preserving and creating housing units that are affordable and support the health and safety of residents at different stages of life
- Use a multi-faceted approach that in addition to attracting new larger scale, catalytic developments to neighborhoods, also invests in neighborhood residents and entrepreneurs to help create a diverse, rich, and more resilient economic base
- Prioritize projects for investment by engaging the community in the planning process and creating a longer-term capital infrastructure plan that underscores the need for physical infrastructure to serve all residents equitably
- Promote contextual neighborhood development that enhances access to services and resources such as fresh foods, healthcare, recreational spaces, and the arts, and that celebrates the rich architectural and cultural heritage of Chicago’s neighborhoods
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