by Jackson Potter - undergraduate in History at UIC <jpotte2@uic.edu>, November 30, 1999

Starting in the 1930's the University of Chicago used city monies, Hyde Park community organizations, and restrictive covenants to inhibit African Americans from moving into the area and to maintain their upper class white student body. In the 90's the University of Illinois at Chicago is using a similar approach to gentrify its surrounding areas and create a privileged mostly white student population.

In 1952 U of C's most important creation the South East Chicago Commission, the community organization was controlled by U of C and sought to take advantage of white middle class fears of blacks and crime to mobilize support for their urban renewal initiatives. By 1958 the SECC passed its urban renewal plan through Mayor Daley's city council.

U of C used its leverage in city hall to secure city funds and proceeded to buy land before incoming blacks could do so. The objective of U of C and the City was to prevent racial succession in what was a predominately white neighborhood, U of C wanted to maintain its white elite student population and feared that a racist backlash of white flight would accompany any dramatic increase in the black population of the area.

The logic of propertied interests has always been to remove any impediments to making money, for Hyde Park this meant putting numerous barriers in the path of black migrants and adhering to the racist tendencies of white residents. In the post World War II era, Blacks were searching for housing because of the overcrowded and dilapidated condition of housing (especially in areas of Black concentration) throughout the city. Instead of solving the problem of housing and poverty - U of C helped the city further ghettoize blacks in isolated districts, similar to what UIC is doing today.

UIC is a property owner in the Near West Side, and is also going to be selling market priced units at an average of $200,000 a pop after its South Campus Expansion project is finished. The South Campus Expansion project is supported by the city and now another Mayor Daley is helping a big city University to secure its neighborhood and prevent low income people and people of color from living in its surroundings. Through the Tax Increment Financing system (TIF) the city is enabling UIC to draw on all increases in property taxes for the area, in addition the TIF helped UIC acquire privately owned land and complete infrastructure improvements without using university resources.

The Expansion has already destroyed the Maxwell Street Market area which gave jobs to over 800 vendors. Next slated for demolition is the ABLA homes public housing development. The ABLA homes blocks UIC's profit maximization scheme. Low income housing with a lot of poor people doesn't allow UIC's property values to increase as rapidly as they could if the housing development went away. Thus the city comes to the aid of its ailing university pal and enacts a plan to remove the housing project, without giving any guarantees of affordable housing to the 6,000 residents currently living in ABLA. Also police brutality has been a tool used by UIC and City police to make ABLA homes residents feel unwelcome and speed the process of their removal. Through their utilization of the one strike your out rule the police are able to further UIC's prerogatives, the Chicago Housing Authority stipulates that if convicted of a crime you can be kicked out of public housing. Additionally the predominately Mexican Pilsen neighborhood is being impacted by rising property values, as the property taxes are rising at twice the city's average and long time Mexican residents are beginning pushed out due to financial pressures.

UIC's Provost Elizabeth Hoffman has said time and time again that UIC wants to attract students that would otherwise go to Harvard or Yale, well if U of C needed to prevent the influx of blacks in order to do that, then what will UIC have to do? The answer is implied in the question, it is obvious that UIC's enrollment policies and treatment of its surrounding community seeks to displace black and Mexican low income residents and students, while attracting wealthier and whiter condominium dwellers. As the University raises admissions standards we have seen a decline in city students attending the university and black enrollment has declined for 5 straight years. Urban removal certainly has its benefits for the new students of UIC and the new residents of the Near West Side, but the question remains what of the people who are being removed and whose homes are bulldozed, don't they have the right to decent housing and education? The answer needs to be yes, and as students and/or faculty and staff we have the responsibility to stop these irresponsible policies dead in their tracks, and breath new life into UIC's urban mission and its commitment to Chicago.

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