FEBRUARY 15, 2000:

Currently, Bronzeville is experiencing the similar situations that it did approximately forty years ago: blight. However, as opposed to the past, the city is now approaching this problem differently. The newly established program called the Empowerment Zone recreates--in a very weird way-- urban renewal. This program revitalizes the neighborhood to provide housing for the middle and upper middle classes. The only thing that the current residents have to look forward to is eviction. The Empowerment Zone program in Chicago is supposed to redevelop "mature" urban areas and prepare them for a "bright future." As the propaganda states, "Although the Empowerment Zone communities have lost much of their historical strength over the last few decade, they still possess strong assets . . ."⁹² Does this not sound familiar?

As I traveled through the Bronzeville neighborhood, I would never guess that this used to be a place of thriving African-American culture. It is definitely obvious that this is a place of African-American residence because they are all around, even those wandering hopelessly down the street. Since the implementation of Bronzeville's urban renewal projects, this neighborhood has experienced its rough times. With the construction of the public housing facilities, the neighborhood witnessed a steady decline of the community and neighborhood. The area that used to thrive with Black entertainment and entrepreneurship has turned into a ghost town. The population of this community dropped to 53, 741 in 1980 from 80,150 in 1970; to 35,897 in 1990.⁹³ Presumably, this is an undesirable neighborhood to live.

As you travel down the strips of 47th and 39th streets, you discover that this neighborhood reverted back into the slum that it used to be before the implementation of urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s. On every corner, there is a liquor store owned by an Arab-American or a Beauty Supply store owned by an Asian-American. Next to the liquor store there is usually a storefront church or an athletic apparel store. This is a pattern that continues to persist in what was once a flourishing commercial district bursting with a distinctive culture and African-American businesses. Walking down the street, you can see plenty of loiterers and solicitors. Today, Bronzeville is known for such things as its prostitution ring along 47th street, which has earned the name of "The Ho' Stroll". The description that I am supplying to you does not sound like the "Promised Land" to which the migrants ran. Now, it actually sounds more like some sort of hell.

This hell does not end with the demur of the commercial strips, it continues with the housing situation. What started off to be the saving grace of the housing shortage for the migrants, has now become the worst housing opportunity for any citizen of Chicago. The housing in Bronzeville is known as last resort housing. The income level in this neighborhood is now well below poverty level. The poverty level has increased from fifty-one percent in 1980 to sixty-four percent in 1990.⁹⁴ Moreover, I guess you can not expect luxury when you enter these buildings.

From the outside of these housing complexes, you can observe the parking lots with huge unsafe potholes. If they did have the opportunity to own a car, then it will definitely be destroyed by the unleveled ground in these lots. You then glance over to what seems to be a playground. It has the skeleton of dilapidated, contorted steel poles where the swings were located. I think that that is a sliding board right there distorted and shaped like an "L" instead of a slope, with glass remnants all over. I would not want my children on such a contraption!

As you enter the vestibule of the building, the smell of urine immediately rushes you. There are no lights in the gloomy halls, so you can not see who is walking up on you or what you are walking up on. I would like to take the elevator. However, you can not take the elevator because they are out of order, and if you live on the seventeenth floor, you might want to take a breather after the first two or three flight of stairs. Despite the warmth of the outside, there is a cold feeling in the building. You do not see any adults or elderly, but there are plenty of teenagers and infants. Actually, most of the people that you happen to see are youth and women. Currently, one-third of Bronzeville's population is thirteen years or younger. The heads of households are majority women. It used to be sixty percent in 1980, but it increased to seventy-two percent in 1990.⁹⁵ What happened to this urban renewal project that went bad?

Some of the buildings have been torn down and many more will be torn down in the near future. They say it is because they are in the process of rebuilding Bronzeville. They do not call this process urban renewal anymore, they have given it a new name now: neighborhood revitalization. They changed the name because urban renewal had a bad reputation known for its displacement of residents.⁹⁶ Wait! Is not this new program, neighborhood revitalization, handling matters similarly to that of urban renewal? That is what the South Street Journal is saying. Recently, the South Street Journal, the neighborhood publication, read "CHA residents faced with uncertainty in housing protest to stay".⁹⁷ As reported to this local paper, "More than two-hundred tenants were told that thy had about two weeks to move or face eviction from the sheriff's office."⁹⁸ Sixteen buildings have already been demolished representing 2,560 family apartments.⁹⁹ Currently, community organizations help in the replacement of these displaced residents.¹⁰⁰ This process definitely sounds similar to urban renewal. History repeats itself in the twenty-first century.

Is it the best solution to close these buildings? In the years leading up to the leveling of these buildings, many of the families had serious heating and water main problems. In the winter of 1998, the water main erupted in some of the apartments because there was no heat and the water froze still. While this accident destroyed much of what many of the tenants owned, it also put their families at health risks. The luckiest families were those without children.¹⁰¹ When confronted with such incidents, it can be argued that the best solution is to demolish these blighted buildings.¹⁰²

In September 1995, the U.S. Congress voted to cancel laws passed in 1937 that guaranteed that no unit of public housing could be torn down without a replacement unit. Another law passed in 1996 put 19,000 units of Chicago's public housing in danger of being torn down without providing new units for the residents who would be forced out of them. Forty-two thousand family members stand to lose their homes and there are 40,000 more families on CHA waiting list.¹⁰⁴ For this reason, maybe it is not the best idea to demolish these blighted buildings because there is no way to replace them and no law to enforce their replacement.