Hull House

           Last week’s tour of the Hull House was a great experience. Even though I have been there once before, I really enjoyed the tour this time around as well. Jane Addams is an admirable woman who decided to make a true difference in the Chicago area. Addams and Starr, along with many other women, established a place where those in desperate need were able to receive guidance and resources to better their lives.

            Addams’ approach to dealing with Chicago’s problems of population growth is very different when compared to Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago. Instead of focusing on restructuring Chicago’s built environment, Addams’ Hull House focused on providing “a center for higher civic and social life, to institute and maintain educational and philanthropic enterprises; and to investigate and improve the conditions in the industrial districts of Chicago” (Addams, 1910, p.112). Her approach dealt with the issues at hand rather than at large. On the other hand, Burnham was involved with the City Beautiful movement, so he and his followers believed that a “bad urban environment brought out the worst in people,” and in order to fix people’s behaviors a more beautiful city was needed. This would then “inspire a sense of community among a city’s heterogeneous population” and Chicago’s problem would slowing disintegrate (Smith, 2006, p.15). Burnham’s contributions to the city of Chicago are outstanding; however, his plan did not take into consideration the actual needs of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods. Addams and the other residents of Hull House took the time to understand what the people living on Halsted Street needed and provided them with services, such as night schools for adults, bookbinding work, a music school, a library, an art gallery, playground, a day-care, and so many other services. All of these facilities were used by the residents in the neighborhood, and they truly helped immigrant and low-income families better their living conditions.

            The works of Addams and Starr are remarkable, and it is interesting that we do not see any settlement houses today. If there were a settlement house today, what would it be like? Would it work today? It is hard to answer these questions. However, it is obvious that we see many of the same problems in certain neighborhoods of Chicago today that Addams and Star encountered when living on Halsted Street. So, maybe establishing settlement houses today could really work. There are professional social workers today who do the kinds of work that Addams and Starr did, but they do not live in a settlement house or even sometimes they do not live in low-income neighborhoods. So,  maybe settlement houses could truly work today, we just need to try it out.

Cabrini-Green!!!

            Last week’s class was a quite interesting one I must say. A lot of mixed feelings arouse from the walking tour of new townhouses that were constructed in place of Cabrini-Green. I understand that the new homes were needed in order to provide a higher quality of living for many families; however, what I did not understand is why city planners and government officials did not really put that much effort in making sure that these families were temporarily housed.  Mr. Haller did mention that many of the families from Cabrini-Green left the area and not all of the residents of Cabrini-Green even live in these new townhouses. Why is that? Why did they live? What I have concluded is that some of these city planners and government officials did not really take into consideration where these families would go while deconstructing Cabrini-Green.  Even when the new townhouses were built not many families from Cabrini-Green came back to live in the new homes. This really bothers me and makes me realize that a lot of people are just really selfish. I understand people want to make money and get ahead, but come now we have to really think about what is going on here and how this an affect families.

            Another part of the walking tour that really struck me was the “City Farm.” Close to the remains of Cabrini-Green, there was a “City Farm.” As we were walking past the farm, Mr. Haller mentioned that the farm was going to be completely gone in a little bit. Even though Mr. Haller informed us that it would be moved to another part of the city, it still struck me because why was the farm being moved in the first place? My immediate reaction to Mr. Haller’s statement upset me and made me realize that Burnham would have not been okay with this move. Burnham talked about how there needed to be more parks and green places so people could relax and enjoy nature, so moving the farm to another place in the city did not fly with me. The more I thought about it the more I realized that the space where the farm is currently located at will be transformed into another kind of space. The kind of space I’m referring to is “knowledge-based, service and high-tech world of business and commerce,” which means more restaurants, more Starbucks’ (even though there were already two Starbucks’ across the street of the new homes), more banks, and etc, (Koval & et al, 2006, p.11). This transformation makes me dislike Chicago city planners and local government officials even more because instead of being concerned with providing homes for people from the original Cabrini-Green, they are more concerned in making profit.

Gold Coast

            Last week’s class was really interesting and I definitely did learn a lot. What I really enjoyed about last week’s class was the reading from Zorbaugh. The real-life stories in Zorbaugh’s book really helped me understand some of the area in Chicago that I had never knew about before. Zorbaugh points out that the city of Chicago was growing financially and economically (some areas more than othere), which led to a change in “society.” He says that “the old ‘society’ based on hereditary social position, has passed, to be replaced by a ‘society’ of cliques and sets, of wealth and display, and above all, of youth” (p.47). This quote really struck me and made me really think about how this can totally change an area. The Gold Coast used to be filled with rich families who inherited their wealth, but as the economy began to change so did wealth. What I mean by this is that young people, who did not inherit wealth from their families, found ways to increase their wealth and they did it fast. When this happened, they moved to the Gold Coast because the idolized the Gold Coast families. Once this happened, the nature of the Gold Coast’s society changed. It created a sort of division in the Gold Coast: the old-rich versus the new-rich.  

Also, last week’s lecture and walking tour of the Gold Coast was really fascinating. When I think of the Gold Coast, I think of this perfect little area in Chicago. Magnificent, large homes, expensive stores, luxurious homes, and so on; however, the Gold Coast of today’s Chicago is a bit different. Even though the Gold Coast today does have all the things mentioned above, it has integrated younger middle-class families and an area known as the slum. It is fascinating to know that the Gold Coast is an area where families are pretty well-off, yet a few blocks away from the well-off families there are families struggling to survive.

Another really part of Zorbaugh’s book that interested me was the story of the “charity girl.” Her story seriously made me really think about my life and how coming from a small town and moving to a bigger city just makes you feel really lonely. I kind of could relate to her and understood where is was coming from. Even though I do not live in Chicago, I did move from a small town in Illinois to the suburbs of Chicago. Sometimes I do feel a bit lonely where I live because I really do not know any of my neighbors and I do not really have any friends that live in Downers Grove. However, when I come to campus I feel a lot less lonely because I have professors, classmates, and friends that I interact with and this makes me feel a lot better about myself. I do believe that real interaction with others is extremely important in remaining sane and without it, people can truly feel isolated and depressed. In my perspective, feeling isolated and depressed is not healthy for anyone.

This class is definitely making me think about the Chicago in ways that I would have never really thought about. I definitely appreciate Chicago more than ever before, because I never realized that Chicago is truly unique and beautiful, yet depressing and mysterious.