North Lawndale

South Ridgeway Ave

For the project, I selected North Lawndale neighborhood, more specifically South Ridgeview Ave. Which goes from West Ogden Ave to South Independence Blvd; at the corner of both intersections Theodore Herzl Elementary School is located. South Ridgeview street it’s a mile long and has more than 7 vacant lots. These lots are often used for parking old cars and are common for illegal activity.The target population for the project is elementary school children.

In the early 19th century, the region belonged to Dutch and English farmers, Ogden Ave used to be called Southwest Plank Rd. Then, in the late nineteenth century, the McCormick Reaper Works opened a plant and industrial workers moved to the area. By 1910 North Lawndale’s population was 46,225.

According to Chicago’s History archive “During the second decade of the twentieth century, Russian Jews became North Lawndale’s largest residential group. North Lawndale’s burgeoning population established their own small city of community institutions, including Mt. Sinai Hospital, Herzl Junior College (now Malcolm X College), several bathhouses, and a commercial strip on Roosevelt Road. One study found that in 1946, North Lawndale housed about 65,000 Jews, approximately one-quarter of the city’s Jewish population.” In the 1950s, Lawndale became a main port of entry for African-Americans migrating from the south. By 1960, the population had reached an all-time high of 125,000, 91% of which was African-American. The riots of the late 1960s, coupled with the loss of 80% of the area’s manufacturing jobs in the 1970s fueled the loss of businesses and residents.

In 2016, community meetings were conducted with the idea to improve the neighborhood’s appearance. One idea was for North Lawndale to resemble Lincoln Park but without displacing its residents. The plan was to offer residents training in construction, entrepreneurial opportunities and trade.

By conducting some research and personal experience, I was able to pinpoint three problem areas that were used as the structure to the solution proposed for the project:

Obesity and Diabetes:

Lack of exercise, be in a food desert area and lack of food knowledge in children/ adults. These factors contribute to increasing the probability of illness among community members. According to the US census of 2010, the diabetes mortality rate in North Lawndale is 62% higher than for the U.S. and 37% than Chicago’s.

Mari Gallagher Research & Consulting Group (2006) mentioned that the childhood overweight and obesity rate in Lawndale is 67% vs. 26% in all of the U.S. Lawndale is considered a “food desert” community, meaning there is a big imbalance between grocery stores providing quality food and the number of fast food outlets selling food high in fat, calories and sugar. One-third of Chicago’s “food desert” residents are children.

In the graph below one can see that North Lawndale age distribution is higher in children from 5 -12 years old. After that, the trend starts to decrease. From this graph, one can also see that the male population decreases rapidly, which means that more women than men reside in the area.

“More than 500,000 residents live in food deserts, and an additional 400,000 live in neighborhoods with lots of fast food restaurants and no grocery stores nearby. Some food justice activists have sought to close this gap by opening food co-ops in underserved areas where supermarkets have historically been unsuccessful” (Food Empowerment Project 2010). Still, these Co-ops and projects created to fight against obesity and diabetes have not been very successful either; for example, hospitals like Mount Sinai launched a campaign to end diabetes and obesity in the neighborhood, they provide cooking lessons for women, aerobic classes and educate them on health issues.

The program has struggled to connect and engage with the community. The fact that there are more women than men in the area, with a high child population, means that most households might be comprised of single mothers with a per capita income between $9250 and $33750 (Census 2010). One reason for why the programs are not connecting with the community might be of how cheap, easy and convenient fast food is; compared with fruit and vegetables that are more expensive, and there are so many to choose from that might be difficult to decide which to buy, and how to make them taste good, especially for children to eat. Lastly, time in the kitchen is a luxury and time is something that some families do not have. Especially for single mothers.

High Crime:

For every 100,000 people, there are 14.74 daily crimes that occur in North Lawndale, the overall crime rate is 88% higher than the national average. (2017). This is also linked to the reason why many children are not allowed to go to parks or the streets to play. The following graph was created by the Chicago Tribune to demonstrate the crime trend in the area. Looks like in 2016 all three types of crimes stabilized and are about the same, the quality of life crime such as gang activity loitering and disorderly conduct decreased. However violent and property crimes increased just a bit.

Lack of neighborhood engagement:

Crime contributes to children not being aware that the street or neighborhood belongs to them, as it’s not safe and even pleasant to live in. Not being able to come out to play because of high crime, having their family members fall ill because poor quality diet and living in constant high survival state and stress affects children’s development emotionally, physically and mentally.

The plan proposed in South Ridgeway Street, tries to link the three existing problems in order to somehow diminish the lack of green foods available, street beautification, reducing the crime rate and engaging children in activities that not only expose them to problem-solving ideas but provides a safe place for physical activity and mental relaxation.

PLAN:

To give a vacant lot per school grade, allowing the children to decorate it however they want.

Each grade has to come up with a vegetable and a fruit that they would like to grow during the year.

After a year, the kids/school will have a mini farmer’s market to exchange and learn about the others grades fruits and vegetables. The remaining product will be donated to other children and families.

A chef will be invited to the school and teach the children easy ways of cooking the same vegetables that they helped grow, providing tips while including the children and parents in the preparation.

In order to make plan feasible, Captain Planet cartoon, which was popular in the 1990’s, was all about saving the planet and teaching children to be more responsible when caring for it. Captain Planet’s producers, created a foundation that offers grants and assistance to schools that are interested in teaching children about gardening/farming. The foundation’s project aims to give the tools necessary to teachers to positively and efficiently educate children about gardening, while the foundation takes responsibility of the garden logistics, such as water, summer maintenance, training teachers, garden set up and pest control.

The benefits of creating this program in North Lawndale are associated with Branas (2011) article Difference-in-Differences Analysis of Health, Safety, and Greening Vacant Urban Space where it says “In terms of safety, our analyses showed that vacant lot greening was associated with gun assaults, which were significantly reduced citywide after the greening treatment. Vandalism and criminal mischief were also significantly reduced after the greening treatment in at least 1 section of Philadelphia. In terms of health, vacant lot greening was associated with residents’ reporting significantly less stress and more exercise in select sections of Philadelphia.” it is my hope that allowing the school to use these lots for gardening projects will have the same or better outcome.

In addition, the neighborhood looks nicer, welcoming and child-friendly. Kids will feel that something in the area they live belongs to them, contributing to positive outcomes in regards to pride and commitment to projects affiliated to their neighborhood.

Sometimes, the only way to initiate long lasting change in adults is by starting to work with children’s young minds, if children are educated about healthy food intake and being exposed to many types of flavors and cuisines; hopefully, as adults, their food choices will be different. Plus, children will teach their parents and family members about healthy eating. Another advantage for teachers is that they can use the garden as a learning tool for math, physics, chemistry and biology.

Finally, other than achieving healthy eating and street beautification the students will hopefully have different experiences and challenges other than thinking about family struggle. Getting off the street by finding new hobbies directly or indirectly to gardening.