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Community Development for ALL

Community Development – Investing in Communities, Youth, Transit, Environmental Justice and Affordable Housing

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We must invest in what Chicagoans want and deserve: safe and clean neighborhoods, a quality education system, affordable housing and world-class infrastructure. As Mayor, my framework for community partnerships will draw from and engage the wisdom and energy of people who are working in their communities to achieve better lives for their families and neighbors.  

My priorities are to:

  • Invest in the capacity of communities to have the resources and opportunities and to exercise their agency in achieving their own vision.
  • Invest in communities by promoting economic opportunity, housing security, environment, green and community spaces.
  • Invest in Youth through youth workforce development, education and employment programs. These have been found to reduce youth violent crime arrests by as much 45%.
  • Enhance the capacity of community-based organizations by centering community leadership in neighborhood improvement projects. Chicago’s business and philanthropic leadership is ready to take up this challenge.
  • Link and coordinate citywide planning and budgeting to address comprehensive development strategies in communities.

Here are some of the steps I propose to these goals:

Reform Invest South/West – We must reimagine Invest South/West so that it is led by community voices and complements each community’s own vision. In addition, each project must be sustainable and have broad economic ripple effects.

Property Tax Relief: I am proposing a one-time, needs-based, emergency city grant program to help residential (up to six-flats) and small business property owners who have been hit by significant changes in assessments as well as residential property owners who don’t have the means to pay their full tax bill.

Bring Back the Department of Environment: A new Department of Environment will focus Chicago’s attention on viable, permanent, proactive, and responsive solutions to environmental challenges and to create environmentally just communities.

Transportation: Transportation investments need to produce increased access, mobility and vitality serving all Chicago communities and neighborhoods.

  • Invest in Smart Transit/Transportation Technology – This will allow the city to manage traffic flow, emergency services and provide up to date information to citizens on any issues, closures and alternative routes.
  • Transit Oriented Development – By encouraging multifamily housing near transit, we can create new housing in walkable neighborhoods closer to transit.
  • Chicago’s Transit Future: Increased investment in transit and reform the RTA, CTA, and Metra to re-envision a comprehensive, sustainable, and accessible transit system.
  • Transit Ridership and Safety: The CTA should not be an alternative housing choice for the unhoused. In addition to my plan addressing homelessness, we will concentrate social services on the L and stations. We will integrate neighborhood patrols and greater CTA security. And, we will prioritize keeping our trains and buses clean. I will require CTA to integrate its planning with City Agencies and work with Family and Social Services to address homeless and unhoused people on CTA trains.
  • Elevate Vision Zero: I will work to eliminate all traffic deaths on Chicago streets. This will be a top priority of my administration, and it starts with a DPD, Housing, CDOT, CTA and Streets and Sanitation.
  • Arts and Culture: My administration would pair transportation upgrades with a beautification plan, by partnering with local artists on murals and other art works around the City’s transit points and stops, including highway underpasses and bridges.