February 2002: Gentrification

Gentrification

Cover Stories

• Gentrifiers slow to buy CPS In the last half of the 1990s, young professionals streamed into the city, snapping up high-priced condominiums and urban townhomes. In the hottest areas, mainly on the North Side and in and around the Loop, property values have soared, bringing rents and property taxes along with them.
  
• Roscoe Village group One summer night two years ago, Chad Harrell invited three neighbors over to his back yard and asked them for advice about schools. He had been living in Roscoe Village for nearly 10 years—seven as a homeowner—and had spent the last few years working with a local community group, Roscoe Village Neighbors, to turn the area into the kind of place where he wanted to stay.
  
• Gentrifiers give Chicago Public Schools a chance When Molly Fox began for looking for suitable schools for her two young sons, she didn’t buy into conventional wisdom.
  
• How three families are dealing with displacement Gentrification has a downside: Lower-income families often can’t afford to remain in their communities. Catalyst interviewed three families who have been affected by gentrification in West Town and Logan Square.
  
• Overcrowded school serves displaced students The population shifts of the 1990s have tipped the scales at Schubert Elementary in Belmont Cragin.
  
• Mentors make a difference Nine years ago, the George M. Pullman Educational Foundation created a program at Fenger High School in the Roseland community to find out how to get more minority students out of high school and into college.
  

Letter From the Editor Mixed-income communities best bet to improve schools In the last five years, legions of young professionals have moved into the city, buying pricey loft condominiums and townhouses for $500,000 and more. A boon, no doubt, for developers, for landlords who benefit from rising rents and for city coffers, which swell as property taxes go up.