Kelly, J. M. "` Shiny New Islands’ Don’t Solve Housing," (editorial). The New World, 18 April 1958.
I live in Kenwood, and I like it. Ours is one of the most beautiful blocks in this or any other city... We have broad beautiful lawns and flowers and lofty trees. The cheapest house on our block could not be built today for less than $150,000. These houses today cannot command anywhere near that price because a large portion of the adjacent area has been badly over-crowded. In many instances the magnificent stone and brick houses, formerly owned by wealthy families, have been cut up into countless inadequate little apartments and rented at exorbitant rates to desperate and insolvent families. The fact that most of these are Negro families lends the usual interracial tension to the situation. Consequently, much of Kenwood, and of neighboring Hyde Park, has become a blighted area...
In a recent feature on this subject a Chicago newspaper pointed rather exuberantly to the "great, shining islands of steel, glass and stone" that are rising out of the sea of slums on Chicago’s south side. The same paper identified those "islands" with Michael Reese hospital, the illinois Institute of Technology and the Lake Meadows project. The Hyde Park—Kenwood project can be largely identified with the South-East Chicago Commission, a private agency sponsored by the University of Chicago.
The concern of civic agencies to clear up and beautify "blighted" areas is thoroughly laudable. So is the concern of private institutions to beautify their neighborhoods. But the creation of "great, shining islands of steel, glass and stone" leaves me a little cold. Who is to benefit by this new creation? Certainly, the above-mentioned private institutions. The desire for a lovely island is natural and commendable, if it can be accomplished with due regard for the rights of all concerned. Such regard, however, is not always evident...
The Lake Meadows project is a case in point. It is a private project, financed by New York Life Insurance. It has beautified a large section of South Side lake-front property. It has also emptied that property of 15,000 people (some estimate as high as 20-25,000) and now provides quarters for about 4,000, almost none of whom were previous Lake Meadows residents...
What about the remaining thousands of "displaced persons" who were forced to vacate this territory? . . . The splendid intentions of the clearance or conserving agencies, private or public, have not produced splendid results in this direction. These unwilling D.P.'s * have been forced to forage for new quarters, in adjacent well-filled areas. Their absorption must necessarily create — or threaten — blight in a number of new areas....
Without doubt, shining new islands can beautify Chicago and enhance the living standard of a number of people. They most certainly can enhance the surroundings of their private institutions upon which they border. But do they solve the housing problem that concerns every Chicagoan? By no means!! I can see no economic or social advantage in "solving" the problems of one area at the expense of several other areas.
* "Displaced Persons." This term was more commonly applied to Europeans displaced by World War II and its aftermath.