School safety plans go only so far
WBEZ-FM, 3/24/2008

Gunfire has killed 18 Chicago Public Schools students this year. Some of those homicides have taken place near schools. The safety planning at one West Side high school shows that reducing youth violence in the long run will be a much tougher challenge. Earnest Gates of the Near West Side CDC joins the larger conversation.

Community's promise attracting money, faith
Chicago Tribune, 3/16/2008
Developers are zeroing in on a real estate market that until recently was all but forgotten: Chicago's Washington Park neighborhood, one of the city's poorest and bleakest.   More

Borrower Beware
Chicago Sun-Times, 12/3/2007
This Chicago Sun-Times editorial talks about why Chicago is No. 1 in the nation in subprime loans, quoting heavily from a Little Village auto technician who's thankful he took homebuying classes through NCP lead agency The Resurrection Project in Pilsen.   More

Retail gives Grand Blvd. project a boost
The Chicago Tribune, 11/26/2007
A Columbus, Ohio, developer visited 47th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue in the Grand Boulevard neighborhood 2 1/2 years ago and came to the same conclusion as many developers before -- it wasn't retail friendly. Now that developer is moving forward on a $73 million mixed-use project at 47th and Cottage Grove, to be called Shops and Lofts at 47.  More

West Side Story: for release
Chicago Sun-Times, 11/6/2007
Standing in the shadow of the United Center is a community many Chicagoans might never have heard of -- Westhaven. The Near West Side neighborhood is quickly becoming a mixed-income community with condos and town houses sprouting next to board-ups. Now it needs retail, everything from dry cleaners to coffee shops to restaurants, community advocates said Nov. 5.  More

Sun-Times highlights Englewood housing
Chicago Sun-Times, 10/5/2007
Englewood is a hot property and great opportunity for buyers, according to recent Chicago Sun Times coverage of neighborhood housing trends.   More

Little league returns to Near West Side
Chicago Sun-Times, 5/25/2007
After a 40-year Little League drought, the Near West Side's Touhy-Herbert Park turned into a "Field of Dreams" for over two dozen children Thursday.  More

$26 million targets poorer areas
Chicago Tribune, 5/23/2007
Chicago's largest philanthropy, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, announced today that it will invest $26 million during the next five years in 16 of the city's lowest-income neighborhoods as part of a large-scale community and economic development effort.   More

Grant to change Chicago "block by block"
Chicago Sun-Times, 5/23/2007
Sixteen low-income Chicago neighborhoods — including Englewood, Humboldt Park and Logan Square — will get the seed money they need to leverage $500 million in new investments over the next five years, thanks to a $26 million grant from Chicago’s largest philanthropic organization.   More

MacArthur giving more to community effort
Crain's Chicago Business, 5/23/2007
A community-planning initiative in 16 city neighborhoods will receive $26 million over five years from Chicago’s John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation , extending a program begun in 2002, officials said Tuesday.   More

What's in East Garfield Park?
Chicago Sun-Times, 4/27/2007
BusinessWeek online listed East Garfield as number two in the top 10 up-and-coming neighborhoods in the nation, thanks to it proximity to downtown (and the L) and vintage housing options. But the 'hood hasn't exploded yet, which makes its handful of businesses worth checking out.   More

Cottage Grove condos slated
Chicago Sun-Times, 4/19/2007
Four condo developments with space for major retailers are set to be built in the Cottage Grove corridor, whose residents' buying power has been neglected for decades.  More

Proof is in the tax
Chicago Sun-Times, 4/17/2007
Volunteers from the Chicago Center for Economic Progress faced a crush of eager applicants -- almost all illegal immigrants -- raring to get right with the IRS hoping their tax paper-trail might someday help them gain U.S. citizenship.   More

The right place: MacArthur puts its cash where the community is
Chicago Sun-Times, 12/8/2006
Leaders from neighborhoods on Chicago's South and West Sides celebrated the work they have done developing business plans for catalytic projects in their neighborhoods.  More

Dorm dreams rise in Pilsen
Chicago Journal, 12/6/2006
LaCasa, a proposed multi-college dorm on 1628 W. 17th St., would house 70 students for, organizers hope, less than half the $6,600 average dorm living costs in Chicago.   More

Community groups find teachers in their own back yard
Catalyst: Voices of Chicago School Reform, 10/31/2006
The "Grow Your Own" teacher recruitment program in Logan Square and Auburn Gresham was featured in the April 2006 issue of Catalyst: Voices of Chicago School Reform magazine.  More

Grocery store plans covered in the GAZETTE
Near West GAZETTE, 10/31/2006
In the August 4th edition (Vol. 24, No. 4) of the GAZETTE, two articles were published that discuss the pending development on Madison and Western, with specific emphasis being placed onthe development of a new full-service grocery store.  More

Mall giant tries new format at South Side site
Chicago Sun-Times, 7/17/2006
In a unique alliance with NCP lead agency Greater Southwest Development Corp., the nation's second-largest owner of shopping malls is working to attract stores to a large tract on the city's South Side.   More

South Chicago: Finding new life after steel
Catalyst Chicago, 6/1/2006
Schools in the one-time steel hub of South Chicago are a vital cog in the neighborhood's rebirth that NCP lead agency Southeast Chicago Development Commission and its partners have begun to catalyze. The education magazine Catalyst: Voices of Chicago School Reform reports on the efforts of SEDCOM and other players in the community.  More

Students find politics can be as simple as yes, no
Chicago Sun-Times, 4/1/2006
Students in the Social Justice Program at Kelvyn Park High School in Logan Square participated in the recent elections by educating voters about three referenda on the local ballot. They gained a solid lesson in politics and learned more about issues of importance to their communities.   More

Woodlawn: A battle, a truce and new alliances
Catalyst Chicago, 3/1/2006
Relations between Woodlawn and the University of Chicago are thawing with help from the New Communities Program quality of life planning process, which included both the university and The Woodlawn Organization, once adversaries. The university prepares to open its new charter school, while the African-centric Woodlawn Community School celebrates its 10th anniversary and Hyde Park High School struggles to integrate students displaced from Calumet or Englewood high schools. All stories written by Maureen Kelleher.  More

Believing in better schools, better 'quality of life'
Catalyst Chicago, 6/30/2005
The school reform journal Catalyst turns the spotlight on the Englewood neighborhood with a four-story package that explains how a tenuous rebirth may be underway in this long-struggling community, and how that might affect local schools including Englewood High School, John Hope College Prep and the once-proud Lindblom High School, which is being recast as a selective enrollment school.  More

16 Community Groups Thinking Up Ways to Make Life Better
Chicago Sun-Times, 5/25/2005
With $24 million in seed money and technical support, 16 Chicago communities are undertaking what's believed to be one of the country's most ambitious private urban development efforts.  More

Daley, city end 1st phase of fixing up neighborhoods
Chicago Tribune, 5/19/2005
Englewood residents want to turn two vacant lots into a South Side "urban agricultural zone." In Pilsen, a community group is turning a former convent into student housing. And in Auburn Gresham, a program encourages homeowners to fix sagging roofs, replace old doors and keep their neighborhood clean. These and other plans were formally presented to Mayor Richard Daleyas the city marked the close of the first phase of the New Communities Program, a public-private partnership aimed at helping residents improve 16 neighborhoods.   More

'Smart Money' campaign to result in West Haven supermarket, housing
Near West Gazette, 1/1/2005
The Near West Gazette published an article about West Haven's success in gaining $1 million in support through a funding campaign for its upcoming supermarket construction.  More

Near West Side will get first new grocery since 1968 riots
Chicago Sun-Times, 11/17/2004
The Chicago Sun-Times published an article reporting that West Haven soon will receive its first grocery store since the riots of 1968.  More

Kids get the tools to ride and repair
Chicago Tribune, 7/27/2004
A program for youngsters from 12 to 16 helps kids in Humboldt Park learn how to fix and ride bikes safely – and keeps them healthy in the process.  More

The power of sticky dots
Planning Magazine, 7/1/2004
An article in the July 2004 issue of the American Planning Association's Planning Magazine says "neighborhood planning" has often been done without much involvement of the neighbors themselves, instead being a function of city hall, a private developer or a powerful local institution. The New Communities Program tries to break that tradition by involving local residents in a structured "quality-of-life" planning process  More