By Steve Rhodes
“If the Barack Obama Presidential Center is built in Washington Park, the city envisions a walking community, where visitors would step off a CTA Green Line train and stroll along decoratively landscaped sidewalks, lined with pedestrian scale lighting and seating areas,” the Tribune reports.
“In Jackson Park, visitors might spend an afternoon biking from the lakefront to a well-lit, paved trail through the Midway Plaisance to the Obama center. Others might prefer to take the No. 10 CTA bus from downtown to the Museum of Science and Industry and then on to a new stop at the presidential library.
“The two ideas are among a list of proposals Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office submitted to the University of Chicago last year to strengthen its bid to place the Obama library and museum on the South Side in one of the two parks. Most of the proposals address transforming areas fraught with crime and neglect into a safe and inviting environment where visitors feel at ease – a key challenge for the first presidential center built in a low-income, urban neighborhood.”
Oh, I get it. Now that those neighborhoods could be of value to elites, they will see investment. Otherwise, forget it.
Posted on June 3, 2015