The lot at the corner of Wilson Avenue and Marine Drive was formerly owned by Weiss Memorial Hospital. It was subsequently sold and is now owned by Lincoln Property Company, which aims to build a 314-unit apartment building on the site. But just eight of those units will qualify as affordable.

The abandonment and neglect that has undermines the economies of many Chicago and Cook County neighborhoods is very much man-made, according to a new study.

“This brings our city one step closer towards ensuring that every Chicagoan can live in a walkable, affordable community that is connected to transit and all of its benefits,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said.

Many of the barriers erected by elected officials and civic leaders beginning in the 1930s to keep Black Chicagoans, Latino Chicagoans and White Chicagoans from living, working and playing in the same neighborhoods remain unchanged nearly a century later, according to a new study.

A proposal crafted by Housing Commissioner Marisa Novara is designed to bolster the city’s policy to encourage transit-oriented development by boosting incentives and increasing pedestrian safety while increasing the amount of affordable housing being built near train stations and along bus lines.

From cash payouts to issuing extensive reports and building a bureaucratic system to examine what reparations could look like, here is what some local and state governments have done so far.

Efforts to rethink the policy and spur development on the South and West sides while preventing long-time residents from being displaced from the Northwest Side are starting to pay off, symbolized by the grand opening set for Friday of an apartment complex near the CTA Blue Line Logan Square station, Housing Commissioner Marisa Novara told WTTW News. 

Much of Chicago is defined by its residential buildings, a beautiful mishmash of styles, sizes, and ages. Now, preservationists are calling attention to a style of home known as workers cottages – an original form of affordable housing.

The agreed upon changes will increase access to Redfin’s real estate services across the country and help counter redlining and residential segregation that NFHA and the other plaintiffs alleged Redfin’s policies perpetuated. 

The number of evictions carried out in Cook County dropped from more than 3,300 in the five months before the pandemic to fewer than 1,200 in the five months after the eviction ban was lifted, according to data obtained by WTTW News.

Crain’s Chicago Business Editor Ann Dwyer joins us to go behind the headlines.

Department of Water Management Commissioner Andrea Cheng said federal funding will “jump-start” Chicago’s efforts to remove the lead service. Cheng acknowledged logistical challenges have meant the program has failed to achieve what Lightfoot promised in September 2020, when she vowed that the city would remove 650 pipes by the end of 2021.

Chicago City Council voted this week to extend an ordinance aimed at slowing gentrification and displacement in Pilsen and areas near the 606 trail. The measure imposes a fee on permits for the demolition of buildings with residential units.

Housing Commissioner Marisa Novara said the initial imposition of the fee in April 2021 had helped slow gentrification-fueled displacement happening along the popular biking and jogging trail and in Pilsen, one of the city’s most in-demand real estate markets.

Chicago neighborhood Roseland and suburban Lansing, both enclaves of roughly 30,000 people, reflect how Black migration patterns in the 21st century are changing the makeup of metropolitan areas nationwide. 

Efforts backed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot to reduce residential segregation in Chicago have begun to show signs of progress, officials with the Chicago Department of Housing say. The centerpiece of that effort is a revamped ordinance that requires developers who get special permission from the city or a subsidy to build more units earmarked for low- and moderate-income Chicagoans and pay higher fees.