Nato talks security and peace, Chicago has neither

[marmar]

Nato talks security and peace, Chicago has neither
The paradox of such a city hosting this summit lays bare the brutal way in which inequality is globally maintained and locally replicated

Gary Younge
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 20 May 2012


On Friday morning in Brighton Park, a neighbourhood in southwest Chicago, around half a dozen Latina volunteers in luminous bibs patrolled the streets around Davis Elementary school. The school sits in the crossfire of three gangs; the Kings, the 2/6s and the SDs (Satan's Disciples). The trees and walls nearby are peppered with "tags" denoting territory and mourning fallen gang members. There is a shooting in the area every couple of weeks, explains Mariela Estrada of the Brighton Park Neighbourhood Council, which facilitates the volunteers.

That same evening, just a couple of blocks away, a 14-year-old, Alejandro Jaime, was shot dead while out riding his bike with his 11-year-old friend. According to witnesses, a car knocked them both off their bikes. They picked themselves up and ran. A man got out of the car and shot Alejandro in the back. "Although it's the city's job to provide public safety, we had to respond since our children are in danger and continue to face threats of gang violence," said Nancy Barraza, a Parent Patrol volunteer.

The next morning world leaders started arriving in Chicago for the Nato summit where, just 20 minutes from Brighton Park, they would discuss how to maintain international security. The dissonance between the global pretensions of the summit this weekend and the local realities of Chicago could not be more striking. Nato claims its purpose is to secure peace through security; in much of Chicago neither exists.

When the city mayor Rahm Emanuel brought the summit to Chicago he boasted: "From a city perspective this will be an opportunity to showcase what is great about the greatest city in the greatest country." The alternative "99% tour" of the city, organised by the Grassroots Collaborative that came to Brighton Park, revealed how utterly those who claim to export peace and prosperity abroad have failed to provide it at home. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/may/20/chicago-nato-g8-summit-inequality

[EFerrari]

1. Abandoned foreclosures: Chicago's lost homes

By MeganCottrell, January 14, 2011 at 12:04 pm

We all know that there are a ton of foreclosures in Chicago. How many? More than 45,000 in the city's metro area in 2010. But there's a slice of those, and not a small one, that falls into a different category. They're almost like ghost homes - not really among the living or the dead.

Abandoned foreclosures are beginning to appear more and more across the city. These vacant homes have been deserted by two groups of people - the families who inhabited them, and the bankers who claimed them. And while they rest in the nether world between being lived in and being resold, they fall into terrible disrepair, attracting squatters and criminal activity - an eyesore in the neighborhood until they're finally condemned.

How did they get this way? Abandoned foreclosures are a true casualty of the housing market. And unless we find a solution, these house-zombies will start eating our neighborhoods alive.
The Woodstock Institute recenlty released a study on abandoned foreclosures in Chicago, telling us what's going on and where it's happening.

There are two major entities to deal with in any foreclosures - the mortgage servicer and the lender. The lender actually owns the property, but it's the servicer who a homeowner deals with most of the time. The servicer collects the mortgage payments, negotiates loan modifications and proceeds with a foreclosure if necessary. If the property is foreclosed on, it's the servicer who's responsible for keeping up that property and making sure it doesn't become derelict.

http://www.chicagonow.com/chicago-muckrakers/2011/01/abandoned-foreclosures-chicagos-lost-homes/

[ryan waller]

2. Things certainly aren't great here

But they are getting better. For all the ill that Rahm deserves for fucking with the unions, he is trying to undue the cronyism and corruption that has been in place for so long, especially that of the Daleys. If it wasn't for the selling out of the city done by "King Richard the II", Chicago would be in a lot better shape.

[EFerrari]

3. Welcome to DU, ryan waller. n/t

[xchrom]

4. du rec. nt