Forest Glen Community
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Engaging Chicago’s Diverse Communities in the Chicago Climate Action Plan COMMUNITY #7: FOREST GLEN Research Report Submitted by: Environment, Culture, and Conservation (ECCo), a Division of Science at The Field Museum To: The City of Chicago Department of Environment City of Chicago Richard M. Daley, Mayor Department of Environment 1 PROJECT OVERVIEW 22 COMMUNICATION AND DISSEMINATION 3 COMMUNITY OVERVIEW 25 CREATIVE MODELS FOR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT 5 STAKEHOLDERS, PARTNERSHIPS, AND RELATIONSHIP-BUILDING 29 CONCLUSION CONTENTS 8 AWARENESS OF CLIMATE 30 COMMUNITY ASSET MAP CHANGE AND INTEREST IN ADDRESSING IT 32 REGIONAL ASSET MAP OF 13 COMMUNITY CONCERNS: SPRINGBOARDS FOR 34 OUR TEAM CLIMATE ACTION CITATIONS 19 ENVIRONMENTALLY-FRIENDLY TABLE PRACTICES, VALUES, AND TRADITIONS PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS This research was commissioned by the Visit our Web site to download the Community and Regional Asset Maps, City of Chicago Department of Environment. and reports about other communities: http://fieldmuseum.org/climateaction Research was conducted by: Environment, Culture, and Conservation (ECCo), a Division of Science at The Field Museum with our partners: Sponsored by City of Chicago Department of Environment Sauganash Chamber of Commerce Sauganash Community Association November 2011 PROJECT OVERVIEW Engaging Chicago Communities in the Chicago Climate Action Plan - contrast racially and economically with most of the other research areas to date. Community #7: Forest Glen is the seventh community study commissioned Finally, the large proportion of single-family homes makes it a good area in by the City of Chicago Department of Environment (DOE) to identify strategies which to consider questions of homeowner participation in climate action, from for effectively engaging diverse communities throughout the city in the landscaping practices to energy retrofits. While the area has a large degree of implementation of the Chicago Climate Action Plan (CCAP). The plan lays out middle-class homogeneity, residents recognize multiple neighborhoods within it, ambitious goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% of 1990 levels with just one of them being called Forest Glen by locals. Throughout this report, by 2050, with an interim goal of a 25% reduction of 1990 levels by 2020. “the community” and “the area” will reference the full research area. (See Community Overview, p.3 and the accompanying Research Area map for further Six qualitative research studies have been completed to date (South Chicago, discussion of the research and community boundaries.) NKO/Bronzeville, Chicago’s Polish Community, the Latino community in Pilsen, the South Asian community in West Ridge, and the African-American community Ethnographic research activities were designed and conducted collaboratively in Roseland). The Forest Glen Community Area, Area 12 on the Chicago by a team including anthropologists from The Field Museum’s division of Community Areas Map, was selected for the seventh study for a number of Environment, Culture, and Conservation (ECCo) and our community partners, reasons. Geographically, we had not yet focused on an inland community the Sauganash Chamber of Commerce and the Sauganash Community area on the edge of the city. The area is also unique for its close proximity to Association. While both are located in Sauganash, they had the operating a number of large forest preserves within the city, which greatly contribute to capacity to take on the project quickly and link us to other organizations its character. Although racial diversity has increased in the last decade, it is a and individuals from across the entire area. Less formally, other residents’ predominantly Euro-American middle-class and upper-middle-class area, in associations, area schools, churches, businesses, and individuals collaborated on the research. Research was conducted over a six-month period, from September 2010 to February 2011. We engaged roughly 250 adults – including residents, aldermen, site users, business and community leaders – and 136 children through the following methods: • Participant observation at over 10 community meetings and on more than a dozen other occasions in a number of locations including forest preserves, parks, business and residential districts, and the library • 10 focus groups, including an interim gathering of community leaders to respond to findings and three field trip/focus groups for area public Research partners are invaluable for engaging other community groups in elementary school fifth grade classrooms (see What Does Climate Change research and implementation. Here representatives of the Sauganash Community Association and the Sauganash Chamber of Commerce listen to a local scout Look Like to You? on p. 11) for more on the student groups master talk about his troop’s possible involvement in leading local climate action. • Close to 90 individual interviews with residents and other stakeholders Environment, Culture, and Conservation (ECCo) • The Field Museum • Research Report 1 project overview • 65 responses to two online surveys distributed to by the Sauganash Community Association and Historic Chicago Bungalow Association to their members who live in the research area. Our goal was to engage a diverse group of people in terms of gender, age, education, income, home ownership and personal history. Overall we were successful, having achieved the mix among participants shown in the table below. There is a bias for higher education. Age is less divergent than it appears, in that the three classrooms of 5th graders who participated in the field trip/ focus groups are not included in the calculation. The biases are unsurprising, since community leaders (a group we seek out) tend to be both older and more educated. Finally, the foreign born population is underrepresented in our sample. Some percentage of that population is Polish, a community we have already covered in our report, community #3; the Polish community. Census vs. Research Sample Demographic % in Census 2000 % in research sample Characteristic Male 48 32 Female 52 68 Owner-Occupied 86 86 Renter-Occupied 13 Age 43 (median) 51 – 60 (median) Youth and adults were engaged in the research process. Area elementary school Bachelor’s /Graduate/ students came to The Field Museum to share their understanding and concerns about 45** 82 Professional Degree the climate through experiencing the Climate Change exhibit (upper left) and group drawing activities (middle right). Large community meetings with adults (remaining Foreign-Born 24** 11 pictures) were fruitful for eliciting responses to tentative research findings and starting to build links between organizations around the climate change issue. **Based off of the 2005-2009 US Census Bureau American Community Survey for PUMA5 03504, Illinois 2 Environment, Culture, and Conservation (ECCo) • The Field Museum • Research Report COMMUNITY OVERVIEW The boundaries of Forest Glen Community Area are Touhy and Devon more commercial and industrial than the other neighborhoods. At the same Avenues on the north side, Rogers to Bryn Mawr to Cicero Avenues on the east, time, we included the Indian Woods neighborhood, just south of the Community Lawrence Avenue on the south, and Leclaire to the North Branch of the Chicago Area’s official boundaries because it does share numerous civic ties and the River, then to Caldwell Avenue on the west. The map of 77 community areas residential qualities of its northern neighbors. within Chicago was introduced by the Social Science Research Committee of The community area and its neighborhoods are divided among the 39th, 41st, the University of Chicago in the late 1920s, and has “been widely used ever and 45th aldermanic wards and the 16th and 17th police districts. Nonetheless, since as a convenient means of summarizing social and physical features of there are linkages among the neighborhoods and across boundaries. spatial units smaller than the city as a whole,”1 including for census purposes. Neighborhood associations and chambers of commerce that adjoin each However, the Forest Glen Community Area is not a designation widely other collaborate on shared issues, and make use of each others contacts and recognized by residents or businesses. Roman Catholics typically identify with networks. ‘North Side’ aldermen also collaborate on common issues, such as their parishes and most residents recognize neighborhood boundaries within the O’Hare Modernization Program, and zoning changes. Residents identify the community area, namely Edgebrook, Forest Glen, Jefferson Park, North with each other broadly as ‘North Siders” and in relation to the Chicago Public Edgebrook, Sauganash, Sauganash Park and Wildwood. We excluded the Schools and Boys and Girl Scout affiliations. Jefferson Park neighborhood from research, partly on account of research constraints, but also because Jefferson Park is residentially denser as well as There are a number of important features of the community that give it its distinctive character and stability. We briefly describe the most important here: • Residents value the historic elements of their neighborhoods. The older LEGEND RESEARCH AREAS section of Sauganash – the Sauganash Historical District – is listed on the Forest Glen Community Area TOUHY National Historic Register, the nation’s official list of places recognized Forest Glen Research Area for their historical or architectural significance and considered “worthy of Neighborhoods preservation.” The Old Edgebrook District