Janet L. Smith '85 UIUC, MUP '90 UIUC, assistant professor of urban planning and policy at UIC, has been researching low-income and affordable housing in Chicago, and has studied the relocation of CHA tenants. She recently used a Great Cities Seed Grant to examine changes in housing and neighborhood conditions in Chicago and the region since 1970.

She and Hagedorn have worked together in the past, his research on violence supplementing her own work on housing.

"I don't disagree with his theory. I think there's a logic to it," explains Smith. "His main argument is we have a responsibility — that is, public officials — to put money into communities that would also spur private investments, and that economic development is a much better strategy to crime prevention and reducing homicide than perhaps some of the police and criminal behavior approaches."

Unfortunately, this is not the case in Chicago, she notes. Her own research suggests that the city has done a great job on middle-income housing, but when it comes to low-income and affordable housing redevelopment and production — the number of units built compared to the number being demolished — the city has had a net loss of public housing.

An important difference between New York City — the South Bronx in particular — and Chicago, according to Hagedorn's research, is that New York infused $1 billion into low-income and affordable housing, allowing long-time residents to maintain family, school and neighborhood ties while living in better environs.

"We are replacing public housing units with middle-income and even high-income units," says Smith. "Half-million-dollar homes at Cabrini Green? Look around. We don't need public money to build more of those."

But the City of Chicago doesn't necessarily agree with Hagedorn's connection between housing and violence, or the argument that it isn't doing enough to create more low-income and affordable housing.

"Without having seen Hagedorn's research, I think [the link that he proposes] is really quite a stretch and doesn't take into account all that the city has done ... not only creating but sustaining low-income and affordable housing," says Sabrina Miller, a spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Housing.

"For example," she explains, "the Department of Housing has been a nationwide leader in terms of long-range thinking about affordable housing and has, for the past decade, created five-year, affordable housing plans."

According to Miller, DOH's 1999-2003 plan has committed more than $1.45 billion to build approximately 45,000 low-income and affordable housing units citywide.

The money, she says, will go back into former public housing communities such as Cabrini Green, as well as neighborhoods like Roseland and West Pullman.

But both Hagedorn and Smith argue that even 45,000 units can't alleviate the current shortage and that additional units will be required as more public housing developments are leveled. Smith's housing research, which draws on the 2000 Census, suggests that Chicago and the six-county region of which it is part are 100,000 units short of public housing. And that is probably an underestimate, she says.

For example, the Regional Rental Market Analysis she conducted in 1999 shows a shortage of 155,000 units for the same region. Add to that the 25,000 families projected to lose their apartments when the Robert Taylor Homes are demolished next year, and the city finds itself in a hole from which it may not reemerge.

Housing in Chicago, say Hagedorn and Smith, is an issue that needs to be resolved — and soon. But they are not so narrowly focused to see that a long-term reduction of violence can be achieved with that strategy alone. It will take, says Smith, holistic community redevelopment and revitalization.

Adds Hagedorn, "In the long term, the leadership of Chicago needs a strategy to deal with institutionalized gangs that is broader than just trying to lock them up. [We must] recognize that gangs are persisting organizations within communities. Demonizing gangs and attempting to eradicate them hasn't worked yet, and isn't going to work in the future."

Another key element is developing an economic base that includes good-paying jobs.

"People need a stake in their communities that certainly includes jobs," says Hagedorn. "But it's mainly about good jobs. It's about the long-term development of an economy that benefits more than just the Loop."