82nd and Morgan

This article about the block club at 82nd and Morgan from DNAInfo Chicago really tickled me this morning. Just yesterday I sent the manuscript for Neighbors: The History of Block Clubs in Chicago back to the University of Chicago Press, which plans to publish it in fall 2016.

This article encapsulate so many features of block clubs: they meet monthly in one family's basement; they collect $10 in monthly dues; they have a block telephone directory, which is sometimes activated to respond to crime; they make a point of talking to visitors on the block; they send welcome letters to new neighbors; they send donations when someone dies or when there is a fire; and, of course, they hold a block party.

The block club was created around the year 2000. Its purpose, according to the article, was to extend the close-knit family feeling among the descendants of the block's first black residents. Seven families moved onto the block in the mid-1960s and shared the experience of being racial pioneers who watched white neighbors move out as they moved in.

The last line of the article notes that they call themselves "A Block of Unity." This motto is emblazoned on a block club sign, which appears at both ends of their block. A photograph of the sign, taken by David Salk, will appear in the book. If you need a preview, try taking a virtual walk down the block using Google maps.

Neighbors!

A word cloud made from the manuscript of Chicago's Block Clubs: How Neighbors Shape the City.

Fundraising neighbors

In this feel-good story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, neighbors and a bank rally to help homeowner Aretha Robertson come up with a delinquent tax payment. Her neighbors held a rummage sale and barbeque to raise funds. The city of Milwaukee therefore does not have to seize their home and charge the family rent to keep living there.

Broken Windows, Chicago Style

For several days after 9/11/01, the United States grounded air traffic. Recognizing an unplanned experiment, enterprising scientists studied the effects on air pollution and temperature. In the weeks since the ambush murders of two police officers, New York City has hosted another natural experiment. NYPD officers engaged in a work slowdown. Although they still responded to major crimes, police stopped policing low-level crime. With few arrests and parking tickets, the city can expect a drop in revenue. The slowdown tests an assertion of Broken Windows Theory: do major crimes spike when minor crimes flourish?

            In 1982 scholars George Kelling and James Q. Wilson argued in The Atlantic that allowing small problems to go unchecked encouraged crime. Broken windows signal a neglected place that is a good target for other malfeasance. Kelling and Wilson also lamented the transformation of policing away from beat cops maintaining local order, to officers in cars responding to 911 emergency calls. Intuitively appealing, Broken Windows Theory prompted shifts in policing across the US.

The New York Police Department directed police officers to enforce quality of life ordinances. For example, NYPD cracked down on “Squeegee Men,” street entrepreneurs who pre-emptively washed drivers’ windshields and then demanded a fee. NYPD also implemented its now-notorious Stop-and-Frisk policy. As is now widely recognized, most people stopped under this program were black and Latino.

            Chicago also implemented Broken Windows Theory, but with a local difference. The Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) put police on thousands of foot patrols. The idea was that beat cops and residents would get to know each other, aiding crime prevention and resolution. But CAPS also aimed to increase what sociologist Robert Sampson calls “collective efficacy.” CPD’s version of community policing focused on getting Chicagoans to work together on solving local environmental problems.

          CPD employs dozens of civilian community organizers to nurture block clubs, which the Chicago Urban League introduced to the city in the 1910s. Block clubs decide which issues matter most and do what they can to improve their surroundings. They beautify parkways with flowers and throw BBQ “smokeouts” to deter drug dealing. At beat meetings, CAPS liaison officers hear residents’ concerns about which buildings have code violations and where broken windows threaten their sense of safety. CAPS officers are charged with connecting local complaints to the right city departments.

            For the past two decades, New York and Chicago have been running independent experiments in what Broken Windows Theory means. In New York, police officers’ discretion to harass and arrest pedestrians for victimless offenses has clearly inflicted costs on residents and police-community relations. Tickets for disorderly conduct fill the city’s coffers, make it hard for poor people to pay their other debts, and damage community goodwill. Broken windows policing led to the arrest of Eric Garner, which resulted in his death, the murder of two police officers, and the NYPD slowdown.
          In Chicago, residents get to identify which broken windows need boarding up. They can send the police after a bad landlord but ask them to leave the kids alone. This is not to say that Chicago policing is flawless, or that everyone in a neighborhood agrees which problems need addressing. But cultivating block clubs is a savvy public relations strategy for CPD. Block clubs help Chicagoans address real local nuisances and provide democratic input into allocating city resources. The results of New York and Chicago’s broken windows experiments are probably not different crime rates, which are down all over. Instead, look to police-community relations and the scale of outrage when something untoward does happen.

Cannabis

In years of researching Chicago block clubs, I've seen evidence that block clubs discussed all kinds of local issues. Concerns normally include topics like traffic, abandoned buildings and irresponsible landlords, children, vacant lots, and taverns. But this is a new one to me: cannibis.

More than 60 members of the Winona Foster Carmen Winnemac (WFCW) Block Club voted to support the application of a medical marijuana dispensary to open up nearby. Historically, block clubs try to push out nuisances, so this is an important indicator about the social meaning of medical marijuana in the 21st century.