Monday, October 12, 2009

Chicago Public Housing Kids vs Neighborhood Kids and Recent Death.

LA Times story HERE about the recent street fights that led to a killing on an innocent teen in Chicago. Fights were NOT racial, but instead were between neighborhood kids and kids from public housing project going to the same school/community center.

Incident reminds me of the perverse loyalty that I had as a kid to Herman Gardens, the public housing project I grew up in Detroit. The environment which put 2,500 low income units together wasn't the greatest, yet the attitude of both parents and kids living there was it was us "Gardeners" against the "outsiders". Thankfully that never resulted in pitched street fights, and only one death that may or may not have been related to that twisted world view.

BTW: Altgeld Gardens was one of the housing projects where President Obama did his community organizing work, so I am sure the recent street fights and death were especially personal and painful for him.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

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