Carl Sandburg Village: Urban Renewal’s Impact on Queer Chicago

Written for History and Theory of Urban Planning in Fall 2019, this paper explores Sandburg Village, an Urban Renewal project on the Near Northside of Chicago.  It is an examination of how perceptions of queer and transgender Chicagoans drove public policy to forever alter the city spatially.  A joint project between the Chicago Plan Commission, the Department of Urban Renewal and real estate tycoon Arthur Rubloff, the development was devised to transform the area from a den of vice into a haven for white middle-class prosperity.  Walled off from the Near Northside’s Black, Brown, and queer communities, Sandburg Village shifted the trajectory of the neighborhood and solidified who and what was welcome in Mayor Daley’s Chicago.

This case study was presented at Northwestern University’s Queertopia Conference on February 29, 2020. Full paper available here.