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Obama's new Presidential Center and his tricky relationship with the South Side
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Who Really Owns Woodlawn? The Land Grab Fear, Examined
At 22:17 · chapter starts 20:30
When the Obama Center was first announced, the dominant fear among South Side residents was that it would serve as a Trojan horse for the University of Chicago to expand its land holdings into Woodlawn. Natalie Moore decided to test this claim empirically, drawing a boundary around East Woodlawn and mapping every significant landowner. [1] — Natalie Moore "City of Chicago largest landholder in East Woodlawn: A reporting project by Natalie Moore found the largest landholder in East Woodlawn was…" 21:07 The result was surprising: the biggest landholder wasn't the University of Chicago at all — it was the city of Chicago itself, which owned vast amounts of vacant land left over from demolished buildings. The late housing organizer Maddie Butler told Moore at the time that there was enough room for everyone in the community: so much vacancy existed that development could happen without displacing a single resident. Myra Kwadja adds that the tenant unions Butler worked with were consistent throughout their decade-long campaign — they were not anti-Obama Center. Their message was simply: 'We want to be able to stay here to enjoy it.' The students Kwadja worked with at Hyde Park Academy echoed the same sentiment: they hoped their younger siblings would get to use the new campus, because they feared their own families would be pushed out first.
Everyone feared the University of Chicago would use the Obama Center as cover for a land grab in Woodlawn. Natalie Moore's data reporting found the opposite: the city of Chicago was by far the biggest landholder in East Woodlawn, owning vacant lots from demolished homes. The city held the power to protect residents — and largely didn't use it.
A reporting project by Natalie Moore found the largest landholder in East Woodlawn was the city of Chicago — not the University of Chicago — due to vacant lots and inherited properties.
Housing organizers and tenant unions spent a decade campaigning with the message 'Yes, Obama Center, no displacement' — affirming the center while demanding housing protections.
The median sale price of a single-family home in Woodlawn has jumped 4.6 times in the past decade. Zillow now lists some homes in the neighborhood at $1 million. People have been displaced. The data is not ambiguous.
