Work

Smart Chicago Welcomes Ash Center Summer Fellow Glynis Startz

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linkedin_croppedToday Glynis Startz joins the Smart Chicago Collaborative as a summer graduate fellow from the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University. Glynis will inform Smart Chicago’s work to make Chicago a smart city that truly works for everyone. She will primarily assist with, provide strategy for, and write about the Array of Things Civic Engagement work.

Glynis is a Master of Public Policy candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government where she has been transitioning from international development work to focus on helping local governments make the best use of data and technology. Before arriving at the Kennedy School she was a Research Analyst for Innovations for Poverty Action, working on randomized control trial program evaluations for poverty reduction interventions.

Please join us in welcoming Glynis Startz. Follow her @glssea on Twitter!

 

Smart Chicago Documenter Work on the Chicago Police Accountability Task Force Community Forums

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The Smart Chicago Collaborative has been documenting the four community forums hosted by the Chicago Police Accountability Task Force and held across the city in the month of February.

The purpose of the meetings is to provide residents the opportunity to speak or submit written comments on improving the accountability, oversight and training of Chicago’s police officers.

We care about justice and we care about accountability, so we have sent text documenters, videographers (Community TV Network), and a photographer (me) to these convenings under our Documenters program, which “an essential tool for us to add new thinkers, generate ideas, and expand the field for civic tech.”

We show up at public meetings and document the proceedings because we’re interested in paying as much attention as we can to what others are saying, what their concerns are, and how they interact with official government structures. These community forums give us a great opportunity for this. We have a number of goals for this series:

  • Document the actual proceedings, with special attention, in this instance, to the speakers from the public— exactly what questions were asked, what documents were referenced, and what answers were offered by the task force
  • Research the questions and answers to the greatest degree possible. This includes learning more about the speakers, many of whom have decades of experience in their communities. Research and link to their organizations, their work, and the external documents, cases, and other matters that they reference
  • Aggregate the information and draw some rudimentary conclusions. This means simple things like counting attendees and speakers as well as some more sophisticated analysis like grouping comment types and themes

Toward that end, here’s our documentation for meeting #1, held at on Tuesday, February 2, 2016 at Mt. Vernon Baptist Church JLM Life Center, 2622 W. Jackson Blvd.

The meeting notes:

The video (as taken by the Task Force and placed on their youtube channel), and this one, taken by Community TV Network, posted on the Smart Chicago youtube channel):

And photographs taken by me (download them all here in hi res) under Creative Commons 4.0 license).

Lastly, we want to document the format of the meetings— the exact mode of engagement. This includes things like location type, timing, room setup, speaker format, microphone placement, comment rules— all the things that make up the meeting so that we can help build an overall typology for public meetings. That’s next.

For now, please consider attending one or both of the last two meetings

Arts Infusion Evaluation: Research on The Crushing Effects of Poverty

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As I wrote earlier this week, Suzy Connor, former senior program officer for arts and culture at The Chicago Community Trust, has joined Smart Chicago as a consultant working on a series of projects focused on arts, education, and justice.

In this context, we’re also taking on the Arts Infusion program, which Suzy has led for the last six years.The Urban Institute recently completed a comprehensive evaluation of this program: Arts Infusion Initiative, 2010–15: Evaluation Report. We are serializing some of the findings of this report that resonate with our work.

First up is a look at some of the research that is cited in the report to highlight the crushing effects of poverty, especially on neighborhoods in Chicago’s south and west sides. here are a number of the passages from  the report— and links to the underlying research.

The neighborhoods served by Arts Infusion programs each have their own distinct communities and histories, yet they all reflect disturbing national trends that disproportionately affect communities of color, such as high unemployment, a high crime rate, segregation, social disenfranchisement, and poverty (Coates 2014; Moser 2014; Sampson and Wilson 1995).

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More recently, changes in the landscape of public housing have also affected neighborhood dynamics and the lives of youth. In the 1990s, mid- and high-rise public housing complexes concentrated in the south and west sides of Chicago came to be viewed as the epicenter of the city’s problems, and public officials moved to demolish the buildings over the course of several years. The decision to tear down those properties was accompanied by a promise to improve the lives of residents, cut crime, and provide housing vouchers into mixed- income communities (Newman 2015; Eads and Salinas 2014; Crump 2002).

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The recession also had direct and indirect effects on neighborhood stability and housing, as housing values fell across the city and sales prices fell even more steeply (Chicago Rehab Network 2011). The housing crash was felt particularly acutely in Chicago’s south and west sides: for example, by the end of 2010, one in six properties in Back of the Yards was vacant as residents abandoned their homes after falling victim to predatory lending for home equity loans (Gallun and Maidenberg 2013; Rugh and Massey 2010). The growing number of abandoned buildings in those Chicago neighborhoods further weakened their property value and contributed to social disorder (Wallace and Schalliol 2015; Chicago Rehab Network 2011).

The full citations for those links are below, but I want to call out a number of observations:

  • The evidence of systematic racism and deprivation in our city is immense, astounding, and recent. This provides a setting for our work
  • The number and quality of current and former Chicago-based thinkers, developers, writers and researchers in the field is heartening. These are the people with whom we toil. I’m thinking specifically of people cited here like Whet Moser, David Schalliol, David Eads, and the Chicago Rehab Network
  • As we continue with the Arts Infusion project, pulling together the teaching artists who work directly with young people on careers in the arts, we have to see the work in the context of justice

More to come!

David Schalliol shooting an image in his Isolated Building Studies series

David Schalliol shooting an image in his Isolated Building Studies series

Coates, T. (2014). This town needs a better class of racist. The Atlantic. Available at http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/This-Town-Needs-A-Better-Class-Of-Racist/361443/

Moser, W. (2014). Housing discrimination in America was perfected in Chicago. Chicago Mag. Available at http://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/May-2014/The-Long-Shadow-of-Housing-Discrimination-in-Chicago/

Farmer, S. (2011). Uneven public transportation development in neoliberalizing Chicago, USA. Environment and Planning A, 43, 1154-1172. Available at http://blogs.roosevelt.edu/sfarmer/files/2013/02/Environmnet-and- Planning-final-version.pdf

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Newman, J. (2015, March 13). Dismantling the towers. Chicago Reporter. Available at http://chicagoreporter.com/dismantling-the-towers/

Eads, D., and Salinas, H. (2014). Demolished: The end of Chicago’s public housing. National Public Radio. Available at http://apps.npr.org/lookatthis/posts/publichousing/.

Crump, J. (2002), Deconcentration by demolition: public housing, poverty, and urban policy. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 20(5): 581 – 596. Available at http://www.envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=d306.

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Chicago Rehab Network. (2011). Building Our Future Chicago: A Toolkit for Residents and Community Leaders. Chicago Rehab Network: Chicago, IL. Available at http://www.chicagorehab.org/resources/docs/research/buildingchicago/buildingourfuturechicagofulltoolkit. pdf

Gallun, A., and Maidenberg, M. (2013, November 9). Will the foreclosure crisis kill Chicago? Crain’s Chicago Business. Crain’s: Chicago, IL. Available at http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20131109/ISSUE01/311099980/will-the-foreclosure-crisis-kill- chicago

Rugh, J. S., and Massey, D. S. (2010). Racial segregation and the American foreclosure crisis. American Sociological Review, 75(5), 629-651. Abstract available at http://asr.sagepub.com/content/75/5/629.abstract.

Wallace, D., and Schalliol, D. (2015). Testing the temporal nature of social disorder through abandoned buildings and interstitial spaces. Social Science Research, 54, 177-194. Abstract available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X15001258.

Suzy Connor Joins Smart Chicago as Consultant Focusing on Arts, Justice, and Education

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Suzanne Connor - 2015[1][2]Yesterday marked the start of Suzy Connor’s work here at Smart Chicago. We’ve worked with Suzy over the last couple years in her work as the senior program officer for arts and culture at The Chicago Community Trust, where she created the Arts Infusion program and was responsible for a host of other grants that enhanced cultural vibrancy, access and diversity.

Most recently, we worked with her to launch Get Drive, a project that compiled resources for court-involved youth to clear their records (expunge.io!), get back in school, get a job, and get other support.

Suzy’s work over the years aligns perfectly with Smart Chicago’s work to improve lives in Chicago through technology mission.  We’re excited about combining her professional expertise, experience, and networks in creative youth development & juvenile justice with our emerging models around civic engagement.

Suzy will strengthen the Smart Chicago justice work area and will help inform or stimulate our Connect Chicago, Chicago School of Data, and Youth-Led Tech programs. Her engagement will employ a number of the experimental modes we’ve investigated and we expect to be able to create new ones together.

Here’s a specific look at the work she’ll be doing:

Arts Infusion

Arts Infusion Evaluation FINAL REPORTOver the last six years at The Chicago Community Trust, Suzy created and led Arts Infusion. The Urban Institute recently completed a comprehensive evaluation of this program: Arts Infusion Initiative, 2010–15: Evaluation Report. The report is fascinating, and we will be sharing findings from report as we move forward.

Suzy will work to continue and expand the Arts Infusion cohort, focusing on teaching artists rather than organizations, with the goal of building a deep, diverse, and resilient community of practitioners. Our expansion efforts will include both arts-focused and technology-focused instructors working with teens and young adults in under-resourced communities, including court-involved youth.

Together, we will develop a coherent co-creation strategy with this cohort with communication at its core. The foundation of this cohort is not grants; it is communication and shared work. A civic engagement model rather than a social services model, based on principles found in Experimental Modes of Civic Engagement. We seek to help guide an expanded network to foster innovative approaches and respond to the needs articulated by practitioners themselves. Integral to this approach is the inclusion of young adult practitioners who are “alumni” of Chicago’s teen programs.

Connecting youth to technology

YouthledTech-logoSuzy will also work to strengthen the links among released juveniles and Arts Infusion grantees, other arts and technology programs, and relevant resources. Smart Chicago is already a partner in this effort through Get Drive and Expunge.io.

We will incorporate recommendations from the Urban Institute evaluation to enhance strategies for using technology and social media to spark & sustain connections between court-involved youth and the people and resources they need to move forward in life.

This work also ties into our Youth-Led Tech program, where we will look to work in the detention center and connect those youth to community opportunities to build their skills. We’re also looking to evaluate how to replicate the Youth-Led Tech mode.

CPS Digital Arts Career Academy

Suzy will also lead Smart Chicago’s efforts to help to guide engagement, design, and advocacy efforts related to the development of a potential CPS Digital Arts Career Academy. Our focus will be on engaging the public and helping foster communication with the community around planning.

Smart Chicago’s commitment to developing a diverse IT workforce and its recent success with Youth-Led Tech makes it a valuable partner to CPS in this first-of-its-kind initiative.

Chicago Track

chicago-trackLastly, and more loosely, Suzy will help the Trust grantee Office of Creative Industries at the City of Chicago to connect to the broader context of workforce development, which brings back the lessons of Investing in people and organizations as the key to civic tech.  

We’re interested in helping build the workforce pipeline in digital media by integrating the Chicago Track project and career-oriented digital media nonprofits with the workforce development and technology sectors that are more adept at tracking trends and job growth. We hope to leverage the combination of our commitment to juvenile justice, the needs of the tech community for diversity, and the opportunity to strengthen a career pipeline for an important constituency in our city.

Join us in welcoming Suzy to Smart Chicago.

Center for Technology & Civic Life at 1871 Through Smart Chicago’s Developer Resources Program

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Today we’re launching a new partnership with the Center for Technology & Civic Life, a non-partisan, non-profit that uses technology to improve the way local governments and communities interact. Three of their key team members— have recently moved to Chicago from Washington, DC:

There are three of their team members in Chicago: Tiana Epps-Johnson (Founder and Executive Director), Whitney May (Co-founder and Director of Government Services) and Donny Bridges (Co-founder and Director of Civic Data). Smart Chicago has issued each of them reserved seats in our space at 1871. They are setting up shop there to focus on three main areas:

  • Training local government on how to use technology to enhance the civic livelihood of their communities;
  • Developing free/low-cost tools for government where there are clear needs; and
  • Aggregating civic data sets and developing infrastructure that enables the flow of information and interactions between government and the people they are serving.
Donny Bridges, Whitney May, and Tiana Epps-Johnson in the Garage of The Chicago Community Trust.

Donny Bridges, Whitney May, and Tiana Epps-Johnson in the Garage of The Chicago Community Trust.

This is an important partnership for us through our Developer Resources program. We’re able to be helpful to an important national organization, expand our network of partners that “respect the vital work of public servants”, and help steal smart people from Washington DC, all in one swoop.

Sonja Marziano promoted to Project Coordinator

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Sonja Marziano has been promoted to Smart Chicago’s Project Coordinator. Sonja first joined Smart Chicago last year as Smart Chicago’s administrative assistant, but quickly grew to be a huge part of Smart Chicago’s operations including managing the Civic User Testing Group and spearheading the Chicago School of Data Days.

Sonja Marziano

Sonja will be transitioning from her Administrative Assistant role and managing more programs and projects for Smart Chicago. This includes her continued leadership in the CUTGroup and Chicago School of Data Project, and now includes Expunge.io, Early Childhood Web Portal, and other projects as they arise.

You can follow her on Twitter at @ssmarziano.

 

Preface: Experimental Modes of Civic Engagement in Civic Tech

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Today we’re launching a new project— Experimental Modes of Civic Engagement in Civic Tech. This is a project led by Laurenellen McCann that deepens her work in needs-responsive, community-driven processes for creating technology with real people and real communities for public good. See our project page for complete details.

I’m excited about this project because it supports so many important nodes for Smart Chicago:

  • Keeping the focus on people and communities rather than technology. We are leading creators of civic tech, and we publish a lot of software. It’s people and impact we care about
  • Driving toward a shared language around the work. There is a lot of enthusiasm for “people” in our space right now. This project sharpens pencils and will put definition to the work
  • Highlighting the workers: communities are doing this work and doing it right. We seek to lift them up and spread their methods

Au Natur-Elle #latergramSmart Chicago is utterly devoted to being of impact here in Chicago. As our work progresses, we see that we have opportunity to have influence all over. This project, rooted in the Chicago Community Trust, funded by them and the Knight Foundation, executed by a leading thinker in the field, is one way we’re doing just that.