Urban Policy and Development on Chicago's South Side: Institutional Power in Shaping Affordability and Anti-Displacement Policies

This project examines how institutional power shapes urban development and anti-displacement policies on Chicago’s South Side, focusing mainly on Hyde Park, Woodlawn, and South Shore. Using both economic and policy framework, this project analyzes how large-scale investments attracted by the major institutions such as the City of Chicago, the University of Chicago, and the Obama Foundation lead to an increase in land values, that ultimately intensify the rent burdens and displacement pressures for low-income, predominantly Black residents in the targeted neighborhoods. While these policies represent positive legislative changes and progress against displacements, this paper argues that the current efforts are structurally insufficient. The central argument of this paper is that current anti-displacement policies address the symptoms of displacement, instead of fixing the incentive structure that makes rising land values financially beneficial and rational for developers and landlords. This paper concludes that in order for the society to reach an effective anti-displacement policy, the policy must shift the focus of merely managing the displacement’s consequences to restructuring economic incentives that causes displacement, and make sure the scale of public investments in housing protection and affordable housing programs match with the scale of private capital investment for reshaping the targeted neighborhoods.