Words we haven’t heard lately, from activist James Yellowbank, quoted in U.S. Catholic (February): “To say that all Indians are alike is like saying that all the different nationalities and religions in Europe are alike.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
One urbanite runs up the white flag. “Let us suppose USX determined that the best and highest use of [its 585-acre South Works on the southeast side] in fact is residential, that people actually could be persuaded to buy homes there and that they would not die of heavy-metal poisoning before the first property-tax bill came due,” writes Ed Zotti in Chicago Enterprise (January/February). “Would we want to build a ‘traditional Chicago neighorhood’ (i.e., densely populated and oriented toward pedestrians, with a high percentage of multifamily dwellings) of the sort advocated by Philip Bess and a long line of other urban enthusiasts, starting with Jane Jacobs? I would like to say yes, because I live in such a neighborhood now and enjoy it. But I am not so sure….[I might] advocate giving people what they seem to want: single-family homes on reasonably large lots, with perhaps a smattering of townhouses for first-time buyers, all largely dependent on the automobile. We might aim for Oak Park, attempt to avoid Levittown and perhaps settle for Naperville.”
Who make the best inner-city schoolteachers? According to veteran teacher educator Martin Haberman in In These Times (January 24), those most likely to succeed, among other things, usually live in the city and plan to stay, are between 30 and 50, have raised children, have personal experience of violence, didn’t decide to teach until after college and other jobs, are not white, and “expect that the school bureaucracy will be irrational and intrusive.”
