Rogers Park, Chicago

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Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois
Rogers Park, (Chicago, Illinois)
Detailed area map of Rogers Park. Neighborhoods shown in blue.
Community Area 01 - Rogers Park
Chicago Community Area 01 - Rogers Park
Location within the city of Chicago
Latitude
Longitude		 42°0.6′N, 87°40.2′W
Neighborhoods
ZIP Code 60626
Area 4.79 km² (1.85 mi²)
Population (2000)
Density		 63,484 (down 9.35% from 1990)
13,249.4 /km²
Demographics White
Black
Hispanic
Asian
Other		 31.8%
29.6%
27.8%
6.40%
4.48%
Median income $31,602 USD
Source: U.S. Census, Record Information Services
Mundelein College at Loyola University Chicago was once the tallest building in Rogers Park.
Mundelein College at Loyola University Chicago was once the tallest building in Rogers Park.
A statue of Ignatius of Loyola stands in a courtyard near Sheridan Road at Loyola Avenue.
A statue of Ignatius of Loyola stands in a courtyard near Sheridan Road at Loyola Avenue.

There is also a Rogers Park in Brampton, Ontario, Canada which is owned and operated by Rogers Communications.

Rogers Park is the northernmost of Chicago community areas in the far North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is bounded by the City of Evanston at Juneway Terrace and Howard Street to the north, Ridge Boulevard to the west, Devon Avenue to the south and Lake Michigan to the east. The neighborhood just to the west is often called West Rogers Park, although its formal name is West Ridge. Rogers Park is anchored by Loyola University Chicago and the Jesuit religious order. Historic places of interest include Madonna Della Strada, the chapel motherchurch of the Jesuit Province of Chicago (one of the largest Jesuit provinces)

Contents

[edit] Native American roots

The Rogers Park area was developed on what once was the convergence of two Native American trails, now known as Rogers Avenue and Ridge Boulevard, pre-dating modern metropolitan Chicago. The Pottawatomi and various other regional tribes often settled in Rogers Park from season to season. The name of Indian Boundary Park in Rogers Park reflects this history as does Pottawatomi Park near Clark St and Rogers Ave.

Rogers Park was named after a pioneer settler and developer Phillip Rogers. Rogers often traded and worked with the local tribes. Envisioning a future settlement, Rogers eventually purchased the land from the tribes for later development.

[edit] Becoming part of Chicago

From 1830 and 1850, waves of immigrants from Luxembourg and Germany came to Rogers Park, where farming was the main industry. The average price of land at the time was $1.25 an acre ($309/km²), and the dominant crops were hay and cucumbers for pickles and onions[citation needed]. On April 29, 1878, Rogers Park was incorporated as a village of Illinois governed by six trustees. In 1893, the village was annexed to the City of Chicago. Successive generations brought about vast cultural changes to the village. Elite Chicagoans began to move to new planned communities in the suburbs by the 1930s, which ushered in the migration of Germans, English and Irish and Jewish families to Rogers Park. With the settlement of these migrants, their cultural traditions flourished[citation needed].

[edit] Cultural diversity

Rogers Park continued to see massive changes in its demographics into the twenty first century. The 2000 census data showed it to be one of, if not, the most diverse communities in the entire country, with a robust mix of ethnic backgrounds, languages, age diversity, and a wide range of family incomes. However, this diversity has been affected by the gentrification of the community. Much of the rental housing converted to condominiums since 2000 formerly housed racial and ethnic minority households. More than 90% of the new homeowners are white households, according to the Woodstock Institute [1], a nonprofit advocacy and research organization.

Rogers Park contains many houses of prayer of different religions and denominations.

[edit] Current issues

Rogers Park is currently going through a period of gentrification and the population is divided on the issue.

Both aldermen, Loyola University, and many property owners in Rogers Park support the gentrification currently going on in Rogers Park.[citation needed] Among those actively organizing against gentrification are the Rogers Park Community Action Network, Organization of the Northeast, the North of Howard Leadership Forum, and many individual block clubs and community groups.

Those in favor of gentrification point out that property values increase, that it brings investment to the community, increases property ownership and reduces crime in general.[1][2]

Those opposed point out that gentrification causes displacement of low-income families and the elderly in favor of younger, more affluent singles and couples, loss of diversity and does not establish long term residence. [3] [4]

[edit] Beaches

Rogers Park is unique in that it is one of the few Chicago neighborhoods that has direct public access to Lake Michigan. Every East/West street in the neighborhood has a beach.

[edit] Schools

  • Chicago Waldorf School
  • Field Elementary School
  • Gale School
  • Hayt Elementary School
  • Kilmer Elementary School
  • Loyola University Chicago
  • North Shore School
  • PACTT Learning Center
  • St. Margaret Mary School
  • St. Scholastica Academy
  • Sullivan High School
  • Swift Elementary Speciality School

[edit] Transportation

Rogers Park has four elevated Red Line stations: Howard (Red/Purple/Yellow), Jarvis (Red), Morse (Red) and Loyola (Red). The Howard Street "el", the initial CTA stop into the city proper, has experienced major renovation during 2008. Travel times to the Loop from each of the stops is currently as follows[5]: From Howard Red Line: 38 min, Purple Line: 27 min, Jarvis: 36 min, Morse: 35 min and Loyola: 32 min. In addition to the Red and Purple Lines there are also several bus routes which traverse to the Loop. They consist of the 147, 151, N201. ( Travel times to and from The Loop have been increased due to the reconstruction of the Belmont and Fullerton stations.[citation needed] There is also the Metra Rogers Park station, where travel times to downtown Chicago are 20 to 23 minutes.

[edit] Community Policing

In 1993, Rogers Park was selected as one of only 5 Chicago neighborhoods to implement a new concept for Chicago Law Enforcement; community policing or CAPS.[2] A merging of police and community efforts were implemented and had a noticeable effect on crime statistics. Weekly beat meetings (planning and strategy sessions) were held across the Police District. Within 3 years, after the success of CAPS in Rogers Park, all the cities districts had put CAPS into practice. "CAPS is the most ambitious and comprehensive community policing program in the country," said Susan M. Hartnett, project director and research associate at Northwestern's Institute for Policy Research. "The success of the CAPS program in comparison to efforts in other big cities is attributable to Chicago's commitment to the program and the resources allocated to it. A unique CAPS feature that is also vital to the success of the program is the improved delivery of city services throughout the city."[6].

[edit] New Fire House

A new fire house is being constructed to replace a turn-of-the-century building.

[edit] Notable residents

[edit] Elected officials

[edit] Chicago Aldermen

40th Ward Patrick O'Connor (D)

49th Ward Joe Moore (D)

[edit] Cook County

10th District Mike Quigley (D)


[edit] State Senate

7th District Heather Steans (D)
8th District Ira Silverstein (D)
9th District Jeffrey Schoenberg (D)

[edit] State Representative

14th District Harry Osterman (D)


[edit] House of Representatives

9th District Jan Schakowsky (D)

[edit] The Senate

Richard "Dick" Durbin (D)
Barack Obama (D)

[edit] External links



[edit] notes

Citizens of Chicago cited crime as "the number one problem" facing the city and their own neighborhoods, and such concerns motivated a significant number of them to attend community policing beat meetings to solve neighborhood problems, according to a just released study from Northwestern University. Citizens affiliated with community organizations were particularly likely to have an impact on citizen participation in the policing partnership and on decision making, according to the findings.

The findings were part of an evaluation of the city's Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) program. The study also examined the public's perception of police performance, citizens' awareness of CAPS, the effectiveness of the Joint Community-Police Training program and the extent to which certain aspects of the CAPS program had been fully implemented throughout the city three years after the community policing strategy began.

"If anything, CAPS has gotten more ambitious during the past year," said Wesley G. Skogan, professor of political science and faculty fellow at Northwestern University's Institute for Policy Research (IPR). Skogan, an internationally known criminologist, directed the evaluation in conjunction with researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Loyola University and DePaul University. The multi-year study is funded by grants from the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority and the U.S. Department of Justice.

CAPS was instituted in 1993 in five experimental districts that represented a spectrum of crime problems. In autumn 1994, elements of the program such as coordinated city services, training for patrol officers and supervisors, and new dispatching procedures began to be introduced in police districts throughout the city.

Among the findings of the 1996 CAPS study:


Eighty-five percent of survey respondents rated police officers as "helpful when dealing with people in [their] neighborhood," and 80 percent gave them positive ratings for expressing concern for people with problems and for treating people fairly. The police also received high marks for politeness, but less positive assessments were given by citizens on how well officers helped crime victims and how effectively they worked with residents to solve local problems.

More than half of all city residents were aware of CAPS. Knowledge of the program was widespread, with between 40 and 60 percent of all demographic groups knowing of Chicago's community policing program. This awareness, combined with citizens' concerns about crime, positively affected rates of attendance at beat meetings, which are a forum at which neighborhood problems are brought to the fore and, ideally, strategies to combat those problems are developed.

Between January 1995 and April 1996, cumulative attendance at CAPS-related meetings exceeded 80,000. Attendance rates were somewhat higher in African-American communities than in white neighborhoods. Turnout rates were also higher in rental areas compared to those with more home ownership. However, within beats, those who came to meetings tended to represent the best-off elements of the community, and they were the most supportive of the police and citizen involvement in community policing.

Social disorder problems, including public drinking, loitering youths and panhandling, were most commonly discussed at beat meetings. Attempts to develop solutions to those problems took place at three-quarters of meetings at which social disorder was discussed. Beat meeting topics such as physical decay problems, serious gang problems, drugs, property crime and predatory crime did not always elicit corresponding problem-solving discussion.

Residents generally brought up neighborhood problems, but police mainly identified the solutions to them that were discussed at beat meetings. A survey of residents who attended beat meetings found that while 64 percent were involved in tackling beat problems, few citizens reported trying to do so on their own; rather, they frequently contacted the police, their alderman, or neighbors for assistance. The most reliable sources of assistance for residents with problems were beat meetings and block and community organizations.

As of the end of July 1996, the Joint Community-Police Training (JCPT) program, developed to clarify CAPS roles for the police and residents throughout the city, hosted hundreds of training-related meetings for the thousands of citizens who attended. Many of the residents who participated were active members of the community. The majority of all attendees seemed interested in learning how to fight crime in their neighborhoods, and they appeared ready to participate in problem solving on their beat. A training-participant survey showed that individuals who were most active in community organizations were most apt to engage in problem-solving activities.

Community organizations also lend "political capacity," the ability to identify and express the interests of residents and then effect change. Neighborhood political capacity can have an impact on CAPS because residents involved with such organizations often have the requisite skills and experience to engage in collective decision-making. Also, neighborhoods with political capacity are often able to provide resources that enable residents to assume a partnership role in CAPS. In two Chicago communities studied, however, researchers found that while political capacity provided expected benefits such as higher levels of involvement in beat meetings and less reliance on the police for information, not all groups were enthusiastically mobilized around CAPS. Some community groups believed that CAPS competed for their members' time and effort, that it might diminish their organizations' political capacity by spreading resources more thinly across competing groups and that CAPS offered no advantage to their already-established relationship with police in their district.

Components of Chicago's community policing program that involve police interaction with citizens and city agencies were more developed at the time of the 1996 study than were those requiring change within the police organization. These findings were based on observations, interviews and analysis of documents and quantitative data on police activities in a sample of Chicago Police districts. The program was more advanced in districts with strong leadership, fewer societal and environmental challenges, younger officers working in the district and creative, enthusiastic sergeants and lieutenants. Data for the 1996 study were gathered in multiple ways: monitoring meetings; riding in patrol cars with beat officers; surveying officers and residents; observing station-house activities and citizen and officer training; monitoring physical conditions in neighborhoods; and analyzing department documents and data.

"CAPS is the most ambitious and comprehensive community policing program in the country," said Susan M. Hartnett, project director and research associate at Northwestern's Institute for Policy Research. "The success of the CAPS program in comparison to efforts in other big cities is attributable to Chicago's commitment to the program and the resources allocated to it. A unique CAPS feature that is also vital to the success of the program is the improved delivery of city services throughout the city."

Components that have become a regular part of the Chicago Police Department's patrol strategy as a result of CAPS include coordinated city services; new police dispatching procedures; advisory committees composed of citizens; civilian administrative managers who free up some of the commanders' time to work with citizens; and a computer system capable of crime analysis. A new police department General Order, enacted in April, 1996, formalized the procedures and activities that comprise Chicago's community policing strategy.

In the remaining years of the evaluation, CAPS researchers will also examine the problem-solving process; the inclusion of the Detective Division in the community policing program; the introduction of technology to the department; officer and citizen training efforts; and the implementation of community policing in public housing.

The full 1996 study is available from the Illinois Criminal Information Authority as part of its series of studies on drug abuse and violent crime in Illinois. Copies may be obtained by contacting the Authority at (312) 793-8550 or by writing the Authority at 120 S. Riverside Place, Suite 1016, Chicago 60606. Fifteen related project papers, listed in the Authority's new report, may be ordered from the Institute for Policy Research. Project paper summaries can also be accessed by clicking here.



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[edit] References

  1. ^ Studies: Gentrification a boost for everyone.
  2. ^ What is Gentrification?.
  3. ^ What is Gentrification?.
  4. ^ Fighting Gentrification Chicago Style.
  5. ^ RTA Trip Planner http://tripsweb.rtachicago.com/
  6. ^ [December 6, 1996] Not in My Backyard - Northwestern study finds major concerns about crime motivates high citizen participation in Chicago's Community Policing Program. “Citizens of Chicago cited crime as "the number one problem" facing the city and their own neighborhoods, and such concerns motivated a significant number of them to attend community policing beat meetings to solve neighborhood problems, according to a just released study from Northwestern University. Citizens affiliated with community organizations were particularly likely to have an impact on citizen participation in the policing partnership and on decision making, according to the findings.” 
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