Chicago
ICA-USA developed collaborative programs ranging from social justice approach to community development to sustainable and affordable housing. Here are the programs highlighted below.
WGN Institute of Cultural Affairs |
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Carbon Free Building Demonstration Collaborative
Since 70% of carbon emissions come from Chicago buildings, ICA created the Carbon Free Building Demonstration (CFBD) Collaborative to address the climate crisis and motivate climate action. The Collaborative focuses on creating decarbonization action plans, learning from one another, and advising others to become carbon free. There are nine buildings in the Collaborative including the ICA GreenRise, Lakeside Square Apartments, Sarah’s Circle (2 buildings), Uplift Community High School, Clarendon Gardens, and Voice of the People (3 buildings)
Carbon Free Leaders
Leaders are community members trained in ICA’s conversation methods to canvas the Uptown neighborhood and educate our neighbors on how to lower their carbon footprint in support of helping curb the climate crisis. There will be local and global interchange to inform this work and highlight the success of the program.
Since 70% of carbon emissions come from Chicago buildings, ICA created the Carbon Free Building Demonstration (CFBD) Collaborative to address the climate crisis and motivate climate action. The Collaborative focuses on creating decarbonization action plans, learning from one another, and advising others to become carbon free. There are nine buildings in the Collaborative including the ICA GreenRise, Lakeside Square Apartments, Sarah’s Circle (2 buildings), Uplift Community High School, Clarendon Gardens, and Voice of the People (3 buildings)
Carbon Free Leaders
Leaders are community members trained in ICA’s conversation methods to canvas the Uptown neighborhood and educate our neighbors on how to lower their carbon footprint in support of helping curb the climate crisis. There will be local and global interchange to inform this work and highlight the success of the program.
Additional Chicago Area Program Highlights
Many programs of both environmental and social justice have been held over these years, including social justice conversations on immigration, homelessness and affordable housing and city-wide involvement on recycling, biking and community gardens, and facilitation of planning and training of various organizations.
Many programs of both environmental and social justice have been held over these years, including social justice conversations on immigration, homelessness and affordable housing and city-wide involvement on recycling, biking and community gardens, and facilitation of planning and training of various organizations.
2011 AND ONGOING
Supported by a two-year grant from Boeing, the ICA-USA initiated accelerate77 program increased the impact, awareness and visibility of 900 sustainability projects in all Chicago communities. Through three phases of Identify, Connect, and Collaborate spanning from 1977 through recent years, accelerate77 has made countless organizations, foundations, companies, and communities aware of these opportunities and ways to access them.
ICA designed the Chicago Sustainability Leaders Network (CSLN) for those who engaged in the Accelerate77 program in 2012. The intent was to connect grassroots leaders from communities across Chicago to collaborate, share resources, support each other, build a strong collective voice, and nurture equitable and impactful relationships with policy makers. Through the years, many CSLN members have participated in other ICA programs.
ICA designed the Chicago Sustainability Leaders Network (CSLN) for those who engaged in the Accelerate77 program in 2012. The intent was to connect grassroots leaders from communities across Chicago to collaborate, share resources, support each other, build a strong collective voice, and nurture equitable and impactful relationships with policy makers. Through the years, many CSLN members have participated in other ICA programs.
2019 AND ONGOING
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In 1963, the first community demonstration program of the ICA was located in the 5th City neighborhood in East Garfield Park on the west side of Chicago, one of the most distressed parts of the city and one with an almost exclusively Black population. The 5th City Project set out to reconceive the nature of community organization and development. It became a replicable demonstration of the capacity of local people to transform their own communities—even when these were seemingly hopeless urban ghettos or desperately impoverished rural villages. The 5th City model laid out a remarkable picture of what comprehensive development anywhere could look like, along with a new and different approach to catalyzing the needed changes in the people and on the ground. In the decades that followed, it would become the basis for thousands of grassroots initiatives in community transformation around the world.
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The founder of Honey Pot Performance and Senior Manager of Arts and Community Impact Investment in Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, Meida McNeal grew up 5th City. In 2019 she wrote and performed “5th City Revisited”, tying together personal memory, oral history, original Fifth City documents, urban planning, and city policy. Using dance, story and media to explore how to create healthy communities, she found herself asking, "What is the power of the 5th City story? What lessons does it teach in the current, exciting, and (cautiously) hopeful era of grassroots change?"
2016 AND ONGOING
With the intent of increasing awareness, access and stewardship of the Chicago Uptown coastal zone, this program focused on events providing experiential learning in urban ecology; urban agriculture; transit alternatives; underutilized community spaces; historic preservation; eco-justice and green infrastructure. Three goals focused the program:
- Promoting sustainability with community residents
- Connecting organizations to community sustainability
- Creating ways to access nature
