Lightfoot urged to replace 'patchwork planning by aldermanic prerogative' that perpetuates racial segregation

Mayor Lori Lightfoot was urged Wednesday to replace "patchwork planning by aldermanic prerogative" - derisively called the "tool of the new Jim Crow" - and replace it with community-development decision-making driven by racial equity.

Last year, affordable housing advocates filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development claiming the unwritten rule giving Chicago aldermen iron-fisted control over zoning in their wards effectively keeps affordable housing and minority residents out of white neighborhoods.

The complaint filed by the Shriver Center on Poverty Law was based on a report that showed how aldermanic prerogative has served to "perpetuate" racial segregation in Chicago by keeping affordable housing out of predominantly white neighborhoods.

Now, those same housing advocates are back with a follow-up report, offering the new mayor a road map to resolve the housing discrimination complaint and chart a more equitable future for Chicago.

"It has been over 50 years since Dr. (Martin Luther) King marched through Chicago for open housing and since Congress passed the Fair Housing Act. Yet, Chicago remains profoundly separate and unequal," Monica Dillon of Neighbors for Affordable Housing in Jefferson Park, told a city hall news conference Wednesday.

"Chicago's people are segregated. But, even worse, Chicago's resources are segregated. That is where the harm lies and where the Lightfoot administration must focus its change."

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