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Former Chicago mayor Lori E. Lightfoot reflected on the impact of INVEST South/West, her signature economic development initiative, at a Harvard Graduate School of Design lecture on Tuesday.
Lightfoot joined Maurice D. Cox, former Chicago commissioner of planning and development, at Tuesday’s Carl M. Sapers Ethics in Practice Lecture to discuss their initiative. Implemented in 2019, INVEST South/West sought to revitalize the South and West Sides of Chicago through investment and high-quality design.
Lightfoot, Chicago’s first Black female and openly gay mayor, made the revitalization of the neighborhoods a priority after her 2019 inauguration.
“I just knew this was something that we had to do,” Lightfoot said. “We had this incredible opportunity, but also, frankly, in my mind, an obligation to upend years and decades of disinvestment in neighborhoods on the South and West Side and to bring a measure of hope.”
Rachel Weber, a GSD professor of urban planning who moderated the lecture, said that the South and West Sides “stood out by orders of magnitude compared to those in wealthier, white neighborhoods” when comparing socioeconomic, healthcare, and infrastructure disparities.
Cox, who led Lightfoot’s INVEST South/West Initiative, said the project was designed to address “the expansion of poverty on the West and South Sides.”
“Here you find the impetus for INVEST South/West,” he said. “Could we use the power of design to advance equity in Chicago’s South and West Side?”
The program has secured $2.3 billion in public and private investment to revitalize the neighborhoods. The funding is used to rehabilitate twelve “priority corridors” in the city through new construction projects and cultural investments.
Cox said as the city worked to find a way to fund the initiative, Lightfoot ensured its success by focusing on private and public investment.
“She said the issue here isn’t a lack of government funding, it’s a lack of multiplying public investment with private investment. That is something we can change,” Cox said.
“That simple assertion that we should use public dollars to multiply them to private investment was a different paradigm for development on the South and West Sides,” he added.
Lightfoot said that despite “a significant amount of skepticism” from her constituents, she was committed to implementing the initiative.
“I was determined that we had to do this to turn around the futures of these neighborhoods, and frankly, to stop the exodus of middle class and working families from our South and West Sides.” Lightfoot said.
In order to enact the initiative, Cox said government officials worked collaboratively with designers, residents, and local business owners to shape the development process.
“We got ideas from them because we asked them, ‘How should your community be developed?’” he said.
“The goal here was not just to create development, bring it to these communities, it was also to build the pipeline of black and brown developers,” he added.
Lightfoot said she was eventually able to eliminate her constituents’ skepticism about the program through this persistent engagement.
“Just being present — showing that we were actually going to do what we said,” Lightfoot said. “That’s how we started.”
—Staff writer Nishka N. Patel can be reached at nishka.patel@thecrimson.com.
