One of the remarkable features of Oak Park is the age of its housing stock. As much as 75% of it was built prior to World War II. In many parts of the U.S. where the value of the lot exceeds the value of the house on that lot, people purchase a house and then tear it down to built something new - sometimes overly large "McMansions." Will that happen here? In the 1920s many Victorian houses, such as the Richard Sears' mansion on Oak Park Avenue, were torn down to make way for the courtyard apartments. In the 1960s and 1970s houses were torn down to make way for apartment buildings and condos, as can be seen on Kenilworth Avenue in the two blocks north of Lake Street. Within the two historical districts (now a third is proposed), the Village's Historic Preservation Commission has the authority to prevent the tearing down of a building that has proven historical significance. Is that enough to preserve the character of this place? I make no attempt to hide my point of view in this regard. If I could, I would preserve the place in amber - freeze it in time!
I continued to shoot
materials for three of the film pieces I am making - The Housing
Center, the family and life history films about Helena and her
family and Bekah and Sophie's family. I am still seeking an Africna-American
family to film and beginning to panic about my failure to locate
one willing to be filmed. For the Housing Center film, I concentrated
on interviewing people like their legal counsel about the legality
of affirmative marketing, the police chief about the anxieties
some people have about crime in certain parts of the village and
how it impacts on their decision as to where they will live in
Oak Park, apartment owners - some who use the Center and others
who do not, and Housing Center clients who I filmed during the
summer who located apartments in Oak Park. I now have a wonderful
sequence that will hopefully demonstrate how the Housing Center
works. It begins in July with the head of Marketing meeting with
a new owner to inspect an apartment and explain the services that
the Center and the village offer apartment owners. I then filmed
several clients being escorted to the same apartment that I called
Max's place because of the friendly little dog who lived there.
Max liked to follow me around with his toy in his mouth. One of
the clients I filmed eventually signed a lease. I have a followup
interview with her. She moved in January. The new tenant has agreed
to allow me to interview her in March. I hope through this one
set of shots to explain how the Housing Center works to find apartments
for people. The hard part will be to show how this activity is
at the core of an affirmative marketing strategy that enables
the community to maintain integration. For the other films, I
have filmed and will continue to film extensive explorations of
the lives of certain family members. I hope to be able to construct
life histories of these people in a way that illuminates certain
aspects of the life of this community. The task is being able
to move from the particulars of their lives to the social.
I cannot do a credible
job if I concentrate solely on the subjects of my films. I need
to gain as much generalized knowledge as is possible. I therefore
continue to interview people like the president of the community
bank; go to various meetings; attend art openings and lectures,
and in general attempt to particpate as much as possible in the
life of this place. I would like to leave here with a strong sense
of what it is like to live in this place as an upper middle-class
professional. I know what it was like to grow up here in the 1940s
and 1950s but as I left when I was 18, I have no adult experiences.
I will never really understand what this place looks like to those
with less income and education and opportunity. I make no pretense
about this study being about all of Oak Park. It is about people
like me.
Oak Park has evolved a complex of public and private agencies and policies in order to prevent the community from becoming re-segregated, that is from transforming itself into an all Black community. Having spent many hours exploring these efforts, I am beginning to realize how complicated it all is and how few villagers really understand the entirity of the efforts. Nonetheless, there is a growing number of voices critical of this effort and who question whether it should not be subject to review and either drastically revised or even abandoned all together. I wonder how representative these critics are of the village as a whole when a recent community survey suggests the opposite. I quote from the survey;
"Overwhelmingly residents believe that an ethnically diverse community is very important (71%). This is an even greater proportion than in 1988, when 50% of respondents felt that is was 'very important' to maintain an ethnically diverse community." P. 5
"More than three-quarters of respondents consider it necessary to continue the promotion of racial and ethnic diversity in Oak Park. This, too, is a greater percentage than found in 1988, when 67% of respondents felt that promotion of diversity was still needed...this sentiment is even stronger among people of Non-White racial backgrounds." P. 5
I have been unable to locate people whose criticism is based on personal negative experiences with the Housing Center or other programs and policies. These critics are ideologically opposed to "managed integration." It is therefore unnecessary for them to know the actual details of the day-to-day operation of the Housing Center. They believe that managed integration is "offensive" to African-Americans.They is some validity to this position in that the entire concept of "integration" can be seen as offensive. It is based upon the assumption that most Whites are racists and will not voluntarily live in integrated communities. It also assumes that most Whites will not live in a community that is majority minority and therefore steps must be taken to cause a community like Oak Park to reflect the regional distribution of ethnicities - roughly 70% White and 30% Black. The preplexing problem is that these critics thus far have offered no alternatives to managing integration. I do not believe that they wish Oak Park to re-segregate but have not suggested a way to preserve the diversity in a less offensive manner. As some of the candidates for the Village board are critics of "managed integration," it will be interesting to observe what actions may be taken after the elections in April.
Some apartment owners are also critical of Oak Park's solution to maintaining integration but their displeasure is pragmatic rather than ideological. They believe they can do a better job of marketing their own apartments than the Housing Center. They are convinced that if they offer a quality product - apartments that are well maintained - and that they are careful to only accept qualified tenants that Oak Park's diversity can be maintained through the actions of the market place. Owners cannot practice affirmative marketing because they must accept all qualified potential tenants and therefore cannot insure that their buildings will remain diverse. In the coming months I plan to interview more owners to explore this possibility.
Given the complexity
of this situation, I plan to write a preliminary essay to be given
the April meeting of the Lowell Literary Society (My wife and
I are members for this year) entitled "The Mysteries of Managed
Integration."
I have aided Bob Trezevant,
the subject of one of the life histories I am constructing, in
the production of a web site devoted to his recent newspaper articles
about the schools and related matters. I also temporarily housed
it on a server I have access to - http://nimbus.temple.edu/~jruby/trez. Bob, along with some others
have created EducationFirst, an organization who was sufficiently
critical of the current school board's actions as to run a slate
of candidates for the board in the April elections. I suppose
that some folks might see my actions as partisian and therefore
not appropiate for someone engaged in ethnographic research. I
do not. The issues raised by Education First are ones that remain
outside of my research. I am not studying the schools or the role
of education in the community. Therefore aiding one group does
not effect those aspects of the village I am studying.