Almost a quarter century has passed since Chicago Housing Authority’s “Plan for Transformation,” a Mayor Richard M. Daley-era initiative to replace 17,000 units of public housing with mixed-income communities, was announced.
Some redevelopment has happened, but bad planning and fiscal shortages hampered the plan, launched in 2000. The result has been yearslong construction backlogs that have left far too many people stuck on waiting lists for new CHA housing — and neighborhoods stuck with vacant land rather than transformed neighborhoods.
