Article
Chicago in Motion addresses the intersection of racial and socioeconomic segregation in Chicago and its impact on the city’s public transit system. Chicago, being the third-largest and one of the most segregated cities in America, has a transit network that inadequately serves lower-income, majority-Black neighborhoods due to historical disinvestment and neoliberal policies.
The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated these issues, leading to deteriorating conditions for transit workers and worsening inequalities for Black and lower-income residents. William’s project collaborates with activists, urban planners, and urban sociology experts to both explain the current state of Chicago’s transit system and spotlight the growing transit equity activism in the city.
The goal is to help residents understand the policies that have led to transit decline, visualize current disparities through data, and explore tangible solutions. By doing so, William aims to empower residents to advocate for change, engage with activist groups, and push for improvements in their communities.
In William’s words:
“For the past four years, I lived between Rogers Park, a northern Chicago neighborhood, and Evanston, a northern suburb that is connected to Chicago’s public transit system. I do not own a car, and so I experienced delayed trains, unreasonably long wait times, and “ghost buses” (a term to describe scheduled buses that simply never arrive, leaving riders without a way to get to their destination).
However, I also knew that Chicago’s transit issues were not dispersed equally throughout the city, and that majority-Black neighborhoods on the South and West Sides of the city are often at even higher disadvantages for transit access. Thus, while I was first inspired by my own frustrations, I wanted to use the project to highlight how transit issues in Chicago reflect and reproduce the racism that is embedded into Chicago’s urban fabric. Moreover, I wanted to point toward tangible ways that the city could, within the realm of transit, begin to unravel that fabric and repair the historical and present-day harms that racist policies have perpetrated against Chicago’s Black population.
I believe that addressing longstanding anti-Black racism is inseparable from other sociopolitical goals.
I believe that addressing longstanding anti-Black racism, which has often been hyper charged by neoliberal policymaking and brutal disinvestment in public urban programs, is inseparable from other sociopolitical goals, such as empowering workers, ending car culture, and eliminating carbon emissions — all of which were important threads within this project.”
Project Development
William conducted extensive interviews with a diverse group of individuals.
William conducted extensive interviews with a diverse group of individuals, including professors, activists, urban planning researchers, local government officials, transit workers, and representatives from Chicago’s transit and urban planning agencies. “It was easy to become overwhelmed with the sheer amount of possible issues or histories I could discuss in the story,” William shared. To anyone undertaking a similar project, he would suggest “remaining focused on finding the most powerful examples one can use to get a point across, rather than including every possible piece of information from interviews and research, as tempting as that may be!”
Additionally, William reviewed historical archival materials on Chicago’s public transit system. Collaborating with Midstory, a non-profit media think tank, William created an interactive StoryMap using ArcGIS to showcase their findings.
The StoryMap featured interactive maps highlighting transit history, disinvestment trends, and proposals for more equitable transit, including overlays of demographic data. Additionally, he utilized Flourish data visualization software to produce charts on bus and train reliability over recent years. All elements were combined into a comprehensive StoryMap, accompanied by a detailed 6,300-word text article.
Next Steps
While William is finished with the final story draft, it has not yet been published! The final result, published in three parts, is expected to be made available in the fall of 2024.
Updated August 2024
