COVID-19 & the 15-MINUTE CITY by Cora Saddler
After two years of COVID-19 and the civil unrest of George Floyd, Englewood has seen a new coming together. “Not in our neighborhood,” says community leader Rashanah Baldwin regarding increased violence and destruction of property. “Lots of clean-ups happened in the neighborhood, like repairing damaged stores and surveying the immediate needs of impacted businesses.” In response, the community—homeowners, businesses, and even the 7th Chicago Police District, came together to protect and rebuild the neighborhood.
COVER STORY
“It was working together to heal. Now it’s time to get back to work. We all want to be a community with the goal of helping each other,” said Baldwin, who is also a neighborhood resident and principal at Baldwin Media Group, a public affairs and public relations consulting firm. Staying at home during the pandemic highlighted the need – and also the opportunity – for a “15-Minute City,” a concept that came up in the International Consortium of Global Cities and that has been embraced by Barcelona, Paris, Milan and Melbourne. Similar to cities before the automobile, the concept seeks all life’s daily necessities within walking distance. The idea is to make life easier and more equitable across a city, with similar access in every neighborhood to grocery stores, parks, libraries, primary schools, secondary schools, hospitals or urgent care facilities, pharmacies and transit.
“That is the next step forward in showcasing there is ‘Good In Englewood.’ We want to restore our community to a livable, shoppable, walkable, and safe neighborhood,” Baldwin said in support of the 15-Minute City. “It’s imRashanah Baldwin pactful because we’re keeping dollars in the Black community. Oftentimes, we are expected to abandon our community due to lack of resources, but many of us stayed to demand equal opportunities and resources in our neighborhood. Englewoodians want to see our local economy thriving, with successful businesses, stable homeowners, and quality schools.” With Black and Brown communities being hit the hardest by the pandemic, a lack of quality access to health care, lack of resources, and continued disinvestments forced the community to come together. “We do want to get back to the thriving Greater Englewood community our parents and grandparents were used to, where everything they needed was at their fingertips or in walking distance, making it rare for them to spend money outside the community or leave the neighborhood,” Baldwin said.
In Chicago, only 51 percent of residents have 15-minute access to six or more of the above categories, according to a Metropolitan Planning Council blog. However, “neighborhoods have the potential to be the driver of the recovery,” said Chicago Commissioner of Planning and Development Maurice Cox said in a blog on marketplace.org “The scale of neighborhoods is going to be one of the major takeaways post-COVID.”
The Go Green Community Fresh Market, a $5 million grocery store at 1207 W. 63rd St. that opened March 8, is just what Englewood needed to address food insecurity and nutrition, Baldwin said. It also engages urban farmers and local vendors and growers to diversify the local food ecosystem and it addresses health—combating rising rates of obesity and diseases linked to poor diets. Englewood residents have a life expectancy 30 years lower than the rest of the city. Until now, Englewood has also seen $55 million in grocery dollars leaving the community annually.
If every neighborhood had its own downtown, people could go to work, get their weekly needs, he said.
The Go Green Community Fresh Market is part of a larger Go Green on Racine initiative at the 63rd Street/Racine
