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Forging a Future in Chicago Aja Bonner, M.U.P. ’14, is helping to lay the groundwork for better, smarter affordable housing in the Windy City AJA BONNER, M.U.P. ’14, was required to do an internship when she was an undergraduate student studying human development and social policy at Northwestern University. That’s what led Bonner to her first visit to the notorious Cabrini-Green public housing development in nearby Chicago’s Gold Coast community. She didn’t realize it at the time, but the experience laid the groundwork for her current career. It was 2003, and demolition had begun at Cabrini-Green. Bonner interned in a health clinic that hosted a youth drop-in program in a red brick building that had no lighting just a stone’s throw from the iconic John Hancock skyscraper. She was terrified to use the elevator. “It was eye-opening. I’d never experienced something like that,” says Bonner. “Seeing the extreme contrast between the concentrated wealth in the surrounding Gold Coast with the abject poverty at Cabrini was jarring and informed my ideas about how important urban planning is.”
Today, following a decidedly indirect path, Bonner has found her way back to Chicago. As a financial planning analyst for the Chicago Department of Housing, she is charged with ensuring that quality affordable housing is available in “choice neighborhoods of opportunity” and is a catalyst for investment in underserved communities. She evaluates proposals for low-income housing tax credits and is responsible for monitoring the financial health of multifamily housing subsidized by the department, including properties replacing Cabrini-Green. “As an undergrad, I had no concept of the policies governing public housing and how it was shifting to affordable housing, or that there was even such a distinction,” Bonner says. “The proposals that are being put forth now are worlds apart” from the Cabrini-Green she knew in 2003, and likely will include housing for a range of incomes. “One of the trickier parts of my job is identifying and understanding all of the federal and local regulatory requirements and conditions attached to a given development. But the cool thing is that my job touches on many disciplines: finance, policy, law, construction, design, and of course, politics,” she adds. Following graduation from Northwestern, Bonner worked for several years in security and emergency preparedness, starting with three years at the City of Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and another four at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She knew, however, that her long-term career interests lay elsewhere. In 2012, she began as a student in the Master of Urban Planning program at Taubman College. Her real estate development and economic development courses in particular “were important cornerstones that helped launch me as an urban planner,” Bonner says. In 2014, she won a U-M MLK Spirit Leadership Award for organizing a symposium and student recruitment campaign aimed at increasing people of color in urban
(Opposite) The economics of Chicago’s growth, as well as the city’s complicated history with issues of race and disinvestment, have created a landscape in which some neighborhoods have thrived while others have struggled.
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SPRING 2020 TAUBMAN COLLEGE
