The education system in Chicago is at a downfall, with 54 schools planning to shutdown to hopefully revive the system. But now what? Where do all these student relocate to and get to and from school everyday with greater distances to travel? They will be crossing gang territories and unsafe streets. They will become even more susceptible to joining gangs at younger ages, as young as 10 years of age. They will even be vulnerable to crossfire shootings and illegal activity on the streets, this is something that our youth should not be exposed to.
One initiative that is in place for the safety of the students in these unsafe areas is the program known as the 'Safe Passage'. The city has allocated about $16.1 million on this project alone, although there are concerns that this movement will not be enough to keep the streets safe. CPS has mapped out different routes for each school, along those routes are adult monitors who will watch over the safety of the students getting to and from school every day.
Gangs have changed over time from the traditional large territories that each gang would rule over to now have much smaller areas that blend with on another and move from block to block. This is causing an unawareness of when a violent breakout will occur. Not knowing where these territories are defined make keeping the streets safe more difficult. These areas are referred to as "hot", which can vary from day to day.
Although there are concerns that the CPS Safe Passage will not entirely clear up the problem it is on track to improve the community and make the streets around the school much safer areas for kids and families. The map shown above is an overlay of these gang territory blocks and the CPS Safe Passage in Lawndale. This mapping can help us define safe and unsafe areas within the community . This will help us in our master planning phase, to be able to place our infrastructure accordingly to stay within the safe areas and possibly create more pockets of safety or refuge for the community.
Sources:
Image:
Overlay diagram made by Luz Upegui using maps from: wbez & CPS Safe Passage Routes
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