To get to the headquarters of the Cedar Grove Institute for Sustainable Communities, visitors have to navigate a lengthy dirt road past white picket fences, grazing horses and a variety of outbuildings in various stages of disrepair. Set in a one-room former Primitive Baptist church on a 43-acre spread in rural Orange County, N.C., the institute holds a collection of old, ergonomically incorrect wooden desks and metal filing cabinets. The only signs of modernity are computers atop the desks. Institute founders Allan Parnell and Ann Joyner, who live in a modest country house a stone's throw ... Read More
Suburban Poverty, Served Chicago Style
April 9, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
"The suburban dream often fades for poor families because old support systems are severed, and access to programs and services — day care, after-school programs, job training, drug treatment and counseling — are greatly hampered by shear distance." Those are the thoughts of Ed Goetz, a housing policy specialist at the University of Minnesota interviewed for David Villano's recent Miller-McCune.com piece, "The Slumming of Suburbia." A new report conducted for The Chicago Community Trust backs up the gist of that depressing scenario, at least in America's Second City and its ... Read More
