On April 10, 2019, half a dozen newly elected Chicago city council members took part in a direct action with dozens of protesters, blocking traffic on LaSalle Street outside the chambers of city council. They were protesting the approval of up to $2.4 billion of public subsidies to Lincoln Yards and The 78, two massive real estate development projects along waterfronts in the city’s north and near south sides, respectively.

The 78 and Lincoln Yards developments embody the power of developer interests over political decision-making in the city. As unemployment, poverty, and physical deterioration of infrastructure afflict the west and south sides of the city, these billion-dollar deals with developers Sterling Bay and Related Midwest would fund new bridges, transit stations, streets, and bike lanes around affluent neighborhoods for the convenience of their future affluent inhabitants.

While Related Midwest has promised up to two thousand affordable units in The 78, this would be merely 20 percent of the projected ten thousand units, just meeting the city’s minimum affordability requirements. The vast majority of residential units will be luxury apartments and condominiums. These developments would perpetuate the massive displacement of Latino and black families from their neighborhoods, many through forced evictions, exacerbating the “reverse Great Migration” of black families out of Chicago.