Community Benefits Through an Anchor
Contestations During the Planning of the Obama Presidential Center
Maura Fennelly (Northwestern University)
Since the 1970s, nonprofits have played an expanding role in historically under-served neighborhoods. Nonprofits supply housing, job training, education, and many other services to residents. Some also frequently become key players in cities’ institutional infrastructure, or governance coalitions. Many nonprofits partner with governments through public-private partnerships, which is when the state provides land and infrastructure for privately-controlled projects. Anchor institutions are one type of nonprofit involved in these partnerships and are often referred to as “eds and meds” or universities and hospitals that are “anchored” in place. In addition to their regular programming, they frequently coordinate neighborhood revitalization-oriented projects through their economic influence.
When there is talk of a new anchor development project coming to a neighborhood, residents and local organizations like small businesses may have a mix of reactions. People may be excited about the amenities, job opportunities, and other economic benefits. They also may be concerned about the risk of gentrification and subsequent displacement associated with increased living costs near the project. The amount of representation residents have during the planning of these anchors varies, but in many cases residents demand more say in negotiations. One response residents and local organizations have to these development projects is to pursue a community benefits agreements (CBAs): legally backed contracts signed between community groups and a developer where the latter agrees to meet certain conditions like increased local hiring or funds towards affordable housing. In many instances of signed CBAs in the U.S., the local city government is also involved in the CBA signing and enforcement. There have been both unsuccessful and successful CBA campaigns with for-profit developers (i.e. sports stadiums) and anchors (i.e. a university expansion).
This project explores how anchor developers are contested throughout their planning and what the outcomes of these contestations teach us about accountability in urban governance. I look at this phenomenon through the case of the planning of the Obama Presidential Center (OPC), an anchor institution built by the Obama Foundation that features a museum of President Barack Obama’s presidency and a campus for Foundation programs. The Obama Foundation partnered with another nearby anchor, the University of Chicago, to plan the future OPC, which will be constructed in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood. The University has a fraught relationship with Woodlawn residents due to its racist treatment towards Black residents spanning back through the 20th century.
Woodlawn today is a low-income majority Black neighborhood that has seen significant housing price increases in the past several years. For example, the sales price of single-family homes rose from an average $124,000 in 2016 to $241,000 in 2022. Concerned with displacement risks associated with the incoming OPC, residents and organizations formed the CBA Coalition and called on the Obama Foundation, City of Chicago, and the University of Chicago to sign a binding CBA. President Obama himself stated that a CBA was not necessary because the Foundation is nonprofit and focused on providing community benefits. The CBA Coalition disagreed and continued with their demands for a CBA. Once the Foundation and University said no to a CBA, the Coalition turned to the City of Chicago for protections. After years of negotiation, the City ended up signing the Woodlawn Housing Preservation Ordinance, which provides funding and programming to increasing housing affordability.
Figure 1: Timeline of OPC Planning and CBA Activity
The case is notable in that both Michelle and Barack Obama have strong ties to the South Side and the University of Chicago. Yet despite pre-existing relationships, there were disagreements regarding what revitalization should look like in Woodlawn. Various qualitative methods were used to explore the tensions between different organizations concerning this theme of revitalization. I conducted 20 interviews with various stakeholders who belonged to organizations involved in the CBA negotiations or the OPC planning. I also analyzed Foundation videos and reports, City Council transcripts, and Coalition videos. After analyzing all the data, I identified three key themes of contestation in the planning.
There are fundamental disagreements between stakeholders surrounding meanings of organizational categorization, community, and racial legitimacy. First, the Foundation positioned its project as providing direct benefits to nearby residents while the Coalition was skeptical of the OPC and threated the Foundation as if it were a for-profit developer. Second, the Foundation presented community-building as future oriented, and focused on youth benefitting from the OPC. The Coalition focused on the present-community and immediate changes to Woodlawn. Third, the Foundation framed its connection with the Black community as a sign of its racial legitimacy whereas the Coalition saw such racial legitimacy as insufficient to address potential negative impacts. The assumptions and disagreements over these three claims of contestation show the complicated relationship that arises between large foundations and local organizations when the prior aims to construct an anchor institution.
What can we learn from the case of the OPC planning and negotiations? The Foundation’s rejection of a CBA and its rhetoric throughout the planning process illustrates how anchors and the foundations that give rise to them avoid accountability towards the public when leading revitalization. It is important to highlight the significant role the City of Chicago played throughout planning, both in its strong support of the OPC during approval periods and in leading the Woodlawn Housing Preservation Ordinance. There is concern that the ordinance is not sufficient for protecting residents from increased housing costs, especially in neighborhoods outside Woodlawn. Whether a CBA would have provided more protections cannot be tested, but we can look to other instances in which anchors signed CBAs as a comparison. Regardless, the City’s commitment to ensuring existing residents can stay in Woodlawn is important for circumventing increased housing costs.
There is no way to predict what the outcomes of large anchor projects will be on surrounding neighborhoods before they are completed. However, past research shows that there are often unwanted impacts associated with anchors’ growth, ranging from increased traffic to residential or cultural displacement. Cities are limited in funding, which is one reason that partnerships with anchors are popular, so they do not always have the capacity to stop negative outcomes from occurring. Cities do have power in approving and requesting changes to development plans. They can consider bringing residents and local organizations into planning discussions prior to plans being introduced and can incentivize anchor developers to integrate plans for how existing residents can benefit long-term from the projects. With anchors playing an increasing role in neighborhood governance, it’s important to know how they work alongside, or clash with, existing nonprofits and residents.
Maura Fennelly is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at Northwestern University. She studies the relationships between housing, organizations, residential life, and inequality.