Best of Maya Dukmasova

A Home in Chicago: Rent, ownership, and neighborhood struggle since the collapse of public housing. By Maya Dukmasova

Americans have never had a right to housing, and so this country’s history is marred by racialized and classed struggles over finding and keeping a home. The racism and discrimination that has defined and divided American life are expressed on the streets of residential neighborhoods. 

In Chicago the history of these struggles is particularly well-documented. For decades Chicagoans have contended with persistent segregation, a massive public housing program that was allowed to become a colossal failure, aggressive gentrification, and an affordable housing shortage. They’ve responded with visionary organizing and relentless demands for public officials and private housing market players to do better.  

While it’s by no means a comprehensive portrayal of the city’s housing struggles, this collection of Dukmasova’s articles published between 2014 and 2020 in the Reader offers an instructive glimpse into what’s been happening here from one writer’s vantage point, and could serve as a time capsule useful to students of American housing history now and in the future.