Rockwell Gardens is a public housing project located on the West Side of Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

. It was the first public housing development in the United States to be constructed using both federal and state funds.

Construction and history

The original structures were designed by Nicol and Nicol and cover 17 acres (68,796.6 m²). 1,126 units were built, located three miles (5 km) west of Downtown Chicago.

Operation Clean Sweep

In the late 1980s, Rockwell Gardens was a part of Chicago's "Operation Clean Sweep." This was a comprehensive government and police operation to clear city housing projects of the rampant gang activity, drug dealers, and other violent criminals who were a constant problem. The ultimate failure of this (and previous) cleanup programs eventually led to the Chicago Housing Authority's plan in the 1990s to demolish and redevelop city projects. Existing units only number 212 and 750 residents currently live at the project.

Redevelopment

Rockwell Gardens is a part of the Chicago Housing Authority's "Plan for Transformation," which encompasses a complete demolition and reconstruction of virtually all public housing projects in the City of Chicago into mixed-income communities. Demolition and complete redevelopment began in 2003, intended to provide a total of 750 housing units, of which 264 are reserved for current CHA residents.