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| Urban Profile: Joliet, IL | ||
| CityVoices
newsletter: May 27, 2004 CityVoices readers, Some cities will never get the attention of a Dallas, Seattle, Miami, New York or Chicago. They’re too small, stuck in a nondescript region or destined to economic and cultural obscurity. While those descriptions don’t exactly hold true for Joliet, Illinois – the image-rich city of 120,000 people, 40 miles southwest of Chicago – will never be one of America’s first-rank cities. Nevertheless, Joliet is worth study, particularly at this point in history. With this issue we take a peak at what’s made Joliet’s past, how city administrators have worked to re-cast the civic image during the past twenty years, and where churches have found their ministry headed in a city of this size. The story isn’t entirely pretty. Nevertheless, God’s people are present and working to extend the kingdom in surprising ways. If you’re counting your back issues of CityVoices and realize that you haven’t received an April edition, don’t be alarmed. Neither has anyone else! Due to staff medical leave, it was simply impossible to produce. Nevertheless, we’re catching up! Look for interviews, profiles and inspiration in months ahead. God’s grace and peace today, ******************** Joliet: From Quarries to Casinos and Churches Consider the contrasts. In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, the steel mills, machine shops and quarries (which had once made the area famous) had vanished from Joliet, Illinois. All that was left were two infamous prisons (the notorious Stateville), an old canal that had once been used to ship treated sewage from Chicago by barge, and a 20 percent unemployment rate. Crime and racial tensions were beginning to take their toll on a discouraging-looking city. Joliet’s population had actually dipped from a record-high of 80,000 in 1970 to just under 77,000 in 1990. Clearly, much had to be done to not only change the tired, old town’s image, but to also bring about tangible social and economic growth. That was before Illinois opened itself to a state lottery and casino gambling. In 1991 Joliet invited Harrah’s Casino to open its downtown location on the historic Des Plaines River. A year later the Empress Casino moved into town as well; making Joliet the third-largest gambling mecca in America, followed only by Las Vegas and Atlantic City. The city’s population began growing, as the casinos now attract more than 400,000 visitors each year. While few gamblers spend much of their winnings in Joliet’s local businesses, the casinos themselves have been a major boost to the city’s economy. Joliet has undertaken and completed civic projects that it could have only dreamed about two decades ago. The 75,000 seat Chicagoland Motor Speedway has put the community on the national map as more than a backdrop for prison movies. NASCAR now conducts two major events there each year. The downtown Rialto Square Theater has been shinned up as the new home to major music and theatrical events, just as it once was in its early 20th century glory days. The new 10,000-seat Silver Cross Baseball Stadium has been built adjoining downtown in which the Joliet Jackhammers play their Independent League schedule. By 1997, population had jumped over 90,000; and by 2003 it had grown to 120,000 people. Joliet is now the third fastest growing city in Illinois, with new home construction taking place at record paces on the cities booming westside. Suburban families, who once opted for more expensive northwest and western Chicagoland locations, have now discovered the values of affordable new neighborhoods in and around Joliet. Projections place Joliet's population at 140,000 by 2020. So, what’s to worry about in a tidy-sized city such as Joliet? Far enough away from Chicago to have its own identity, yet close enough by Metra rail or I-55 to commute to the big city. While most people in Joliet’s civic, business and even church communities are supportive of the role that Harrah’s and Empress have had in bringing about a Joliet resurgence, that resurgence has come at a cost that few seem to discuss. Growth on the city’s western front has left downtown and its immediately adjacent communities in Zip Code 60432 (near eastside) as a highly Hispanic, very young and very uneducated inner core of the city. College graduates account for less than five percent of this local population (versus 25 percent nationally). Churches serving Joliet’s population are much poorer than those citywide. The entire Zip Code is experiencing high levels of stress due to concerns of affordable housing, gangs, child care and poverty. While people on Joliet’s eastside are generally responsive to churches and ministries of all types, they are not at able to support the kinds of ministries that can make a difference in their community. Downtown business growth (and survival) is a particular concern in Joliet. Casino traffic is effectively routed off and back onto I-55, with little spending downtown. While recent years have brought about a “New City Center Joliet” movement, the coalition is yet to be more than a collection of sports bars, restaurants and a “nice” city museum. Significant economic and social energy is yet to come. While gaming supporters would say that casinos have not hurt local church communities, the fact that three major churches in downtown Joliet have closed their doors since the advent of casinos. The Joliet Diocese was forced to close St. Mary Carmelite Parish (on Ottawa St.) in 1991 due to dwindling membership. The building was offered to a Hispanic congregation, but they turned it down. It remains shuttered today. Ottawa Street United Methodist (founded in 1833) was closed in 1993, its few remaining members merging with another Methodist congregation. The grand old building was sold and transformed into Joliet’s historical museum. And then in late 2003, Christ Episcopal Church (some 100 feet from Harrah’s front door) closed after a long and historic ministry. Twenty parishioners were left. Joliet has its share of live and healthy churches. But something rings amiss when church bells are silenced in a downtown area that once had more than 20 thriving congregations. The city issued a “downtown development plan” in 1990 stating, “In Joliet, the river with its distinctive bridges, the Rialto Theater and the many churches contribute significantly to the identity of the City Center. Preservation and enhancement of these and other landmarks, particularly the city’s older architecture, can play an important role in building a special image for the City Center.” Here in 2004, significant church closings cast doubt on whether anyone really believed in their own plan. Contact: Roger Johnson, CityVoices, 1242 W. Addison St., Chicago, IL 60613, (773) 477-8163, roger@cityvoices.com ******************** A Heritage of Correctional Institutions In an 1858 political move, Illinois moved its maximum-security prison from Alton to a new and fearsome-looking facility on Collins Street, on the north side of Joliet. In fact, prisoners did much of the work in building their new home out of the hardest Joliet limestone that could be quarried right on site. The rest was history – for Joliet and its prison reputation. For nearly 150 years, people nationwide have known Joliet first as home to three prisons: the Collins Street Facility (until the 1920s), the Illinois Women’s Prison (constructed adjoining the men’s facility in 1896) and the present Stateville Correctional Facility (built further north of town back in the 1920s). A few current statistics regarding Stateville: Joliet has remained nearly synonymous with hardened criminals and even more hardened wardens. In the modern era, Hollywood and television have made more of that reputation than the city has justifiably deserved. Nevertheless, Stateville remains a working testament to the violent world of crime and criminal justice, and the empty Collins Street Prison haunts a northside working class community that has enough hurdles to overcome on its own. Jail scenes from the 1980s Blues Brothers movie provided only a bit of comic relief, leaving Joliet with the remainder of its hardened image. Churches have conducted a wide variety of ministries on behalf of Stateville inmates throughout the years. Many students from the Chicago Cluster of Theological Schools have served as chaplains there, some for a semester, others for longer periods. Some students have even done “Urban CPE” units right within the penitentiary. Some inmates have even begun Bachelor’s Degree course work during their stay at Stateville through a special arrangement with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod’s Concordia University of River Forest, Illinois. A variety of Bible studies are always ongoing. While much has been done, much more can be done on behalf of Joliet’s inmates. While long-standing churches and their organizations have a sense of ministry to the prison population, new churches appealing to Joliet’s new families seem to have little time or interest in serving more than 2,500 inmates. ******************** Snapshot View of Joliet Current Population 106,221 Area 42.94 square miles Households 36,182 Under 18 years of age 29.5 % 62 and over 12.6 % Labor Force 49,728 Major Employers: Caterpillar 3,000 employees Development Trends Residential Building permits issued (1990) 454 Total Acres annexed (1990 – 2003): 11,252 Estimated Value of Construction: Sampling of four Joliet churches: Second Baptist Church St. Mary Nativity Catholic Church Three Rivers Evangelical Free Church Brown Chapel A.M.E. ******************** Birth of a New Church in Joliet (Excerpted from VOICES, ELCA Division for Congregational Ministries, Winter 2003) Iglesia Luterana Santa Cruz, is a bilingual congregation that was born in 1991 and organized in 1996. Described as an “ethnic specific” mission start, Santa Cruz was formed as a response to the growing Latino population in Joliet, Illinois, a city of 106,000, forty miles southwest of Chicago. Joliet’s old Bethlehem Lutheran Church, an initial and primary mission partner– served as a kind of “congregational midwife”– enabling the birth of Santa Cruz. After considerable preparation, including a group visit to Mexico and to Chicago area Hispanic Lutheran congregations, Bethlehem Lutheran of Joliet opened its doors to host the bilingual mission. The demographics of Santa Cruz and Bethlehem are strikingly different. Half of the bilingual congregation’s members are under the age of 25 and many live just a short walk from the church. 90 percent are Latino. By contrast, a large percentage of Bethlehem’s members are retirees. 98 percent are white. Nearly all who come to Bethlehem’s services (an average of 85) travel by car. A few take the shuttle from a nearby nursing home. Relationships can become strained when dynamics of growth and decline are manifest in the same ministry setting. As a Bethlehem member put it recently, “We have three families under this roof ”– a reference to the two congregations and the on-site Head Start program. A common calendar is maintained to coordinate building use. Signs of mutual regard are evident: Bethlehem members provide poinsettias and lilies for Santa Cruz at Christmas and Easter, while Santa Cruz youth have planted flowers around the church during summer mission week. While Bethlehem has shifted to an interim pastorate and reduced its programming, it has endorsed the increased use of the facilities by Santa Cruz. Since 1997, the former Bethlehem parish house has been rented to Santa Cruz for use as a ministry and community center: “La Casa de Amistad” or “friendship house.” At about the same time, access to the main sanctuary was granted for the Santa Cruz Sunday liturgy. English language classes, a neighborhood Sunday school (Los Amigos de Cristo) and Vacation Bible School are now regularly conducted by Santa Cruz in the church basement. Since the recent addition of a second bilingual liturgy on Saturday afternoons, weekend worship attendance at Santa Cruz has grown to over 100. Joliet, once a 19th century destination for mission, is still that in 2003. Some field workers have brought linguistic, cultural and theological gifts from life and ministry in Nicaragua, Cuba, El Salvador, Peru and Ecuador. Their field has expanded through a synod-sponsored link with the fledgling faith community of San Miguel in DeKalb, Illinois. They gain exposure to lively youth mission projects shared with Faith Lutheran Church, a west side ELCA partner parish. They have opportunities for service and learning through a Call to Common Mission link with Christ Episcopal Church and through Santa Cruz’s participation in the Joliet Area Church Based Organized Body (JACOB), a multicultural coalition of fifteen city congregations committed to congregational and community transformation. Contact Pastor Keith Forni, Santa Cruz Lutheran Church, 416 E. Benton Street, Joliet IL 60432, (815) 722-4800, Kforni@aol.com ******************** Bookshelf: Resources You Can’t Miss! “Streets of Glory: Church and Community in a Black Urban Neighborhood,” by Omar M. McRoberts, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2003. 29 black churches crowded together in a 0.6 sq. mi. area straddling Boston’s Roxbury and Dorchester neighborhoods. That’s the setting and subject for McRoberts’ fascinating sociological analysis on how the city’s Four Corners community has been left with an abundance of storefront churches, and little or no economic healthy economic activity. McRoberts tips his hand in stating that few of the 29 houses of worship really serve people living in the area. Rather, he is studying commuter churches and how they came to be such. Other studies have been done on the preponderance of churches in various black communities (Drake and Cayton, Burgess and Daniels, to name a few) and McRoberts credits much to his predecessors. Yet, he brings the whole notion of religious ecology into focus in applying it to a complex African American religious community. Layman or scholar, we all learn much to help us understand and prepare for future ministry. “Five Points: the New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World’s Most Notorious Slum,” by Tyler Anbinder, The Penguin Group, New York, 2002. Five Points was the lower Manhattan neighborhood, once recognized worldwide. In the mid-19th century it teemed with immigrant Irish, Jews, Germans and Italians; all trying to make their way in the new world. Five points was home to crime and prostitution, dance halls and theaters, high hopes and despair. In short, much of America’s urban culture was born out of the lower Manhattan that Anbinder describes in rich detail. Near ancient history? Perhaps. But it’s also a big slice of urban America that can teach us lessons for meeting people’s needs today. Read and pay attention. ******************** Thanks for Reading CityVoices! Next month’s CityVoices newsletter focuses on the very practical financial issues facing most city churches: fundraising, paying skyrocketing bills, budgeting for salaries and unexpected outlays. Unless your congregation operates off a sizable endowment (or has tremendous faith in next week’s collection), you’ll probably read this edition with great interest. Remember to contact CityVoices for the very best in resources for city ministry. “Transforming Power” by Robert Linthicum ($14), “The Expanded Mission of City Center Churches" ($10), and “A Biblical Word for an Urban World" ($10), both by Ray Bakke can be purchased by calling CityVoices at (773) 477-8163. Also, look through the Bookstore section of the CityVoices website (www.cityvoices.com) for a complete listing of all available resources. Thank You!
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