A new analysis of Census data suggests the former home to Cabrini-Green housing project high-rises is increasingly the home of wealthy residents:

Cook County, which includes the county seat of Chicago, is home to the No. 1 and No. 7 fastest-growing concentrations of $200,000-plus households. No. 1 is, ironically, the area around where the Cabrini-Green public housing projects once stood. Cabrini-Green was notorious for violent crime, poverty and de facto racial segregation until its demolition beginning in the 1990s at the behest of the Chicago Housing Authority.

Even back then, authorities fretted that redevelopment plans might displace low-income families. They were right to be worried. Two decades later, the area’s concentration of $200,000-plus households has skyrocketed from zero to 39 percent. For some of the longtime residents who remain, the neighborhood’s transformation has been isolating.

Latanya Palmer, 53, grew up in the Cabrini Rowhouses. While she moved into a nearby mixed-income development in 2005, the hypergentrification has occasionally made her feel like a stranger in her own home. That sentiment echoes across the country, as poor and working-class Americans are increasingly pushed aside by frenzied development and prohibitive living expenses…

The census tract in question includes the still-standing, albeit largely vacant row houses where Palmer grew up. But now there are luxury condominiums and apartments, too. They sport rooftop terraces and sparkling views of the city’s affluent Gold Coast and Lake Michigan beyond. A three-bedroom penthouse can cost around $2 million.

This should be no surprise: the proximity of the land to both downtown and Lincoln Park meant that it is was highly desirable for developers and residents. Compare the clamor for the Cabrini-Green land to land where the Robert Taylor Homes once stood.

I would suggest there is a bit of revisionist history above. The claim that “authorities fretted” about the possible displacement of public housing residents is overstated. If anything, the city and Chicago Housing Authority probably could not wait to remove the high-rises (and other ones in the city, including the Robert Taylor Homes). Progress on replacing the units has been slow and with limited effects. The Chicago Housing Authority continues to have long waiting lists for housing. And many of the neighborhoods where public housing high-rises once stood are still relatively poor, even as a construction boom is taking place in the Loop and desirable nearby neighborhoods. In other words, some foresaw the potential for the Cabrini-Green site to be a wealthy neighborhood – and this what the city desired.

For more on why some Cabrini-Green residents fought hard to not be pushed out of their high-rises, see my earlier paper: “The Struggle Over Redevelopment at Cabrini-Green, 1989-2004.”