For the past decade, residents of the Woodlawn and Hyde Park neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago have participated in a community garden at 61st Street and Dorchester Avenue. The garden is located on land made available by the University of Chicago. From the start, it has been understood that use of the site for the garden was provisional. Earlier this month, the University informed the gardeners that "construction staging" for the building of a new facility for the Chicago Theological Seminary will require vacating the garden site after the current growing season.

This essay is an effort to think out loud about the issues posed and possibilities in play at this moment.
invisibleinstitute.com/node/211

In one sense, this is an intensely local matter. In another, it poses fundamental issues of land use, design, and civic integration that may be of interest to those of you far removed from the South Side as well as those close at hand.

Even if you are not moved to read the essay, I urge you to take a look at the evocative Patricia Evans photo essay that accompanies it: a lovely celebration of long-awaited spring.