Michelle Obama discusses presidential center site, and how white flight hurt her South Side community

CHICAGO_The Obamas selected Jackson Park for the Obama Presidential Center because not only was the public park underutilized, it was close to their Chicago home and it was the largest park near her childhood home on the South Side, former first lady Michelle Obama said Tuesday.

"There's power in the selection of Jackson Park," she said. "Barack and I don't do things incidentally. There's a strategy.

"Barack's presidential library could have been anywhere in the world, because there are so many people who feel like he is their president," she said. "New York wanted it. Hawaii wants it. Because it's also an economic engine."

Obama made her remarks at the end of a nearly hourlong conversation at