One neighborhood reaches for resilience: A letter from Chicago

“Welcome to Pullman,” said Ciere Boatright. A neighborhood leader, she’s a prime mover in the revival of one of America’s most famous planned cities – a section of South Chicago named after railroad magnate George Pullman.

Back in the 1980s, dominant colors in this part of the city were gray and brown. Abandoned steel plants and other factories lined the nearby Dan Ryan Expressway, rusty testaments to American manufacturing that no longer seemed able to compete.

But when I visited this year on a summer day, almost all I could see was green from a viewpoint on the 11th floor of the USBank building that overlooks the former Ryerson steel mill. The expanse of lawns and trees rivaled the leafiest suburb. And Ms. Boatright, then vice president of real estate and inclusion at Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives (CNI), was showing me more signs of rebirth.