Chicago’s south side residents fear Obama Center will displace them

Black longtime residents fear the economic boost from the $500m project will not reach them and that it could make their communities unaffordable

For five years, Kiera Hardin lived on the 15th floor of an apartment building along South Shore Drive, within eyeshot of the Obama Presidential Center, a sprawling 19-acre area that will be home to a public library branch, playground, community centers and a museum.

It was her first apartment. She could smell Lake Michigan when she stepped outside and see the purple and orange skies as the sun rose and fell. But last summer her rent dramatically rose following renovations, and suddenly the 30-year-old program coordinator could no longer afford to live in her building. Hardin suspected that the building's owners saw projections of how the neighborhood would change.