Campaign to Fight Retail Redlining:
Seeking More Stores and Restaurants
by David Mekarski, AICP,
Village Administrator
The Village of Olympia Fields has
received two Federal Earmarks from
Congress sponsored by Congressman
Jesse Jackson Jr. and Senator Richard
Durbin, totaling close to a quartermillion
dollars. The project, designed
as a retail investment strategy will
explore the process of Retail Redlining
which limits the diverse communities
of the Chicago Southland from
achieving our true economic potential.
I have defined Retail Redlining as
“Continuation and perpetuation of the
process of unconscious racism which
predominates retail location decisions.
This social dysfunction is one of the
most pervasive and insidious forms of
racism which still exists in America
today. National retailers tend not
to move beyond the demographics of
race to examine the hard locational
criteria a community can yield, because
the individual making the decision
for a retail site location infers his/her
bias’s, perceptions and/or connotation
of a ‘black community’; rather than
examining the true demographics of
that community, which can clearly
demonstrate that the retailer can make
a profit equal to or greater than a
homogeneous Caucasian community.”
Simply put, national retailers
often examine the percentage of
African Americans that live in a given
community and assume that the
community is poor, uneducated and
has a high crime rate; and therefore a
poor candidate for retail investment.
In other words they all too often only
examine the “cover, not the contents".
As residents and business leaders of
the diverse communities within the
Chicago Southland, we recognized that
this is entirely false! Olympia Fields
average household income is 2 ½ times
that of the county or state. Eighty
percent of our residents have a college
degree or higher, and our home values
are two to three time higher than the
average home values for the county and
state. Population, rooftops and traffic
counts are all beyond the margins
that would normally attract “Class A
national retailers”.
To break the glass ceiling on the
process of Retail Redlining, Olympia
Fields is leading a four community
effort, composed of ourselves and the
Villages of Matteson, Park Forest and
Richton Park. A Steering Committee
has been established leading a
professional consulting team, in
concert with researchers from UIC
to develop innovative tools to market
our four communities to new retail
investment. The Steering Committee
is composed of elected representatives
and key stakeholders of our
communities, owners and managers of
area retail centers and members of the
retail brokerage community.
In order to successfully
accomplish our project scope, the
Village needs your help telling
store and restaurant developers
how to better serve your shopping
and dining desires. The Villages
of Matteson, Olympia Fields, Park
Forest and Richton Park have
joined together to study retail
investment patterns that affect
what stores and restaurants are
locally available. Click here to complete the survey form. Your survey answers will reveal
important information that, when
combined with the answers of
others, could lead to new shopping
and dining opportunities. Do not
miss this chance for your voice to
be heard.
The Retail Investment
Patterns Study will extend
over two years and give you an
opportunity for your voice to be
heard. Please take this first step
and respond to the survey.
This project goes beyond the
confinement of our four villages.
We are embarking on a national
demonstration project which could
assist other upwardly mobile diverse
communities across the United States
achieve economic sustainability. In
the end, it’s not just about shopping
convenience.
Retail location defines
a community’s economic welfare
delivering property and sales tax
revenues, jobs and investment. If we
fail to reverse this trend, the diverse
communities across the United States
will not archive their equitable share
of dollars that can fund better schools,
parks, police, fire, roads, and other
amenities that define both.
