Alicia Pederson: Chicago's affordable housing plan demands a courtyard block blueprint

Chicago Tribune

19-05-2025

Taking a bold step toward tackling Chicago's housing crisis, the City Council voted 30-18 to green-light the Residential Investment Corp., a city-backed nonprofit developer funded with $135 million from Mayor Brandon Johnson's Housing and Economic Development Bond. We love to see this push for 'Green Social Housing' that is affordable, mixed-income and eco-conscious. But if we do not plan for family-friendly density, we risk increasing the supply of small, yard-less housing that drives families to red states and suburbs.
Let Residential Investment Corp. carve out a slice of the $135 million for preapproved courtyard block designs, inspired by the likes of Georges-Eugène Haussmann's Paris and James Hobrecht's Berlin, as a means of harmonizing the mayor's vision of housing with family-inclusive development.
Let's face it: Chicago is losing children and thus jeopardizing its demographic sustainability and home-grown connection to the future. Cook County's under-5 population plunged 15% from 2020 to 2024. Chicago Public Schools has lost more than 100,000 students in the past 20 years, with more than 40,000 leaving in just the last five. Yes, housing affordability influences where parents choose to live and raise their children. However, other elements — such as school quality, outdoor access and neighborhood amenities — play crucial roles in these decisions. Every parcel is an opportunity to build amenity-rich blocks and neighborhoods, creating the high-value housing that will help Chicago retain the families it needs to flourish in the 21st century.
Courtyard blocks are the epitome of pro-social housing, and the Residential Investment Corp. can use courtyard block designs to create mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhoods that appeal to households of all ages, stages and income levels.
In the time-tested courtyard typology found throughout Europe, city blocks are framed with wall-to-wall, mixed-use buildings, going up three to six stories. The building floor plates are wide and shallow (rather than narrow and deep like the standard North American urban floor plate), leaving room in the block interior for a large, semi-private courtyard. Each building in the block has commercial space and garage stalls on the ground floor, very large units on the lower levels, and smaller, more affordable units on upper levels. While the gracious, dual-aspect layouts appeal to households of all ages and stages, the family-oriented units on the lower levels create the 'big house with a yard' that targets families with young children.
Balancing density with green space, courtyard blocks are a simple and effective way of rapidly increasing the supply of affordable, family-inclusive housing in the cities.
Additionally, courtyard blocks are the gold standard for green and cost-effective development. With shared walls and walk-up heights, the buildings save energy and construction costs. The interior courtyards manage storm water, tame heat islands and cut runoff. They offer a green alternative to our outdated alley system, which doubles the area of asphalted, car-related land in the city. Instead of a blazing back alley permeated with the stench of garbage and plagued by rats, residents find a lush and usable green space, cooled by the shade of tall perimeter buildings and by heat-absorbing vegetation. This courtyard amenity, along with access to a mixed-use, walkable neighborhood, pulls families from sprawling suburbs into the dense, resource-sharing city, reducing car dependency and further cutting carbon emissions.
Here's how we make it happen:
What about red-tape delays, the bane of timely and efficient development? Let city planners create a courtyard-block code. Traditional zoning codes regulate land use, separating residential, commercial and industrial functions, often leading to unpredictable design outcomes and lengthy approval processes. In contrast, form-based codes prioritize the physical form and layout of buildings: They regulate height, setbacks and how structures relate to the street, regardless of specific use. This clarity allows developers to follow a rules-based framework in which projects that meet predefined design criteria are approved more quickly and with less bureaucratic friction.
The Residential Investment Corp. is Chicago's chance to transform urban living. No more dead-end land deals, blighted parcels or families ditching the city. Rooted in an urban tradition that stretches back millennia, courtyard blocks are the key to sustainable, family-friendly housing in cities such as Rome, Paris, Prague, Berlin, Barcelona, Istanbul and Copenhagen. They are the greenest, most affordable way to keep our neighborhoods vibrant, our schools full and our tax base strong.
Let's build a greener, more affordable city where Chicagoans stay — and thrive — across the life cycle.
Alicia Pederson, Ph.D., is vice president of the Greater Rockwell Organization and a member of local urbanist groups Abundant Housing Illinois and Strong Towns Chicago. She is also the mother of three children who attend elementary school in the Lincoln Square neighborhood.