Chicago Greenprint

For more than 20 years, Luz Zavala has called the Marshall Square neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side home.

“Most people say that what makes this neighborhood special is that it’s like being in Mexico,” she says. “You have everything that you would have in a Mexican neighborhood: the food, the restaurants, the music. Everything that you can relate to. What I really like most about my community is that it’s full of resources for the community.”

And while the things that she loves about Marshall Square have endured, Luz has also seen changes since she first moved to the neighborhood—the kind of impacts that cities across the country are experiencing as a result of climate change.

“There are a lot of changes; we talk with our friends and family about it,” she says. 

Some of the changes Luz notices include winters that are warmer than they used to be, spring flowers blooming earlier than normal and higher lake levels that are causing erosion along the shoreline. But most of what she sees is flooding caused by intense storm events. One year, the flooding was so bad it impacted a majority of the residents in Marshall Square.

“It was horrendous,” Luz recalls. “Our whole basements were destroyed. It took awhile to get back to normal. Now, after that, every time it rains, I get scared. Sometimes it’s a lot of rain in a small amount of time, and sometimes it rains the whole day non-stop.”

As Luz described, climate change is resulting in more intense storm events, which can bring a lot of rain to the sewer system in a very short period. At the same time, most of the natural features that can absorb and store stormwater, such as wetlands and prairies, have been lost across our cities, so there is no longer the natural resiliency that once existed to absorb excess water. This loss, paired together with more frequent and intense storms caused by climate change, can overwhelm the city’s sewer systems, which in turn causes a combination of stormwater runoff and domestic sewage that can overflow into homes, businesses, the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. It’s a problem Luz knows first-hand.

“The soil gets really wet, and so it’s not going to absorb the water anymore,” she says. “There’s a lack of trees and green spaces in the area, I’ve noticed that, too. The owners are sometimes cutting down the trees, and they don’t realize the help that we get from those trees.”

Trees and more green space are exactly what communities like Marshall Square and others across the city need to absorb and store water to help stop flooding before it starts. With that in mind, TNC used a technique called “urban greenprinting” to identify where nature can help address this challenge, as well as others caused by climate change, such as poor air quality and excessive heat.

Greenprint does this by analyzing numerous layers of data to show which Chicago and suburban neighborhoods are most at risk for these challenges, as well as concentrations of children, older citizens and other factors that show priority places in which to focus conservation efforts. Several partners supplied these key data layers, including the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning and the Morton Arboretum. 

These maps can be used by communities and other stakeholders to understand the risks they face and how nature can play a key role in solving threats posed by climate change. Marshall Square is a neighborhood that Greenprint identified as one that could benefit from more green infrastructure, such as natural areas, rain gardens, bioswales and other options that help store and filter rainwater and keep it out of the sewer system. 

Informed by this data, TNC partnered with  Latinos Progresando to develop the Green & Blue Exchange  to identify how they might want to enhance green space and outdoor programs in Marshall Square. Created by the community and for the community, the Blue & Green Exchange took residents on tours of green spaces in the city to identify how they might want to add natural areas and programs to Marshall Square. Re-imagining streetscapes, river banks and open lots could not only increase opportunities for people to connect with nature, but help with the flooding that is increasing with climate change.

Marshall Square is one of the first places in Chicago where Greenprint data has been transformed into action, and it has the potential to be used in similar ways across Chicago, as well as across the country for cities facing similar issues.

“People want to help, but some don’t know how,” Luz says. “I think that it has to start with us. If we start making those little changes, others will see and want to get involved. You don’t have to do big things to see the changes.”