About Altgeld Gardens:  Located in a far south neighborhood near Riverdale, Altgeld Gardens, or,  "The Gardens" is historic, as it is the location of the first public housing projects in the United States and was also an important stop on the Underground Railroad. It was built in 1945 to deal with the housing needs of African-Americans returning form the Second World War. Its 1,500 two-story row houses that span 157 acres are in the midst of getting rehabbed, and are bordered by 130th street, the Calumet River, Indiana Avenue and the I94 Expressway. It was originally settled by Dutch and German immigrants in the mid 1800's. There has been some new development in the area. Several projects have been spearheaded by the Local Advisory Council. 

The neighborhood is named for former Illinois governor John Altgeld. When fully occupied, there are approximately 3,500 people living in this community. There are schools and medical services in the area to service residents. Carver Park resides in Altgeld Gardens. It was built shortly after the housing projects were completed. Addressing the area need for recreational activities, the park contains such features as sports fields, swimming, and open areas. The park was named after George Washington Carver a prominent African-American scientist whose agricultural research made great advances in the field.

Altgeld's environment and history make it a cache of local significance: the Beaubien Forest Preserves are spotted with old-growth oaks and deer, and the Calumet River was once a popular spot for fishing.    Most recently Altgeld Gardens has come into World Wide notoriety due to it being the community that U.S. Presidential candidate Barack Obama cites as the community he helped, during his community organizing days in Chicago.

Black in America: Black Buying Power
By DANYELLA DAVIS
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The African-American community is estimated to have $800 billion in buying power, a figure that has increased substantially since 2004, reports The Multicultural Economy.

Buying power is typically defined as the total personal income one has available after taxes for spending on goods and services. Yet with this grossly large figure, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, African-Americans living in poverty has increased since the 20th century.

So how is it possible that the Black community's ability to purchase has increased yet their ability to create wealth and rise above the poverty line has diminished?

Dan Mcquiston, marketing professor at Butler University, calls this discretionary use.

"One of the things that we have discovered with a lot of minorities is that they don't really make a distinction between buying power and discretionary buying power," Mcquiston said. "If their take home paycheck is $500 a week, they will assume that is $500 they can spend."

The National Urban League Institute for Opportunity and Equality says historically the Black community has always spent more than what it has had.

A study found African-Americans spent more money on children's apparel, personal care products and telephone services than other groups, and on average African-American households spend $204.24 on women's shoes compared to that of a Caucasian household that spends $142.46.

"We have a consumer mindset. We have moved from being a production slave to the distribution slave to the consumer slave," says Thomas L. Brown, a professor at Martin University.

Brown argues the importance of understanding the value of a dollar and working together as a collective unit to put money back into the hands of African-Americans instead of using disposable dollars outside the Black community.

"We are enslaved to consumption. We are the only population in America that doesn't turn their dollar over," Brown said.

Though consumption power has increased, many should not confuse this for a sign of a strengthened economy for the Black community. Though the middle class continues to emerge, it is debatable whether or not that segment of the Black community is improving or diminishing.

Nonetheless, Dr. Bessie House-Soremekun, professor of African-American and African Diaspora studies at IUPUI, says the African-American mindset of an individualistic model has done more damage than repair.

"African-Americans are the only racial group in the world that don't utilize a collective economic ethos in their behavior," House-Soremekun said. "We don't use our resources to help our whole community."

House-Soremekun says it's vital African-Americans patronize Black businesses to reduce the bulk of income flows out of the Black community within the first five business days in the first month.

Only three percent of that income remains in the African-American community.

Dr. Claud Anderson, president of PowerNomics Corp. of America says there is no community in the world that can really build a viable economic developmental future for its people if only three percent of its disposable income is being used for African-American enterprises.

Brown, House-Soremekun and Anderson agree that in order to get the residual benefits of the dollar and the $800 billion buying power, Blacks need to pursue business ownership and invest more into African-American enterprises.

With investment comes knowledge of finances and the desire to want to break the cycle of not properly using disposable buying power and living paycheck to paycheck. But financial education and economic development is a learned or self-taught trait.

William Rieber, professor of economics at Butler, says, "Generally, the ability to invest is determined by income. A person with a low income will generally invest little since so much of their after-tax income goes to necessities, including food and gasoline."

So where does this cycle end? Will the African-American community continue to increase its buying power yet continue to work individually and see no residual benefits from their labor?

"I think this is a two-edged sword because you have a rising Black middle class, which does have the money to spend, but by the same token culturally it's very important in the lower incomes to be seen as having it," said Mcquiston.