McKinley Park is located on the Southwest side of the city of Chicago. Since 1871, McKinley Park has been known as an increasingly industrial corridor, as iron, steel, and meatpacking industries began moving into the area at this time. The neighborhood quickly turned into a solid working class community as industry boomed and brought with it jobs. What also came with the increase in jobs was an increase in pollution and overall environmental devastation, especially the south branch of the Chicago River - which would later be called “Bubbly Creek” for its constant bubbling from pollution and decomposing matter. In 1905, The Central Manufacturing District began and brought many more industrial businesses to the McKinley Park area, as it had advantages of rail and interstate highways.

Today, the neighborhood continues to be a strong working class community fighting for clean air, water, and land in the era of climate change - as about 25 percent of the neighborhood is still dedicated to manufacturing and industrial uses. The demographics of the area have shifted over the years as well: in the 1960s, the population was 99 percent white, while in the 2000s there was a shift from a white majority to a primarily Latinx and Asian population. In fact, based on CMAP’s (Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning) Community Data Snapshot (data from 2021) of McKinley Park, nearly 55 percent of the population is Hispanic or Latino and about 30 percent is Asian. Additionally, 15 percent of the population makes $25,000 or less in household income and about 25 percent makes $25,000 to $49,999. As far as educational attainment, a majority of the population (about 30 percent) has received a high school diploma or the equivalent, and about 23 percent has attained less than a high school diploma. Finally, when it comes to housing age, more than half of the homes in McKinley Park, 62 percent, were built before 1940, showing just how outdated and disinvested many of the buildings are in the neighborhood.

McKinley Park Community Data Snapshot (PDF)

During the Summer of 2023, N4EJ led two environmental justice walking tours (amongst countless other EJ walking tours) of McKinley Park. The purpose of these tours was to fully encapsulate the neighborhood’s lived experience and to capture the stories of McKinley park community members. This was done by encouraging participants to take photos and create art pieces with these photos that show the past, present, and future of McKinley Park at the end of the tours, in addition to information on the neighborhood being provided to the audience (especially around MAT Asphalt and N4EJ’s efforts to advocate for environmental justice in the neighborhood). The participants’ presentations on what they created was then recorded for this project.

The first EJ walking tour was scheduled for July 19th, 2023. Participants of this tour included board and staff members of N4EJ (majority of which are McKinley Park residents), researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Public Health, and the Center for Neighborhood Technology staff members. The N4EJ tours always begin at the McKinley Park fieldhouse on Pershing road, then they typically move into the park and the residential side of the neighborhood.

These environmental justice walking tours of the McKinley Park neighborhood led by N4EJ have provided a glimpse into the lives of people exposed to highly toxic industrial emissions every day. The tour provided some perspective on these lived experiences, in addition to showing the hard reality of communities like McKinley Park, who are in need of reinvestment, not more industry. One of the participants on the second tour brought up an inspiring quote that encapsulated what environmental justice is all about: