For many Chicagoans, the 100,000 tulips artist Amanda Williams planted near Washington Park to highlight redlining and disinvestment was the first time that they thought about communities where the number of vacant lots rivals the number where structures stand.

At another time, this artistic statement might prompt a response from only a few activists. Now, with the closure of Walmart, Target and Whole Foods on the South and West sides, and a new mayoral administration and City Council about to assume power, the geography of vacant lots and their impact on communities and lives deserves scrutiny, discussion and solutions.

One might assume that places like Washington Park, Englewood or Garfield Park have lost their anchor stores and business districts because of the poverty of the residents. That is not the case. While those places are among 21 communities where the per capita income is less than $15,000 a year, the number of vacant parcels of land appears to be the determining factor.

Consider the fact that the city of Chicago’s “hardship index” identifies South Lawndale as the second-poorest community as measured by per capita income; it is also home to 26th Street, the city’s second-highest-grossing and most vibrant shopping district.

In contrast, despite higher per capita income (still below $15,000), Washington Park, Englewood, North Lawndale and West Garfield Park have lost their anchor stores and once vibrant commercial thoroughfares. Today, vacant storefronts are reminders of a livelier past.

Overlooked in all these communities, and others like South Chicago and West Humboldt Park where commercial activity has declined, is the fact that each has 300 or more vacant lots. Englewood and West Englewood have nearly 2,000 vacant lots, followed by North Lawndale with more than 800, and New City, Garfield Park and Washington Park with more than 400 each.

More than poverty, density makes the difference in the competition to attract businesses, particularly national brands, to city sites.

Why pay attention to the issue now, when our city survived many crises and pandemics? Because today’s problems were not only caused by historic redlining, but also the policies and practices of city, state and federal policies beginning in the 1970s and still stymying economic activity today. However well intentioned, these policies cripple communities and diminish the potential for a city and region where growth and prosperity are equitably shared. In concert with allies at the county and state, the Johnson administration has an opportunity to seize a critical lever for constructive change.

With the scars of the fires and unrest in 1968 visible on every thoroughfare, then-Mayor Richard J. Daley, with the blessing of the City Council, began an active campaign to raze abandoned or damaged structures, believing that cleared land rather than unsightly structures would pave the way for investment in the city’s South and West communities.

The private market, building owners, banks and stores were not interested, deterred as well perhaps by the undoubtedly well-intentioned Gautreaux decision, which prohibited the city and Chicago Housing Authority from building housing in majority-Black communities. Except in places like Woodlawn, where local activists turned into housing entrepreneurs, the land stayed vacant.

Former Mayor Richard M. Daley had new federal housing tools and imaginative leaders in the Planning & Development and Housing departments. New rental housing and programs like New Homes for Chicago and the Historic Chicago Bungalow Initiative catalyzed community revitalization and created new vigor in places like Bronzeville, North Kenwood and the Near West Side. However, the scale of the effort never matched the need.

And, with Daley’s exit, a new strategy emerged among academics and housing policy experts that urged and financed the movement of individual families from distressed communities into the city’s whiter, wealthier neighborhoods to increase the likelihood that “they might thrive.” Instead, this accelerated the losses in South or West Side communities.

Under the last three mayors, the well-intentioned emphasis on school choice, coupled with population decline, led to extensive school closings. This loss of bedrock community institutions — more than 60 schools during the administrations of mayors Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot — prompted further exodus by families discouraged by the loss of a walkable neighborhood school.

It is time for a fresh look, fresh thinking and concrete action. And luckily, there are examples of policies and practices that work to build on.

A decade ago, when nonprofit affordable housing developer POAH came to Woodlawn, the community had nearly 1,000 vacant lots, a soaring crime rate, scores of abandoned buildings and had been without a grocery store for more than 50 years. Today, with the outmoded housing replaced by new or renovated apartments as well as the rehab and sale of nearly 100 long-abandoned one- and two-flats, the community has grown in population, halved its abandoned properties and, with the change, attracted and kept profitable the Jewel-Osco that required 10 years of work to secure. All this without the loss of any apartments affordable to low-income residents.

Bronzeville is another example of this phenomenon. While home to perhaps the city’s most subsidized and public housing units, it has seen more than 1,000 new market-rate units built as part of the Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation or private market developers. That’s what it took for Mariano’s to build a full-service grocery store, which brought the added benefit of 200 jobs for Bronzeville residents, many of whom live in public housing.

More recently, with the clear and important intent of creating intergenerational wealth as well as housing, Lawndale Christian Development Corporation and United Power have begun work on 100 single-family homes in North Lawndale, built with financing from the city and state. They will be sold for $250,000. Similarly, in Back of the Yards, Pilsen and Brighton Park, The Resurrection Project — which has long financed single-family housing and built 100 homes in Pilsen through the Daley administration’s New Homes for Chicago program — is now in the midst of building 150 single-family homes, including working to make homeownership more affordable in Back of the Yards, West Englewood and Pilsen by using manufactured modular structures.

For both organizations, the intent is both to build needed housing, and, as important, the opportunity for the building of intergenerational and community wealth.

No matter how well intentioned, narrowly focused policies and programs seldom lay the foundation for a real turnaround. No matter how innovative or needed, a single project is not enough. At the same time, providing a small number of individuals and families the opportunity to move to affordable units in upscale buildings is undoubtedly a good thing. But is it a good policy to choose that over investment in local communities so that no one needs to move from friends and family to get a good apartment, a good school, good food, a good job?

A broad-based plan for greater density is both cost-effective and good for local economies and families. An affordable unit in a luxury building costs $400,000 to $500,000 to build, and rental receipts are likely to go to a landlord not even located in Chicago. On the other hand, the work underway in Lawndale and Woodlawn both meets the needed housing demand, creates density, and enhances the opportunity for the growth of family and community wealth.

The demand is there. Just as buyers flocked to New Homes for Chicago more than two decades ago, they have eagerly and quickly bought the homes rehabbed and built in West Woodlawn, Pullman and other communities long overlooked for investment and neglected by realtors and businesses alike.

It’s time for a change. Throughout the city, the assets are there — thousands of vacant lots — to help fuel a comprehensive plan for the density required for real economic activity, the kind of activity that supports long-time residents, attracts new residents, supports bedrock institutions like neighborhood schools, creates jobs, and helps ensure that every community contributes to the growth and prosperity of the city and region as a whole.

Raul Raymundo is founder and CEO of The Resurrection Project, a nonprofit community development corporation. Richard Townsell is executive director of the Lawndale Christian Development Corporation, a nonprofit community development corporation. Marilyn Katz is president of MK Communications.