//
Jenna Pollack, MUPP, MA is a community-engaged researcher, dance professional, cultural organizer, urban planner, and educator. She specializes in cultural planning and progressive community economic development, and is committed to the post-capitalist integration of cultural, communal, and civic infrastructure.
Jenna is a Researcher and Field Organizer with the Chicago Community Wealth Building Ecosystem (CCWBE), currently incubating at the Center for Urban Economic Development at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). For 2024 - 2025 Jenna is a Chicago United for Equity (CUE) Fellow in collaboration with the Chicago Dance History Project, on the Archiving Advisory Committee for the Chicago Black Social Culture Map, part of the CDF/NCBA CLUSA Cooperative Leaders & Scholars cohort, and a City of Chicago Cultural Center Resident Choreographer. She is publishing a chapter in a forthcoming anthology Dancing on the Third Coast: Chicago Dance Histories, by the University of Illinois Press.
Chicago Community Wealth Building Ecosystem
/ Researcher and Organizer
The Chicago Community Wealth Building Ecosystem (CCWBE) is the ‘hub’ for Research & Convening for worker-owned cooperatives, community land trusts, limited equity housing cooperatives, community investment vehicles, and other ecosystem partners. CCWBE aims to advance models of local, democratic, and shared ownership and control throughout Chicago but especially on the south and west sides of our city. The CCWBE hub does this by convening community wealth building (CWB) working groups, developing tools and other resources, connecting and building the capacity of ecosystem partners, conducting research and communicating the impact of community wealth building.
In 2022 the City of Chicago Office of Equity and Racial Justice (OERJ) launched the Community Wealth Building (CWB) Initiative in 2022, a $15 million investment in CWB enterprises, infrastructure, and capacity-building. You can read their report here.
University of Illinois Chicago Graduate Portfolio snippets - view full version here
/ Master of Urban Planning and Policy
Double Specialization: Economic Development and Community Development
\\ Previous Work Highlights
McKinley Park Charrette 2022
As the Studio Manager for UIC Master of City Design's summer 2022 charrette capstone, Jenna aimed to capture the spirit of the design process through the community’s desires. Available with English, Spanish, and Chinese subtitles to support ongoing engagement with the neighborhood, put in your headphones and dive into the rhythms of this thriving working-class neighborhood on Chicago’s southwest side.
If you live in McKinley Park, stay tuned for next steps on deepened community participation, policy recommendations, and pathways to implementation that will be shared on the McKinley Park Development Council (MPDC) website shortly. Click below to view the June 10 planning document with your input. UIC's efforts are intended to offer in-kind resources and generate further discussion amongst community members so that you may ultimately shepherd a future brought by collaboration and self-determination.
“These are ideas that are coming from the neighborhood, not ideas that a developer is bringing into the neighborhood. We want it to be what people who live here actually want.”
- Kate Eakin, MPDC
'35th Street Reimagined: Codesigning Neighborhood Improvements with McKinley Park Neighbors' won the 2022 Student Project Award from the Illinois Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA-IL). Read the full announcement here.
