Large Lots: The $1 Lot and the One-Page Form

Chicago's Large Lots program began in Englewood, where Demond Drummer at Teamwork Englewood pushed a community-planning insight to its logical end: the city owned thousands of vacant lots on Black South and West Side blocks, residents wanted them, and the purchase process was a labyrinth. With civic-tech firm DataMade and funding through LISC Chicago, largelots.org reduced the process to a one-page application a resident could complete on a phone in under five minutes: property owners on a block could buy up to two city-owned lots on that block for $1 each.

The city formally adopted the program in December 2014; the Englewood pilot drew 414 applications, and by 2019 more than 1,240 lots had sold citywide. Then came the research: a peer-reviewed evaluation found block-level crime fell about 3.5% around sold lots — and 6.8% when the buyer lived in the neighborhood. The relational variable did the work: near neighbors mowing, fencing, gardening, watching.

What it teaches: civic tech's highest leverage is often *subtraction* — the app added nothing; it deleted friction from a right residents already had. And ownership by near neighbors, specifically, is what moved the needle — a finding the whole relational technology thesis can stand on.

Details

• era: 2014–present
• place: Englewood → citywide, Chicago
• illustrates: six-lessons-neighborhood-tech
• source note: Program history per Smart Chicago and DataMade; crime findings per JAPA 2021 (Univ. of Illinois research).
• practice kind: story