The city of Chicago has just announced a partnership with Kickstarter called Seed Chicago which aims to use the trendy crowdfunding platform to finance economic development in the city’s poorer neighborhoods.

The funds would go directly into local businesses (and business training programs), not city infrastructure, with the goal of helping to revitalize some of Chicago’s many neglected neighborhoods.

It’s certainly easy to understand why Chicago boosters would want a way to support their city’s economic development that keeps aldermen far removed from the money. While crowdfunding city development sounds like a cool idea, it’s not entirely clear whether this is the best model: at its core, it’s just a curated collection of regular old Kickstater projects that have been given the city’s seal of approval.

One problem with the Kickstarter approach is that a contribution is basically a gift, not an investment, so funders don’t expect to see any return on their money. This is not such a big deal when one hopes to eventually receive a product, game, song, movie, or other reward, but when used this way it’s basically just plain old charity—albeit tech-enabled. Except that Kickstarter donations are not even tax deductible unless the project is started by a nonprofit (as some, but not all, of Seed Chicago’s are).

Either way, this suggests that most of the backers will be well-off do-gooders, not neighborhood residents. After all, why donate money to a business you could support simply by walking down the street and shopping there?

Other so-called “equity crowdfunding” platforms now in the works would allow even small-scale, Kickstarter-sized contributors to receive an actual stake in the business, once the SEC gets around to writing the rules that Congress asked them for last year. That approach might ultimately be a better fit for supporting for-profit neighborhood ventures, and would allow even small investors to feel that they have “skin in the game,” as Ankur Thakkar of the mayor’s office put it in that Atlantic Cities article.

In any case, it will be interesting to see whether these projects can even reach their funding goals, let alone contribute to broader economic development. Would you Kickstart a business in your city–even one you never planned to patronize?

Photo: zol87

I am not wealthy (in terms of dollars, that is, because I know I’m wealthy in terms of having people who I care about/care about me, and that I get to wake up every day and do something that I love). But I do have daydreams sometimes about what I’d do if I had lots and lots of money. Yes, I’d do all the boring stuff like pay off my loans, and pay off my parents’ mortgage, but I’d also want to use it to make some sort of difference in my community.

Which brings me to this story in Chicago Magazine about Gary Comer, the billionaire founder of the mail-order clothing empire Lands’ End, who in 1999 drove into the struggling neighborhood where he grew up on Chicago’s Far South Side, walked into Paul Revere Elementary School and asked for a tour. He then wrote the principal a check for $68,000 to fix the building’s electrical problem, and over the course of the next decade put $86 million into the neighborhood in an attempt to revitalize it.

Did Comer make a huge difference? Yes, and no. There’s still a lot of work to be done, and some of the decisions Comer and his foundation made have turned out to be wrong. But the important thing is someone cared enough to do something in the first place.

We have all lived in some places. Where have you lived, Julie Bee?

Park House, London, U.K., $400ish/mo.
Self-made summer intern with a teeeeeeny bedroom and shared kitchen in a long-term hostel. The hostel is women only and often is home to survivors of abuse, and visits from my boyfriend are met with a wary eye. Everything is very clean, and my Dutch suite mate is six feet tall and a delight. One night I lock myself out of my room completely naked and the door-woman has to let me back into my room.

Lincoln Park, Chicago, Ill., $615/mo.
Having visited Chicago only a handful of times before moving, LP is the only neighborhood I can remember, so I move here. My dad and stepdad help me move in, and I buy them McDonald’s for lunch. My windows are situated in front of the glare of a street lamp, ensuring that I will never need to turn on a light if I want to read in bed. It takes me a full month to discover that the grocery store down the street has a second level. Late one night, someone mistakes my apartment for their own and tries to get in. I freak the fuck out, but stay for two years.

Lincoln Park, Chicago,Ill., $850/mo.
Moving’ on up—it’s a two-room studio complete with a terrible management company. I choose this apartment purely because it has pretty stained glass window panels in the door. The girl who lived there before me had painted the living room a garish shade of yellow—and couldn’t be bothered to move her furniture out of the way, so instead painting around it. Management takes two months to repaint. The place is so drafty that my curtains flutter even when the window is closed. My new neighbor likes to scream Tori Amos songs at 1 a.m. on a Tuesday. I last one year and stay at the boyfriend’s place a lot.

Sofia Court Apartments, Singapore, $1100/mo.
Yay for a temporary work transfer to Singapore! My company seriously pays $1,100 a month to put me up in a boarding-house style room. I purchase a hotplate and feel depressed. The doorman is sleeping every time I leave for work in the morning. I sometimes find lizards in the bathroom. One night I see a girl in the building across the street dance and strip in front of a webcam. Another night I come home too drunk and pound on the door of an apartment that is not mine.

Lakeview, Chicago, Ill., $975/mo.
It seems like a deal—great location, carpet, dishwasher, fireplace. Freaking fireplace! On my first night, I hear loud awful techno music. As I try to track down which neighbor is playing the music, I realize it’s coming from the bar. Directly below my apartment. The bar that I thought was a restaurant. But no worries, techno is on Saturdays only. The rest of the week is the worst piano-fueled cabaret and karaoke that the city has to offer. My friends, however, are big fans of my “Movies by the Fire” parties, even if they have to sit on the floor. I stick it out for two years and still miss that fireplace.

Wicker Park, Chicago, Ill., $1,075/mo.
It’s spacious, gets good light, and has a deck that always has at least one stray cat for me to feed. A frozen yogurt place opened up across the street. A huge family lives next door and they are always hanging out on the sidewalk. Always. My other neighbors are legit hoarders. Their backyard contains a car, lawn furniture, stone monuments, antique benches, pieces of carpet, and an elaborate system of tied-together ladders that goes from a tree in their backyard to the roof of my building, where they cleared out a space for barbecuing. I seriously love it here.

Julie Bee is an expert at packing and hiring movers. She lives in Chicago with Sherman, World’s Greatest Cat.

Are you still going grocery shopping by walking to the store, picking up items you want, waiting for a cashier to ring up your items, and then lugging the bags home? Yeah, well, me too. But an online grocery store named Peapod is putting up “interactive supermarket shelves” in train stations in Philadelphia and Chicago. It’s basically a wall with 70 images of things you can buy by scanning a barcode using your smartphone. The items are then delivered to your doorstep the following day. I considered whether or not I would do any virtual shopping if an interactive supermarket suddenly appeared in the subway stations of New York city, and decided that I probably wouldn’t. I like going to the grocery store and farmer’s market! But if the virtual grocery store offers jalapeño jam, I may consider it some more.