All elected officials from the ward are white, as are all members of the regular 11th Ward Democratic Party Organization, which has a reputation for excluding Blacks. Because of this racial polarization and segregation, South Armour residents have been slighted in terms of garbage pickup, police protection, traffic control, open space and park facilities, and maintenance of publicly subsidized housing. The displacement of South Armour residents due to the relocation of the stadium was a continued manifestation of these non-democratic policies of exclusion and neglect. The formation of the Illinois Sports Facility Authority and its financing power is another important institutional aspect of this case that needs to be outlined. It is important because the ISFA was given financing and eminent domain powers that diminished the power of the South Armour residents to resist and counteract its authority.
Eminent domain is the right of government to take over private property for public use.
The quick take powers became an important tool in threatening the South Armour Square property owners and breaking them away from the coalition they had formed with non-property owners.