Quote:
Originally Posted by dewbs
Without taking a position on the underlying argument, it's not nonsensical to argue that the planning is bad, is it? The zoning is an outcome of a political process, which is presumably influenced by lobbying by various groups. It seems possible that the outcome of the planning is a poor use of limited downtown land.
Again, I'm not trying to take a position. But the simple fact that this is how the city zoned things doesn't seem to prove it's a good use of land. I understand your argument that this is equivalent to having alleys -- shipping is maybe a utility. But we also don't put power plants on downtown riverfront property.
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I'd just rather not start arguing when it's already hard enough to get on the same page about some fundamental facts.
The point of citing the study is that the city continues to readjust the boundaries of the PMD to try to balance the needs of the existing industry and the demand to turn this sort of land into riverfront residential. I think it's smart. Eventually this may (and honestly probably will) be mostly residential and commercial rather than industrial, but the way the city is balancing the interests works to promote more concentrated and intentional growth.
There's plenty of area that needs to get filled in before I would worry about Goose Island. Sure, the island could be a really unique urban space for residential, but it also has terrible car access. Let's just slow down a little. Let our slow ass city create a functional transit corridor along the North Branch. And fill in the massive gaps in the urban fabric East of Goose Island... Then, in a couple decades, there will be a new amazing prime space to develop. It will be the new West Loop and we can all get excited about how fast everything is filling in because the land is so desirable. And newbies will be saying, "wow, I can't believe they never developed this land before. Crazy."
