[GregBear24]

I rarely post anything on here, but nothing drives me more through the ceiling than people complaining about density in the core of America's second largest urban center (LA doesn't count since Downers Grove would fit in LA County). When I moved to the city at 13th and Michigan in 2006, that area was so quiet despite being a block from Grant Park, but when 4 new high rises went up within 2 blocks of me, I was more excited about the growth of small businesses and the addition of entertainment and street life. Certainly, some people on Prairie and Indiana in the low rises didn't like it so much, but here's the bottom line:

When anyone decides to live within a few miles of the center of a large city's core, they effectively waive their right to oppose development based on density. You don't like too many parking spaces? Fine. You don't like the street level design and interaction the building would have with pedestrians? Fine. However, wanting some reasonable changes is a lot different from opposing something because it'll add traffic, block your views, create noise, and add people to your neighborhood. You live in Chicago, and it's what you signed up for. The quiet neighborhoods within the city's core should never have even existed in the first place, and even so are inevitably going to lose out to property values that will demand much more $ per square foot in the long run. Wolf Point is centralized very well in the middle of our nation's second largest city core. It commands density and unofficial landmark status in high rise design and use. NIMBYs have a purpose, but they make their reasonable points of opposition practically moot when they start bantering about their so-called unalienable rights to live in a cute, calm town on a river. Move to beautiful Batavia, Geneva, St. Charles if that's what you want. A river, some decent architecture and history, and less traffic. Then, you can complain when someone wants to build a 2million sf development next to your house and have logic on your side for once. I can't wait for Wolf Pointe to build out and stand impressive on the river's Y!