CHICAGO | General Developments

[Mr Downtown]

^That's simply the nature of urban pioneering or gentrification. You invest your savings, your attention, your civic involvement, your free time in a part of the city that isn't already sought after by corporate transferees. There won't be any trendy bars or upmarket grocers; there may be problems with schools and property crimes. But you—not some trendwatching developer—get to reap the benefits from increased property values. You—not other people with more interesting lives—get the satisfaction of having improved one small corner of the city.

[untitledreality]

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

^That's simply the nature of urban pioneering or gentrification. You invest your savings, your attention, your civic involvement, your free time in a part of the city that isn't already sought after by corporate transferees. There won't be any trendy bars or upmarket grocers; there may be problems with schools and property crimes. But you—not some trendwatching developer—get to reap the benefits from increased property values. You—not other people with more interesting lives—get the satisfaction of having improved one small corner of the city.

I am not talking about trendy bars or upmarket grocers. I am talking about basic services, basic amenities. Areas like 4500 South Michigan have none. Sure, urban pioneers, or vintage architecture fans might be drawn to the neighborhood, but that is an incredibly small pool of people to rebuild an entire neighborhood from the ground up.

And unless you have a profound desire to do so, why spend decades of your life living in an area that fails to meet even the most basic standards of city living in the hopes that it improves to include such basic services when other areas of the city offer the same opportunities without living in a commercial/retail/restaurant wasteland?

Little Village is dirt cheap, Hermosa is cheap, Heart of Chicago is affordable, Humboldt west of the park is affordable... and each offers the basic services one would expect to have when living in a city. There is no rebuilding effort needed, just a polishing.

[Busy Bee]

We're teetering awfully close to the Hispanic vs. A-A entrepreneurial divide concern. Somebody actually want to start that conversation? Yeah, probably not.

[the urban politician]

^ No not really, it's mostly about the city demo-ing block upon block of urban fabric in the mid 20th century in AA dominated south lakefront hoods as opposed to leaving SW side hoods mostly unscathed.

[Ryanrule]

Originally Posted by untitledreality

This is the only thing that matters. Neighborhoods that have been completely gutted of any amenity, or discretionary business will always be at a massive disadvantage until the market forces an influx of residents to these areas.

I love the architecture of the South lake shore, I always imagine myself rehabbing a grand old home on Michigan Ave or MLK, but more than anything else, the reason driving me away is that there is simply nothing there. If I lived in the 4500 South block of Michigan Ave where exactly do I go to get groceries? Where do I run to pickup some toothpaste when I run out? Fresh produce? What are my restaurant options? Bars? Galleries? Where do I go to buy clothing/electronics/housewares? A haircut?

I would pretty much have to go to Hyde Park or Bridgeport for almost all of those things. And neither of those are exactly a casual stroll away.


Meanwhile... Humboldt Park, Avondale, NW Logan Square, Pilsen, and Bridgeport have all of those things. Sure, they don't have the lakefront, but daily needs are far more important. And in the case of 4500 South Michigan, a walk to the lakefront is fairly daunting... 1.7 miles down bombed out 43rd Street. Bronzeville, Grand Boulevard, East Garfield Park, these areas need walkable retail, and need it bad.

they need to bulldoze all those shitty towers south of the mccormick center.
every single one.

[Busy Bee]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ No not really, it's mostly about the city demo-ing block upon block of urban fabric in the mid 20th century in AA dominated south lakefront hoods as opposed to leaving SW side hoods mostly unscathed.

Sure

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by emathias

IZoom in with Google Maps around Lincoln/Peterson and count the number of businesses with 1/2 mile of there. Do the same with Kenwood and Oakland. And then tell me there isn't a non-racial quantitative difference between the two areas that a lot of people would be willing to pay for.

This is a big thing IMO. A lot of people move to neighborhoods for the amenities. Kenwood, Oakland, etc are fine but they're too "boring" for me. Not much to do which is why I've never considered living there.

[Mr Downtown]

Originally Posted by untitledreality

why spend decades of your life living in an area that fails to meet even the most basic standards of city living in the hopes that it improves to include such basic services

Because that's the way retail demand works. Shops and services locate where there's demand for them. I lived for 20 years in the South Loop before a full-service grocery store arrived.

My eyes roll audibly every time I hear someone from a South or West Side neighborhood talking about how the mayor (or the city, or a sitting alderman) has done nothing to bring a grocery store/coffee shop/whatever to this or that desert. You know, we don't have a Ministry of Food and Caffeinated Beverage Shops who decides where such things get built, allocated equitably according to need. And national credit retailers don't sit around waiting for aldermen to summon them to a particular neighborhood.

If you think there's some institutional barrier that's keeping the free market from working properly, work to remove that barrier. Within reason, use short-term incentives to jump-start retail development in nodes where it makes sense, and support city-aided land assembly programs. Get together with neighbors and form a grocery coöp. Seek out family-owned hardware stores or pharmacies in adjacent neighborhoods who might consider a second location. Ask the convenience or liquor store to consider stocking something additional, one or two things at a time.

Or do nothing, and see if the city magically turns into what you want it to be.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by Ryanrule

they need to bulldoze all those shitty towers south of the mccormick center.
every single one.

Yes, because wide open vacant land will be significantly more appealing to new residents and developers...

Let's not repeat the mistakes of the past mmmmmkay? Those towers have decent communities of thousands of people living in them, we need to concentrate on repairing the lowrise blocks and commercial strips surrounding them first.

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ No not really, it's mostly about the city demo-ing block upon block of urban fabric in the mid 20th century in AA dominated south lakefront hoods as opposed to leaving SW side hoods mostly unscathed.

Unfortunately I'm not sure this is the cause in most parts of the city with these problems. It may have affected areas like Bronzeville, but areas like Englewood, Lawndale, Garfield Park, etc.. I.e. the worst of the worst are the way they are because of idiots who rioted and burned businesses owned by their own race to the ground. The race riots decimated many of these area beyond the point of no repair as what little merchant class the African American communities had were bankrupted by angry idiots with molotovs.

[PKDickman]

For a neighborhood to gentrify takes a series of steps. The types of gentrification you guys think about, like large construction projects, doesn't just start. Even the sodbuster phase of infill construction cannot start until local rents and property values exceed a threshold that pays the cost of construction and a better profit margin than can be obtained elsewhere in the city.

Until I read the Hwang and Sampson paper, I hadn't thought about immigration's roll in the process, but it fits right in with my model.

When a neighborhood becomes systemically poor, for what ever reason, it goes into a death spiral. Local merchants die out. The only business that survive tend to be predatory and eventually we reach a point where the only economic force and source of job creation are the drug dealers.

The only asset the community has left is housing. This is what attracts the immigrants. Lets be real, that is their first concern. They do not land here expecting to find the kind of fishheads and yak's bladder that Grandma use to make for Sunday dinner.

You can call it entreprenurial spirit. but it starts from the needs of a new local group that cannot be fulfilled elsewhere. With this the death spiral is arrested.

They are like the trappers and mountain men. They blaze trails and dig wells. The community may be poor but the work they've done attracts the first of the (middle class) pioneers.

Needless to say they are a little annoyed by the pioneers moving in to their territory, but at this stage it is not that big a problem.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by untitledreality

... Bronzeville, Grand Boulevard, East Garfield Park, these areas need walkable retail, and need it bad.

There's a reason I didn't specifically mention Bronzeville when I talked about the dearth of retail, and that's because Bronzeville has workable retail. Not great, but workable and improving. There's a Jewel at 35th and King, there's an Ace hardware just west of King on 35th. If you live near 35th, you can make things work. A Chinese friend of mine bought a rowhouse on Calumet just south of 35th about a year ago.

[Baronvonellis]

There's a Jewel in bronzeville and a new Walmart Neighborhood market on 47th street. There's a walgreens in Bronzeville. Crime has gone down alot in that area just since 2008. I know it's not a hipster area, but it looks like my basic needs could be met there. And I drive so I wouldn't mind going a few miles to bridgeport for restaurants and nightlife. For people that don't drive it might not be as convenient. For my lifestyle that area would work, considering property there is a bargain.

Yea, if more housing is built then retail and restaurants will come later. That's just how it works. The south loop and west loop used to be similarly retailed until the last boom.

Originally Posted by untitledreality

This is the only thing that matters. Neighborhoods that have been completely gutted of any amenity, or discretionary business will always be at a massive disadvantage until the market forces an influx of residents to these areas.

I love the architecture of the South lake shore, I always imagine myself rehabbing a grand old home on Michigan Ave or MLK, but more than anything else, the reason driving me away is that there is simply nothing there. If I lived in the 4500 South block of Michigan Ave where exactly do I go to get groceries? Where do I run to pickup some toothpaste when I run out? Fresh produce? What are my restaurant options? Bars? Galleries? Where do I go to buy clothing/electronics/housewares? A haircut?

I would pretty much have to go to Hyde Park or Bridgeport for almost all of those things. And neither of those are exactly a casual stroll away.


Meanwhile... Humboldt Park, Avondale, NW Logan Square, Pilsen, and Bridgeport have all of those things. Sure, they don't have the lakefront, but daily needs are far more important. And in the case of 4500 South Michigan, a walk to the lakefront is fairly daunting... 1.7 miles down bombed out 43rd Street. Bronzeville, Grand Boulevard, East Garfield Park, these areas need walkable retail, and need it bad.

[SamInTheLoop]

So just that everyone is clear - Bronzeville - and all of the shoreline neighborhoods south of South Loop (SoSoLoop) and North of Hyde Park - can not be used yet as counterexamples to heavily African American community areas not gentrifying - they are definitely not there yet. Bronzeville was 'supposed' to gentrify in the last boom (and everyone realizes this doesn't happen overnight.....yet it can and often does happen relatively quickly - when it actually happens), and that didn't really pan out. So, it's tbd if Bronzeville is to emerge as a true counterexample by the end of this decade..............

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

My eyes roll audibly every time I hear someone from a South or West Side neighborhood talking about how the mayor (or the city, or a sitting alderman) has done nothing to bring a grocery store/coffee shop/whatever to this or that desert. You know, we don't have a Ministry of Food and Caffeinated Beverage Shops who decides where such things get built, allocated equitably according to need. And national credit retailers don't sit around waiting for aldermen to summon them to a particular neighborhood.

^ Thank you for saying this.

Unfortunately, you've got a community of people who have spent too many generations relying on Government to fix all of their problems, and blaming Government when things go wrong. It's ingrained thinking, not sure what we can do about it. Oh wait, I know....stop playing into the rhetoric!

But of course we all know politicians will never do that.

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Thank you for saying this.

Unfortunately, you've got a community of people who have spent too many generations relying on Government to fix all of their problems, and blaming Government when things go wrong. It's ingrained thinking, not sure what we can do about it. Oh wait, I know....stop playing into the rhetoric!

But of course we all know politicians will never do that.

No, but government CAN improve schools/parks/libraries/streets/cultural amenities that DO attract those kinds of things. And all too often it ignores those basic functions. Or it downright destroys them. Institutional racism is a real thing, and youre playing into it by citing tired stereotypes.

Youre fortunate enough that things have worked out in your life. Not everyones life follows the same path.

[SamInTheLoop]

So, retailers as it turns out are often too risk averse for their own good (to their financial disadvantage when it comes to gentrifying area (and not only that - urban areas in general) location decisions. A lot of it with them has to do with (mis)perceptions, stigmas, and - very importantly - how these tie-into my topic of the week - Chicago's extreme racial segregation and particularly so for African Americans. To presume that retailers know what they're doing when it comes to their real estate portfolio and market research/expansion and portfolio strategy is to admit that one doesn't know what he/she is talking about. They've left a lot of money on the table in the last 2-3 decades (in a risk-adjusted sense, mind you) by overwhelmingly waiting (and yes, we can all point to some examples more recently of a few of them finally 'waking up', but the point is these are very recent for the most part and still a very small sample - they're few and far between) until neighborhoods - and there's no more accurate way to put this - 'de-blacken' 'enough'....

Retailers quite often don't know what's best for themselves.............one thing that helps is to not always believe what people tell you (but I was in a meeting with Mr. Walmart, and he said what they look for/what they need is x,y,z........take it at face value, and you just might be - I'm not saying this is for certain, but there's a possibility, that you just might be a gullible moron), and additionally what their motivations for such are......follow the data and observational evidence, and work tirelessly to sharpen your analytical intellect, at all times.......

^^ Of course government is not, and should not be the primary real estate decision-maker......however, neither should the free market be completely left alone to its own devices.....ergo, there is a role for government to play in the market....

Finally, I get a kick out of some of the folks here that try to fool themselves into believing that the general divide in Chicago neighborhoods isn't primarily (yes of course this stuff is also complicated, so there are a myriad of other factors at work at the same time, but there's one factor that rises to the top - pretty easily I would say) concerned with race. Eg - 'it's about the molotov cocktail-throwers' (what exactly do you think that was about, anyway?), 'it's about a relative lack of/poorer infrastructure compared to the northside lakefront' (hhmmm, I wonder why we might have invested significantly less, publicly - and also privately - over the years in these areas.....what, oh what ,could it be?), 'it's about a lack of businesses/retailer concentration, etc' (uuhhh - oh, that's right, see above)........

I'll say this though - stopping the pussyfooting around and coming to terms with the actual issue and confronting and addressing it head-on isn't going to hurt the quest for solutions, at the very least.....

[UPChicago]

Originally Posted by SamInTheLoop

So, retailers as it turns out are often too risk averse for their own good (to their financial disadvantage when it comes to gentrifying area (and not only that - urban areas in general) location decisions. A lot of it with them has to do with (mis)perceptions, stigmas, and - very importantly - how these tie-into my topic of the week - Chicago's extreme racial segregation and particularly so for African Americans. To presume that retailers know what they're doing when it comes to their real estate portfolio and market research/expansion and portfolio strategy is to admit that one doesn't know what he/she is talking about. They've left a lot of money on the table in the last 2-3 decades (in a risk-adjusted sense, mind you) by overwhelmingly waiting (and yes, we can all point to some examples more recently of a few of them finally 'waking up', but the point is these are very recent for the most part and still a very small sample - they're few and far between) until neighborhoods - and there's no more accurate way to put this - 'de-blacken' 'enough'....

Retailers quite often don't know what's best for themselves.............one thing that helps is to not always believe what people tell you (but I was in a meeting with Mr. Walmart, and he said what they look for/what they need is x,y,z........take it at face value, and you just might be - I'm not saying this is for certain, but there's a possibility, that you just might be a gullible moron), and additionally what their motivations for such are......follow the data and observational evidence, and work tirelessly to sharpen your analytical intellect, at all times.......

^^ Of course government is not, and should not be the primary real estate decision-maker......however, neither should the free market be completely left alone to its own devices.....ergo, there is a role for government to play in the market....

Finally, I get a kick out of some of the folks here that try to fool themselves into believing that the general divide in Chicago neighborhoods isn't primarily (yes of course this stuff is also complicated, so there are a myriad of other factors at work at the same time, but there's one factor that rises to the top - pretty easily I would say) concerned with race. Eg - 'it's about the molotov cocktail-throwers' (what exactly do you think that was about, anyway?), 'it's about a relative lack of/poorer infrastructure compared to the northside lakefront' (hhmmm, I wonder why we might have invested significantly less, publicly - and also privately - over the years in these areas.....what, oh what ,could it be?), 'it's about a lack of businesses/retailer concentration, etc' (uuhhh - oh, that's right, see above)........

I'll say this though - stopping the pussyfooting around and coming to terms with the actual issue and confronting and addressing it head-on isn't going to hurt the quest for solutions, at the very least.....

I 100% agree

[bcp]

scary...what would the role of the gov't be in deciding where private retailers should operate?

[Mr Downtown]

Originally Posted by SamInTheLoop

I wonder why we might have invested significantly less, publicly . . . in these areas

So what's an actual example of the city investing less public money in black neighborhoods?

[bcp]

there is no grand conspiracy, sorry to burst the bubble on that....

it's such an easy question to answer:
- lack of density
- less organized voices that will allow for density
- less disposable income (the reasons behind this are vast and exceptionally complicated, i'll give you that)
- density attracts businesses and services (yes, even density in lower income areas)

also, a beautiful new greenline station just went in at cermak...pretty good-sized investment I'd say.


it's simply a problem of momentum...still an uphill battle south of Cermak. But it'll happen...50 years to go?