CHICAGO | General Discussions

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by pip

I was riding my bike up the river park/bike trail today, starting at around Argyle and the river going north. Beautiful park and very nice neighborhoods too btw. I got off at Bryn Mawr ave and on that street I was east of Northeastern Illinois Univ and west of the river. That was the most vacant business district street in terms of businesses. It seemed to be mostly vacant Korean businesses. I'm guessing this was once a Korean area after Lawrence declined as one? I did go into a really nice independent, and it is independent certainly, coffee shop. What I don't get is that this area hasn't been Korean in a couple of decades(?) and the neighborhoods are nice all around that street. So why is it so vacant?

It's a bit of a misconception that these businesses survive on local neighborhood customers alone. The most successful urban shopping districts are destinations for people both city-wide and region-wide. What happened is that the Koreans suburbanized and decided it was more convenient to shop out there (just visited the huge new Joong Boo Market in Glenview) and other groups in the neighborhood are accustomed to shopping in other areas, but not on Bryn Mawr.

Also Chicago just structurally has too much commercial zoning on grid streets relative to population, so only certain streets will really thrive and it's sometimes counter-intuitive which ones. Go to plenty of S Side neighborhoods and you'll see well-maintained homes and beautiful side streets but lots of empty lots and vacancy on the main streets.

Should also point out that the flow of immigrants that kept refreshing these areas and bringing new businesses in has really dried up. We are in a very long dip in immigration levels to Chicago... So in lieu of a new immigrant group coming in and colonizing Bryn Mawr, the city and alderman will have to start allowing new, denser buildings on that stretch AND get used to a future with fewer businesses on the street.

[the urban politician]

^ I fear the same happening to Devon Ave, which would really be sad because Devon is a recognized name in the South Asian community--all over the US.

However, as of right now there is still a flow of immigrants to West Ridge, although it isn't really the same group that was arriving in the 70's and 80s. Now I suspect it's more Hyderabadi (and perhaps Pakistani?) Muslims, as well as some people from African countries. So the transformation of Devon from Hindu Indian to a more predominantly Islamic corridor that has long been underway continues unabated.

Most of the Hindu (ie "Indian") Indians have moved towards shopping in the suburbs, where there are far more convenient options.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by pip

I was riding my bike up the river park/bike trail today, starting at around Argyle and the river going north. Beautiful park and very nice neighborhoods too btw. I got off at Bryn Mawr ave and on that street I was east of Northeastern Illinois Univ and west of the river.

just for clarity's sake, it sounds like you were on the north shore channel trail. the north branch of the chicago river splits off from the north shore channel immediately north of argyle going west (where the little waterfall/rapids dealie is).

the trail that continues north all the way up thru west ridge/lincolnwood/skokie/evanston follows the north shore channel (a manmade canal dug in the early 20th century to help flush out the north branch with lake water).

unfortunately, there isn't a continuous off-street bike trail the hugs the north branch of the river until you get all the way west out to gompers park, west of pulaski, so you gotta use the bike lanes on lawrence or side streets to get through albany park. i guess foster is also an option, but it gets too nebulously 2 lane/4 lane at different point along that stretch for my liking as a cyclist.

but once you're at the trail head in gompers park, you can ride along the north branch off-street all the way up to the chicago botanic garden. i highly recommend that ride if you've never done it.

[sentinel]

Originally Posted by Handro

I’m currently in Seattle and it was chilly yesterday and last night. Last time I was in San Francisco, I needed a hat and gloves for a concert in Golden Gate Park in August. Chicago gets a weird amount of attention for being cold in winter.

Now ERCOT in Texas is asking customers to 'conserve electricity' because of extreme heat down there..the same agency that wasn't able to meet electrical demand in the winter time.

Given that it appears severe weather events due to climate change fluctuations are seemingly getting worse year after year in the West and South, I think I'm gonna stay right here for the foreseeable future..

[pip]

Originally Posted by ardecila

It's a bit of a misconception that these businesses survive on local neighborhood customers alone. The most successful urban shopping districts are destinations for people both city-wide and region-wide. What happened is that the Koreans suburbanized and decided it was more convenient to shop out there (just visited the huge new Joong Boo Market in Glenview) and other groups in the neighborhood are accustomed to shopping in other areas, but not on Bryn Mawr.

Also Chicago just structurally has too much commercial zoning on grid streets relative to population, so only certain streets will really thrive and it's sometimes counter-intuitive which ones. Go to plenty of S Side neighborhoods and you'll see well-maintained homes and beautiful side streets but lots of empty lots and vacancy on the main streets.

Should also point out that the flow of immigrants that kept refreshing these areas and bringing new businesses in has really dried up. We are in a very long dip in immigration levels to Chicago... So in lieu of a new immigrant group coming in and colonizing Bryn Mawr, the city and alderman will have to start allowing new, denser buildings on that stretch AND get used to a future with fewer businesses on the street.

The thing is though the Koreans left 20+ years ago and the stores are empty after all this time and this is not a struggling neighborhood. There isn't much retail or anything nearby the neighborhood and I would say the street is 80%-90% vacant. There is not even a bar and maybe only one or two tiny restaurants which were closed. Northeastern Illinois University is nearby too.

So I looked it up and found an article from this year. Northeastern Illinois bought up many of the businesses through eminent domain with the plans of expanding the campus with 300,000 square feet of housing and mixed use on Bryn Mawr but cancelled leaving much of the area with vacant buildings (all the University did was kick everyone out and left the buildings as is but now empty) and thus it spiraled from there. And on top of that landlords can get lower property tax rate if the space is not leased, not just the University. It's hard to get businesses in next to vacant buildings. That is enough for building owners to just leave buildings empty - I'm not sure if the law has been changed but this was recent as of a few years ago and even if the law has changed the damage may have been done already. Reading about this street and vacancy, the residents of the area want something like a bars, restaurants, some retail and mixed use developments. Good luck if the University still owns it - and even on the street were the University doesn't own, its hard to attract investment with vacant stuff nearby.

Bryn Mawr

https://news.wttw.com/sites/default/...?itok=DBJe4AZB

[pip]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

just for clarity's sake, it sounds like you were on the north shore channel trail. the north branch of the chicago river splits off from the north shore channel immediately north of argyle going west (where the little waterfall/rapids dealie is).

the trail that continues north all the way up thru west ridge/lincolnwood/skokie/evanston follows the north shore channel (a manmade canal dug in the early 20th century to help flush out the north branch with lake water).

unfortunately, there isn't a continuous off-street bike trail the hugs the north branch of the river until you get all the way west out to gompers park, west of pulaski, so you gotta use the bike lanes on lawrence or side streets to get through albany park. i guess foster is also an option, but it gets too nebulously 2 lane/4 lane at different point along that stretch for my liking as a cyclist.

but once you're at the trail head in gompers park, you can ride along the north branch off-street all the way up to the chicago botanic garden. i highly recommend that ride if you've never done it.

I think it was around Arglye or a bit north where I picked up the bike trail. Oh I'm exploring more! Thanks for the tip.

[sixo1]

Some positive news regarding Chicago's 2021 ParkScore. After adding equity as a metric, the City now ranks 5th (Washington D.C. is first, St. Paul is second, Minneapolis is third, and Arlington, VA is fourth). In 2020, Chicago ranked 10th.

[Source]

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by pip

The thing is though the Koreans left 20+ years ago and the stores are empty after all this time and this is not a struggling neighborhood. There isn't much retail or anything nearby the neighborhood and I would say the street is 80%-90% vacant. There is not even a bar and maybe only one or two tiny restaurants which were closed.

yeah, that stretch of bryn mawr is pretty sad with vacant storefronts these days.

but don't sleep on Bryn Mawr Breakfast Club. it's an excellent brunch spot with a great patio in back.

the next time you're up in North Park, check out the retail strip of foster between northeastern and north park university. it's way more occupied than bryn mawr.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by pip

The thing is though the Koreans left 20+ years ago and the stores are empty after all this time and this is not a struggling neighborhood. There isn't much retail or anything nearby the neighborhood and I would say the street is 80%-90% vacant. There is not even a bar and maybe only one or two tiny restaurants which were closed. Northeastern Illinois University is nearby too.

So I looked it up and found an article from this year. Northeastern Illinois bought up many of the businesses through eminent domain with the plans of expanding the campus with 300,000 square feet of housing and mixed use on Bryn Mawr but cancelled leaving much of the area with vacant buildings (all the University did was kick everyone out and left the buildings as is but now empty) and thus it spiraled from there. And on top of that landlords can get lower property tax rate if the space is not leased, not just the University. It's hard to get businesses in next to vacant buildings. That is enough for building owners to just leave buildings empty - I'm not sure if the law has been changed but this was recent as of a few years ago and even if the law has changed the damage may have been done already. Reading about this street and vacancy, the residents of the area want something like a bars, restaurants, some retail and mixed use developments. Good luck if the University still owns it - and even on the street were the University doesn't own, its hard to attract investment with vacant stuff nearby.

Again, healthy neighborhoods can have struggling commercial strips. Hell, when I was growing up in Barrington our downtown was struggling despite incredible wealth in the community. Retail demand is not bottomless and people in the North Park area are clearly taking their retail dollars to other commercial strips or to the suburbs. Chicago has too much commercial-zoned property for our population, at both the citywide scale and in many neighborhoods.

The property tax break for vacancy is essential. Small-time landlords could go under after losing a tenant, unless their holding costs also go down. It's not some conspiracy to keep property vacant. Northeastern as a public institution pays no tax at all, nor are they required to turn a profit so it's a different story if they are still holding the properties.

Also, legacy buildings are different from new mixed-use buildings. Legacy buildings need cash flow and a vacant space is negative cash flow even with a property tax break. New mixed-use buildings are often planned from the start with the idea that the retail space will sit vacant; the income from the apartments above covers the holding cost for the retail space indefinitely. If a retail tenant comes along, that's just gravy but it's not make-or-break.

[Bonsai Tree]

John Kass is leaving the Tribune

[twister244]

Originally Posted by jpIllInoIs

So Chicago takes a lot of shit for our weather as we know.
but consider that todays high in Phoenix is 118 and it will be in the 100 & teens for the next 10 days. Las Vegas is the same with 110+ for the next ten days. Tell me that is livable.
Meanwhile the entire west and southwest is in an epic drought. Experts no longer consider it an anomaly and are woke that this is the new reality. The hoover dam water level is at 1070' is losing 6ft of depth every month and is 110' (950ft) from where it will no longer produce electricity.
The western drought is of biblical proportions and residents, businesses, farmers, governments will be forced into draconian water reduction mandates and rationing.

Meanwhile Phoenix, Tempe and Vegas are the poster childs for single family home sprawl.

When and how will this end? And why would any sane, intelligent company locate there?

Great points, some of which I was thinking the other day......

If I was a big real estate investor playing a long game, I would be taking a hard look at Chicago. Shit, there's this growing thought in my brain to sweep up a cheap condo here so I have a place to crash when I want, before prices go up.

Chicago is very well positioned to ride out climate change.....

[the urban politician]

^ Pfft, people need to give that wishful thinking a rest, dude.

This idea of global warming and available freshwater fulfilling Chicagoans’ fantasy of people bolting en masse from the coasts (which are now under water!) and the South to the shores of Lake Michigan, whereby Chicago asserts its destiny of being the supercity of the Western Hemisphere is.........like.........never gonna happen.

I used to think fondly about that possibility as well, but don’t hold your breath. Not only will it take a LONG ASS time for any of that to happen, but I’m pretty sure that over the decades the hundreds of millions living in these other regions of the country, plus innovation and investment will continue to make those parts of the country just as livable as ours.

Unfortunately, what we can’t fix is our weather, nor do we have the political will to fix the one thing that truly can be changed for the better: the legal abstraction that forces us to way overpay people for a service that they once provided us years ago (ie pensions), all because they gamed the system and future generations are forced to indentured servitude to make up for. Who the hell is going to come here to join this clusterfuck of a financial albatross?

[ardecila]

^ Maybe coastal cities will build their way out of flooding with levees and dikes, but I don't see property owners getting over their own selfishness in those places.

Just recently, I was reading that Miami can't agree on a floodwall because people are too worried about their property values, but you know what really kills your property values? Catastrophic floods happening regularly. I think for a lot of these coastal areas, people are gonna have to find out the hard way when the big one comes, before agreeing to an ugly levee cutting their neighborhood off from the water. There's a similar dynamic out West with wildfires. In both cases the obstacle is rich people who bought their dream home in a vulnerable place and will fight like hell to make sure they don't have to deal with the consequences of their choices (levees, forced relocation, higher flood insurance premiums, etc).

Of course, when the big one comes a lot of people get displaced, and many end up relocating permanently. Will they come to Chicago? Doubtful. It's about as far from the coasts as you can get, and doesn't have a reputation for affordable living or job creation. I assume most of the relocations will be to inland Southern and Western cities that are already seeing growth - Nashville, Austin, Charlotte, SLC, Denver, Boise, etc.

[OrdoSeclorum]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Pfft, people need to give that wishful thinking a rest, dude.

This idea of global warming and available freshwater fulfilling Chicagoans’ fantasy of people bolting en masse from the coasts (which are now under water!) and the South to the shores of Lake Michigan, whereby Chicago asserts its destiny of being the supercity of the Western Hemisphere is.........like.........never gonna happen.

The way it will work is simply that over time, the relative attractiveness of various places will marginally change. A business will choose to re-locate to city-A or city-B and the appeal of the environment or the relative risk or disruption to business will probably be a little more in Chicago's favor in 2040, relative to Phoenix or Dallas, than it is today. Jobs attract residents. There's going to be a number of marginal decisions that were close to going to Milwaukee, Minneapolis or Chicago's way in 2020 that would go Chicago's way in 2040. But we aren't going to wake up one morning and suddenly have to battle thousands of Florida swamp and jet-ski people for water.

There will likely be more events--extreme heat summers, droughts, hurricanes--that displace thousands of people in a short period of time. It happened during the dust bowl. I know people who went to Boston from Santa Barbara because of fires. Katrina sent people all over the country. In the future, just like today, most of those people will go to places that are currently experiencing growth. Chicago and Minneapolis will probably get more of them in the future than we do today, because we will be relatively more appealing than we are today.

My expectation is that in a couple decades, Chicago will grow 0.5% faster (or shrink 0.5% less slowly) than it would absent the affects of climate change.

[moorhosj1]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

This idea of global warming and available freshwater fulfilling Chicagoans’ fantasy of people bolting en masse from the coasts (which are now under water!) and the South to the shores of Lake Michigan, whereby Chicago asserts its destiny of being the supercity of the Western Hemisphere is.........like.........never gonna happen.

This is a strawman, as nobody is suggesting what you claim. The real question is: Does climate change have the chance to impact migration patterns within the United States of America? Based on historical examples (Dustbowl, potato famine, etc.) it seems highly possible over a multi-decade timeframe.

Which leads us to the question of whether Chicago stands to benefit from that migration. Who knows? We have fresh water, reasonable cost of living, and jobs. We also have extreme cold in winter, high levels of violence, and stagnant population growth. Pure numbers would suggest that Chicago would benefit, but I don't see anyone expecting 500,000 new citizens like the Great Migrations brought us.

Dustbowl reference:

Roughly 2.5 million people left the Dust Bowl states—Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma—during the 1930s. It was one of the largest migrations in American history. Oklahoma alone lost 440,000 people to migration. ... From 1935 to 1940, roughly 250,000 Oklahoma migrants moved to California.

[LouisVanDerWright]

If this year is any indication of the kind of weather Chicago is going to start having because of climate change, then I don't see why it wouldn't affect migration patterns. It's been 80-90 degrees and sunny since like May 1st...

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

If this year is any indication of the kind of weather Chicago is going to start having because of climate change, then I don't see why it wouldn't affect migration patterns. It's been 80-90 degrees and sunny since like May 1st...

The high is 73 today.

And we had the shittiest February since shit starting existing. That month, my managers had to make countless treks out to my properties to clear feet of snow off of the sidewalks and walkways, costing me mucho $$

Pipes froze and flooded.

Yeah, we're on our way to becoming Arizona...

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

The high is 73 today.

And we had the shittiest February since shit starting existing. That month, my managers had to make countless treks out to my properties to clear feet of snow off of the sidewalks and walkways, costing me mucho $$

Pipes froze and flooded.

Yeah, we're on our way to becoming Arizona...

Extremes at both ends of the spectrum are more frequent in a changing (warming) climate.

[the urban politician]

CPS laying off 443 teachers and support staff. CTU not happy:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...hvu-story.html

[Chi-Sky21]

SOM with some out of this world architecture.....

https://news.wttw.com/2021/06/15/ski...heFGksYA0k3ZLM