Quote:
Originally Posted by the urban politician
Unfortunately, unlike Brooklyn, Harlem, and the Bronx Chicago's dimwitted leadership let so much of the south side's building stock disappear from the face of history.
The south side will simply never come back. It's gone. Whatever will be built will be pure suburban crap: grocery stores, strip malls, etc. The kind of garbage that nobody cares about. Everything else will be so heavily government subsidized that it will be few and far between.
Outside of Hyde Park and a few select areas, that is (and this is very different from the southwest side, which is a totally different animal).
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There's still quite a few neighborhoods on the South Side relatively intact outside of Hyde Park.
South Shore can match the best of historic Hyde Park in the area just south of Jackson Park.
Mid-century houses in Chatham:
http://design.newcity.com/2015/11/19...d-their-stuff/ Pill Hill is similarly a neighborhood that was for affluent black Chicagoans, though the stock resembles more of what you'd find near Midway.
I spent some time in Burnside with a relative renovating a two-flat there, and there didn't seem to be much vacant land.
Of course, there's Pullman. Some of it was lost, but it is and will continue to be a national gem of historic architecture.
I know you mentioned the Southwest Side being a separate discussion, but in my view the biggest threat to South Side preservation now is the Central Manufacturing District. It will be a huge missed opportunity for the South Side, and Chicago, if those buildings aren't saved.
There are also counter-examples of neighborhoods with areas that appear totally bombed out – particularly Washington Park, parts of Englewood, 63rd east of the Green line in Woodlawn. But all that vacant land presents an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the north side, without losing historic stock. Build TOD near trains, encourage density on arterial streets, etc. I believe it is an inevitability that these areas will be reinvested, but it will be a question of how quickly, and how much we lose in the meantime.
But I get what you're saying – we need more folks like you renovating and investing in the greystones in these neighborhoods, of which there are still many (in deteriorating condition).