Quote:
Originally Posted by ChiTownWonder
I might be getting slightly political here but I don't believe the process of choosing opportunity zones was very fair in every state. Chicago's makes sense while here in New Orleans, freret street (an already gentrifying neighborhood corridor) and the entire CBD are in opportunity zones... areas of cancer alley along the Mississippi are in them as well, seemingly to promote more industrial development. While Illinois may have chose appropriate census tracts for the opportunity zones I personally believe that our neighborhoods are loosing out because of inappropriate selection of opportunity zones in gentrified and already sustained neighborhoods in other states... I'm not sure what can be done at the local level but personally I'm already happy seeing promised investment in the form of projects like south bridge, that new east Garfield park proposal and Garfield Green. The next step is the see the city/ developers follow through.
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I'm sure they're imperfect processes, especially since no one really knows what should go into an opportunity zone. "The market" isn't necessarily good at identifying how to utilize a disadvantaged resource, even if the resource is granted a special status. Contrary to the beliefs of certain conservatives and neo-liberals, taxes are usually a minor consideration for businesses choosing where to locate, so merely offering them a generic reduction in taxes might get them to put a place on a list of places to consider but it doesn't magically solve infrastructure or workforce issues. I don't think opportunity zones are necessarily that helpful unless they're places that need investment and then government actually seeds them with infrastructure investment to make them more viable for businesses.
Someone else talked about the zone just north of the United Center and that it hasn't had much happen in it. It will, and the Damen stop on the Green Line might help some, even if the Ashland stop hasn't really helped. When I first moved to Chicago in 1995, I lived at Madison and Morgan for a while, as a student living in staff quarters at a residential rehab program. There were some nice restaurants on Randolph already, and a couple early condo projects were just getting started, and a few fancy hair stylist places had opened up, but it was still an area where I'd get offered what I'll phrase as "oral pleasure" for $5 from crackheads of all genders. Since then you've seen what the area has become, and it's become generally safe to visit any part of the West Side to at least Western, whereas going west of Halsted was questionable unless you were going to Oprah's or UIC for a long time, and then Racine and then Ashland and now Western or maybe even California. And it's pretty obvious it will be "safe enough" all the way to Kedzie soon enough. The west side of Garfield Park (the actual park) will still be sketchy for decades, but east of there will likely fully gentrify by 2030 or, at the latest, 2040, as long as Chicago's core keeps growing. So it's really just a matter of time before that Opportunity zone north of the United Center becomes popular, but it won't because of its designation that it does so, it will be because its in the path of inevitable progress.
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