Suburbia, the next slum? (Chicago, Naperville: apartment, rentals, crime)

[rgb123]

the term exurb gets thrown around here a lot. There are a lot of established towns in the suburbs, between chicago and madison and chicago and milwaukee and all over illinois. Some happen to be closer to chicago that does not make them "new"

Anyway, tons of jobs are in the suburbs, and lots of those people who live way outside the city, work in the suburbs, and lots of people who are not exactly wealthy are able to telecommute and can work in the middle of wyoming if they please, or at least from home 50 miles from chicago, and travel to the office only a few times a month.

Are all of the coprorations going to move back to Chicago? Many of them are in the suburbs or Mexico for that matter since they could operate more cheaply outside the city.

Cause right now all I see is a whole lot of unsustainable reverse commuting, or what used to be a reverse commute (people living in the city and driving to the suburbs).

[vandre]

Did you guys see the article on the Trib about Yorkville?

Yorkville spurt now stunted -- chicagotribune.com

About 15,000 residents now call Yorkville home; a special census is under way. But in early 2005, builders practically stood in line to get their plans approved as Yorkville anticipated its population would swell to more than 50,000 residents by 2010. The latest projection, made two months ago, estimated 2010's population would be 19,308.

[supernerdgirl]

Originally Posted by vandre

Did you guys see the article on the Trib about Yorkville?

Yorkville spurt now stunted -- chicagotribune.com

Yeah....

And I laughed.

[oakparkdude]

I'm not sure if laughter is the appropriate response. I feel bad for people who are stuck in these situations. They're not evil, and I'm sure they made what they thought were the best decision for their family when they bought in exurbia. In the end when/if the suburban housing paradigm shifts, we'll be better off as a society, but the transition will leave a lot of people worse off.

[supernerdgirl]

Originally Posted by sukwoo

I'm not sure if laughter is the appropriate response. I feel bad for people who are stuck in these situations. They're not evil, and I'm sure they made what they thought were the best decision for their family when they bought in exurbia. In the end when/if the suburban housing paradigm shifts, we'll be better off as a society, but the transition will leave a lot of people worse off.

I guess I'm laughing more at the developers who thought it would be smart to build thousands of homes in the middle of cornfields. Trust me, where I lived in Tennessee, that idea spread like a cancer and now it's just a mess.

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by supernerdgirl

Yeah....

And I laughed.

I don't relish in anyone's misfortune but I also think that destroying valuable farmland and encouraging even greater reliance on the automobile is shortsighted. I also think there's racial intolerance that is driving some folks' decisions to move out to these far away lands. That's bad for the health of our society as a whole.

We should be encouraging adaptive reuse of urban environments that are walkable and served by public transit instead of paving over every corn field in sight with subdivisions and multi-billion dollar freeway extensions. You can talk about hybrid cars and ex-burbs that make a nod or two to "being green" all you want -- we're going to be better off if we encourage adaptive reuse.

[Lookout Kid]

Gas prices are falling, but note that they never go quite as low as they were even two years ago... The general trend is still upward, and ex-urbia's days are numbered. I'm not sure I want to live in a more crowded Chicago or inner ring burb, but I hope public transit funding becomes a priority soon.

[gardener34]

Yeah, the same thing kind of happened here in the fox valley. They started to build an upscale subdivision by us, right before everything went bust. It is about 1/3 built. They even rezoned the school district because of anticipated enrollment... and guess what, now they are selling just the lots as well as the homes. The homes are beautiful and it is a great location but they aren't giving out loans like lollipops anymore.

Hey the class size is smaller this year, I am not complaining. But it kind of stinks seeing a partial constructed development every day. They were cranking those things out 5 years ago.

[lakecountylifer]

Two Points-

1. God forbid a major bio chemical accident, virus, or bio terrorist attack in a large heavily dense urban area, because it would forever change people's desire to live in such a dense area and would have a drastic effect on property value's in a city. Let's hope that never happens obviously.

2. There will always be people who can not tolerate living in a urban area period.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by lakecountylifer

2. There will always be people who can not tolerate living in a urban area period.

It may not be a choice in the future. The immigrants crowded into the tenements of New York's lower east side 100 years ago used to put pastoral farm landscapes on the wall because they yearned for more space, but they felt trapped and didn't have the means to get their own land in many cases.