Elmwood park , What is happing to it? (Chicago, Aurora: 2010, apartment)

[BJT83]

Originally Posted by ndfmnlf

You criticize section 8 folks, yet you yourself are living in the same apartment complex they do. You're not even a homeowner. I respectfully suggest you buy your own house so you can get away from these folks.

It's hard to pick which part of your post was the most asinine, but I'll go with this snippet. That's a real condescending and rude thing to write. Did you ever think maybe she can't afford to buy? That maybe there are renters that take pride in their rental units and get upset when others don't do the same? I know with the economy booming right now it's hard to believe the OP can't pack up and move to River Forest.

Oh, and when you "respectfully suggest" something, it helps not to be disrespectful.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by ndfmnlf

You say you have been a renter in this apartment for 5 years. Another poster said that it is the renters (as opposed to homeowners), who drag a neighborhood down.

I didn't say it quite like that. But having a large supply of affordable rental housing that close to the West Side of Chicago is just asking for trouble. Any western suburb with a large supply of affordable rental housing will have some problems with crime and gangs.

The key is to enforce zoning codes so the entire town doesn't become affordable rental housing. Homeowners need to stay put and shouldn't be allowed to convert their homes to rentals. This is the only way to promote stability in places like Elmwood Park. It's fine to have affordable housing, but you don't want the affordable housing to become too large a percentage of the town. It's best to keep the number of affordable rental units below 10% of the entire housing stock.

[ndfmnlf]

It's hard to pick which part of your post was the most asinine, but I'll go with this snippet. That's a real condescending and rude thing to write. Did you ever think maybe she can't afford to buy? That maybe there are renters that take pride in their rental units and get upset when others don't do the same? I know with the economy booming right now it's hard to believe the OP can't pack up and move to River Forest.

You've made my point for me. The people who live in her apartment (including her) live there for a reason: they can't afford to buy their own homes, otherwise they would have done so already. It is therefore hypocritical for someone to bash the low income renters when you yourself are part of the same demographic.

Besides, she has not shown any evidence that her co-renters are actually thugs....

[ndfmnlf]

The key is to enforce zoning codes so the entire town doesn't become affordable rental housing. Homeowners need to stay put and shouldn't be allowed to convert their homes to rentals. This is the only way to promote stability in places like Elmwood Park. It's fine to have affordable housing, but you don't want the affordable housing to become too large a percentage of the town. It's best to keep the number of affordable rental units below 10% of the entire housing stock.

Were the Italians who used to dominate Elmwood Park forced to vacate their homes, or did they do so voluntarily? Did the blacks and Hispanics simply kick the Italians out of their homes or did the Italians actually sell their homes under the auspices of a free market?

Who converted the housing stock into rentals? Was this being done voluntarily or forcibly?

[BJT83]

Originally Posted by ndfmnlf

You've made my point for me. The people who live in her apartment (including her) live there for a reason: they can't afford to buy their own homes, otherwise they would have done so already. It is therefore hypocritical for someone to bash the low income renters when you yourself are part of the same demographic.

Besides, she has not shown any evidence that her co-renters are actually thugs....

That's ridiculous. You can't bash people in your demographic for being idiots? I can't bash white supremacists because I'm white? I can't bash intolerant Christians because I'm a Christian? Does that make me a hypocrite?

[noid_1985]

Originally Posted by ndfmnlf

Were the Italians who used to dominate Elmwood Park forced to vacate their homes, or did they do so voluntarily? Did the blacks and Hispanics simply kick the Italians out of their homes or did the Italians actually sell their homes under the auspices of a free market?

Who converted the housing stock into rentals? Was this being done voluntarily or forcibly?

Not too sure if they moved out because of blacks; according to city-data blacks represented only .5% of Elmwood Parks 25k population....I get your point though

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by ndfmnlf

Hmm....according to city data, the ethnic composition of Elmwood Park is as follows:

Races in Elmwood Park:

White Non-Hispanic (84.6%)
Hispanic (11.0%)
Other race (3.3%)
Two or more races (2.3%)
Filipino (1.4%)
Black (0.5%)

Whites comprise 85% of Elmwood Park. Are you saying it was better off when it was 100% white? Sounds like you're advocating for some good ole' ethnic cleansing here.



Do you have any statistics comparing the crime rate when Elmwood Park was 100%white versus now when it is only 85% white? City Data says the crime rate in EP is actually lower than the national average: crime index for EP is 107.8 versus 323 for the US average.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your assessment of Elmwood Park. What I'm interested in is if you can present hard data to support it, as opposed to your perception that Elmwood Park is going down the drain just because you see more people who belong to more diverse races living there.

Looking at the Illinois State Police crime statistics, Elmwood Park's crime rate was 3,330/100k with 758 index crimes in 1996 (as far back as the database goes). In 2006, it was 1,547/100k and 379 index crimes. Don't know whether it was 100% white in '96 or not, but the stats certainly do not support the "sky is falling" posts we're seeing on here, unless the influx being referenced is post-2006.

Sadly though, perception is everything. When certain people see minorities (particularly young male minorities), they tend to assume that crime, gangs, declining property values, drug dealing, currency exchanges, and all kinds of other nasty social ills are about to befall them. While they may be wrong (and often are), those fears cause them to move, which can lead to a turn around in the neighborhood and ultimately cause those things to come true.

Put another way, I doubt you're going to get any hard data in response to your inquiry.

[concerned resident]

First of all, living in Elmwood Park my entire life, I have first hand seen crime rise in the past 2 years. The problem with these stats, is the elmwood park p.d. is messing with these stats. There was an attempteddrive by shooting on 2200 75th avenue last month and again there was an attempted drive by last week off of Fullerton/73rd. And yes, there was never these problems when the town was dominated by hard working Italian Americans. This my friend is called Gang Infestation. Both incidents were Spanish gangs fighting with other Spanish gangs. These folks are all newcomers to this town and many are apartment dwellers. However, you cannot condemn all apartment dwellers, but it is reasonable to say that people who live in section 8 housing and that dont pay for these

[concerned resident]

Section 8 poses a huge problem because many of these renters do not take pride in their town due to the fact that they do not have to work for it. Schools change for the worse due to section 8 housing and when these 2 attempted drive bys happened,

[ndfmnlf]

Looking at the Illinois State Police crime statistics, Elmwood Park's crime rate was 3,330/100k with 758 index crimes in 1996 (as far back as the database goes). In 2006, it was 1,547/100k and 379 index crimes. Don't know whether it was 100% white in '96 or not, but the stats certainly do not support the "sky is falling" posts we're seeing on here, unless the influx being referenced is post-2006.

Thanks for your input. The data you provided shows that the crime rate was actually cut in half between 1996 to 2006. That's significant.

The not-so-subliminal message of this thread is that high crime rate is associated with the influx of non-white persons. But that is disputed by the data.

85% whites in Elmwood Park is quite high, higher even than the national average (there are 74% whites in the US according to the 2006 census). Apparently, that's not good enough: it's got to be 100% white or bust, as some posters here seem to believe. And not just any whites, but they've got to be Italians too (leaves a bad taste in my mouth, being Irish-American).

Sadly though, perception is everything. When certain people see minorities (particularly young male minorities), they tend to assume that crime, gangs, declining property values, drug dealing, currency exchanges, and all kinds of other nasty social ills are about to befall them. While they may be wrong (and often are), those fears cause them to move, which can lead to a turn around in the neighborhood and ultimately cause those things to come true.

The whiners have no one to blame but themselves. They abandon Elmwood Park because they see non-whites moving in. Nobody told them to leave except their own prejudices. Nobody kicked them out of their homes. They assume that their property values will decline with the influx of minorities. Interestingly enough, the property values in Cupertino California actually soared to the stratosphere partly because Asians moved in and caused the school district to become hyper-competitive and excellent. Cupertino is one of the most desirable, clean, safe, and affluent cities in the US today, yet whites still fled it anyway.