Can Elmwood Park and River Grove be saved? (Chicago, Cicero: low income, for sale)

[HamlinandLyndale]

I used to live on 72nd and Diversey and this is a great area. The food here is just awesome! However this area is fighting for it's life. Look at Logan Square, Hermosa to the East where my family grewup between Kedzie and Cicero where my family grewup, only the Poles fought back and the area just died. My Uncle Gilbert taught at Hanson Park on Fullerton and Central for 35 years and went to Weber High School as a teen. This area was also destroyed and Montclare is on the ropes. This brings us all the way to Harlem Ave and EP. Remember Franklin Park and Melrose Park former Italian strongholds have been pretty much destroyed over the past 15 years. EP people I know especially the young Italians don't understand the danger their area is in. They think I'm paranoid. I say all the areas to the East have major problems, then you add in EP's having too many apartments on the North Side and you get really worried. I watched West Logan Square go down in the 80's although the decline began in the mid 70's. People didn't think it could happen to their neighborhood well they were wrong. Will the Italians fight or will they panic?

[HamlinandLyndale]

It would be a travesty if Italians lost their place on Harlem Avenue it would be like the Poles on Milwaukee. However Italians lost Taylor street, Humboldt Park, Melrose Park and Cicero. Can they survive in EP?

[Tex?Il?]

I don't know what to say. I'm familiar with the area somewhat since I work nearby.

I'm sure someone on this forum is going to call you out on underlying/closet prejudice towards hispanics. But I think in reality though, people I think feel scared of being accused of this. At the same time denying reality cultural clashes.

However, look at what Oak Park did back in the 70s and 80s. They adopted a policy of where and how many houses, which ones can be sold to African Americans and what apartments they can't rent.

People would have thought: "Oh my gosh, thats racist!" Not reality Oak Park was probably just being realistic. But look at Oak Park now, they carefully steered Oak Park in a direction where it is now a gem of progressive and educated folks of ALL BACKGROUNDS. The property values when up because they carefully and slowly integreated it, thus making it nice, and therefore attracted progressive people of all backgrounds.

Chicagoans often like to sweep the legacy of segregation, because its not a "cosmopolitan" way of thinking rather dealing with the reality and carefully managing a town so that it becomes a progressive place in the long run. People have to understand the needs of existing, middle class people, by keeping their schools and neighborhoods great, while being welcoming. Oak Park has manageed to do that.

Hopefully River Grove and Elmwood Park can do the same.

[oakparkdude]

The problem is that most towns don't have the advantages that Oak Park has/had. Oak Park back in the 70s had the advantage of wealth. Wealthy towns generally have good schools, good transit, and good housing stock. Wealth helps you overcome problems such as outdated housing and rising crime rates. Even with these advantages it was a near thing.

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by Tex?Il?

However, look at what Oak Park did back in the 70s and 80s. They adopted a policy of where and how many houses, which ones can be sold to African Americans and what apartments they can't rent.

People would have thought: "Oh my gosh, thats racist!".

This is not correct. Well, the last sentence is correct but the rest isn't. A municipality can't adopt policies like those you described, and never could. Oak Park used a private corporation (the Oak Park Regional Housing Center) to encourage prospective tenants to rent in areas where they were underrepresented. In other words, encourage blacks to move west of Ridgeland and whites to move east of Ridgeland. But it was always encouragement, it was never mandatory.

The Village also provided security improvement grants, vacancy subsidies and other landlord incentives. They also banned "for sale" signs to stem white flight and passed an overnight parking ban. There are others but these are the main ones.

I think it would be difficult to replicate these measures in most communities today for a multitude of reasons.

[HamlinandLyndale]

My cousin lives on Diversey and 77th in EP, Her kids are half Puerto Rican and I get along great with her husband's family. We need Latinos to stand up to the gangbangers they ruin it for them too.

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by HamlinandLyndale

My cousin lives on Diversey and 77th in EP, Her kids are half Puerto Rican and I get along great with her husband's family. We need Latinos to stand up to the gangbangers they ruin it for them too.

Glad you brought this up. I'm as realistic about demographics as they come but I notice a lot of posts lately have been bashing Hispanics in barely disguised fashion, as though their presence in a neighborhood strips away all of its positive identity and puts it into a simple category of Undesirable Area.

I don't believe that's true. Hispanics have revitalized many communities, and continue to grow as a positive force within the U.S., despite discrimination that seems to have grown alarmingly as the economy has declined. And even if it that wasn't the case, Hispanics are going to make up about 1/3 of the U.S. population in the relatively near future (within most of our lifetimes). So it may be a good idea for us to come to terms with the idea that this large group (that has multiple groups and cultures within it) is here to stay.

Neither an overly romanticized ethnic group from the early 20th Century nor wealthy liberals with '60s notions of integration are going to "fight" anything, in other words. We should deal with the hand we have, and ensure that we move forward in positive fashion.

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by BRU67

I don't believe that's true. Hispanics have revitalized many communities, and continue to grow as a positive force within the U.S., despite discrimination that seems to have grown alarmingly as the economy has declined. .

Good point about the revitalization. People told me about the impact that the closing of the Hawthorne Electronics Works had in the Cicero/SW side area back in the late 70s and 80s. People left and businesses and houses were boarded up from that.

I suppose if that area wasn't settled by hispanics, it might look more "rustbelty" like the far South side/south suburbs east of 57 and north of I-80.

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by Tex?Il?

Good point about the revitalization. People told me about the impact that the closing of the Hawthorne Electronics Works had in the Cicero/SW side area back in the late 70s and 80s. People left and businesses and houses were boarded up from that.

I suppose if that area wasn't settled by hispanics, it might look more "rustbelty" like the far South side/south suburbs east of 57 and north of I-80.

True. If you listen to the old tymers, Cicero was an urban paradise chock full of mobsters with hearts of gold, Italian restaurants cooking up hearty pasta dishes from the Old Country, and little Czech Babickas sweeping up in the alley until the Mexicans came along and ruined everything in the 80s. In reality, Cicero was an aging and deteriorating community with corrupt public officials, an insane number of strip clubs, a miserable reputation, and growing flight and disinvestment during that time. Hispanics were about the only ones willing to take a chance and move there! Otherwise, Cicero would probably be no more than a crime-ridden southern extension of Austin by now.

Instead, it’s a young community that has to some extent been revitalized, and probably has a future ahead of it. It certainly has vibrant business districts, albeit not of the Panera Bread and Starbucks variety. It also has a much lower crime rate than you would think judging by its reputation (much lower than Oak Park). Does it have problems? Yes, particularly with the schools. But if we would pull our heads out of our collective asses and set up a school system which can properly educate our many children who come from low income families, we could fix that in one generation.

Instead, we choose to label them all as “gang-bangers” (a code word if there ever was one) and hope that they stay in their own little areas. But those areas seem to keep getting more and more numerous, don’t they?

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

It's funny the way the Mexicans are following the Bohemians---first Pilsen (I remember when "18th Street" was THE Mexican neighborhood), then 26th St, Cicero, Berwyn. How long until the Mexicans are big in LaGrange, Western Springs and Westchester?

Probably not long. 10-15 years maybe. Of course, major societal changes, like uber-high fuel prices, could completely alter this traditionally linear growth model.