why are there so many modern "infill" homes in lincoln park? (Chicago: real estate market, apartments)

[chet everett]

Technically "infill" refers to homes built anytime after the original "build out" of a neighborhood was complete. Sometimes it does involve "tear downs" other times it is when some "double lot parcel" was re-subdivided...

[Standard111]

Originally Posted by ChicagoMeO

sorry but i never heard of an infill home.. What exactly is it? or should i just check wikipedia? thanks for your help!

The homes all over LP, LV, and WP-Bucktown that look like they were airlifted from Naperville.

[Drover]

Which ones look like they were airlifted from Naperville??

[Standard111]

Originally Posted by Drover

Which ones look like they were airlifted from Naperville??

I was being a bit sarcastic, but the McMansion-type homes, as evidenced in that streetview pic.

They're basically suburban-style homes shoehorned into the city. They degrade the urban realm with the driveways, the concrete, the faux historicism, and, worst of all, the lowered population density.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by Standard111

I was being a bit sarcastic, but the McMansion-type homes, as evidenced in that streetview pic.

They're basically suburban-style homes shoehorned into the city. They degrade the urban realm with the driveways, the concrete, the faux historicism, and, worst of all, the lowered population density.

OK, so I looked at the streetview pic. They don't look anything like a typical suburban/McMansion home as evidenced by your own disdainful observation of their "faux historicism" (as if it would be better if they did look like a stereotypical suburban McMansion); they don't appear to use any more or less concrete than the homes around them, and I didn't see a single driveway; and unless you know what they replaced, who lived in what it replaced, and who lives in it now, it's speculative to say they've reduced population density. Even if they're SFHs they're still built cheek-to-cheek on single-wide city lots. You can't get much more dense without literally putting people on top of each other.

[Standard111]

Originally Posted by Drover

OK, so I looked at the streetview pic. They don't look anything like a typical suburban/McMansion home as evidenced by your own disdainful observation of their "faux historicism" (as if it would be better if they did look like a stereotypical suburban McMansion); they don't appear to use any more or less concrete than the homes around them, and I didn't see a single driveway; and unless you know what they replaced, who lived in what it replaced, and who lives in it now, it's speculative to say they've reduced population density. Even if they're SFHs they're still built cheek-to-cheek on single-wide city lots. You can't get much more dense without literally putting people on top of each other.

Ok, so you must not be looking at the posted streetview pic, and you must have never visited Lincoln Park because this entire post is completely wrong.

1. The new homes clearly have driveways and garages, and the old homes clearly don't (you know there were no cars in the 1800's, right?)

2. The new homes are often oversized faux-historicist, and the old homes aren't (you know there were no concrete and stucco homes with great rooms and media rooms in the 1800's, right?)

3. The new homes replace multiple homes, and the population in those census tracts has dropped (you know that birthrates have dropped, we have Census stats, and 1 home is less dense than 2 or 3 homes, right?)

[Drover]

Some of the new homes have driveways. Many don't. I'll take "faux historicism" any day over some of the modernist-crap that has gone up instead.

Lincoln Park is in no danger of dropping to suburban-level population density any time soon, even if SFHs are replacing 2- and 3-flats. With the new homes built primarily on single lots, the area will still remain one of the densest in the USA. People don't have to live literally on top of each other to maintain a high population density.

[knitgirl]

My dad lived in Lincoln Park, on Lill, in the late '40's when he was in high school. He remembers their building as being very nice, but the ones across the street as falling down frame multi-units with riff-raff living there. He started hanging with the wrong crowd until they started planning some thefts. He started hanging with the guys a block or two down who were more into football. They ended up moving to west Rogers Park when his parents bought a 2-flat.

[oakparkdude]

I like some of the modernist SFHs in Chicago. Although you've got a point about the anti-urban nature of driveway sidewalk cuts.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by Standard111

2. The new homes are often oversized faux-historicist, and the old homes aren't (you know there were no concrete and stucco homes with great rooms and media rooms in the 1800's, right?)

So those houses built in the late 1800's with Greek and Roman details are authentic representations of those ancient styles? The reality is that the 19th Century saw one "revival style" after another, and American builders made no qualms about mixing styles or architectural elements in ways that would have never passed muster in Europe.

Though I agree with your sentiment that a lot of the new attempts at "historical styles" look cheesy and Disney-like, but over the years I've come to the conclusion that this has more to do with the types of craftsmen that still exist and the economy of cheap building materials. And very few architecture schools teach anything other than modernism (as if every young architect has some budding genius modernist deep in his soul), so we shouldn't be surprised that literacy in the classic styles has declined to the point that we see the ugly McMansions of today.