Is Chicago Underpopulated? (Lincoln, Chatham, Rochester: versus, statistics, manufacturing)

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by edsg25

In an hour or so, I'm going to get dressed and drive to work. In doing so, I will be adding countless hyrocarbons into the atmosphere. So I may have spoken lofty ideas here, but quite frankly I'm still part of the problem and not the solution. How about you?

Go see the movie "Revenge of the Electric Car" it will be playing at the Siskel Center starting in a week or so - get a solar charging station and POOF, problem solved.

Chicago has loads and loads of underutilized solar collecting space on garage roofs - this is the future, bank on it.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by edsg25

...
In an hour or so, I'm going to get dressed and drive to work. In doing so, I will be adding countless hyrocarbons into the atmosphere. So I may have spoken lofty ideas here, but quite frankly I'm still part of the problem and not the solution. How about you?

I walked to work ...

[ForYourLungsOnly]

Originally Posted by edsg25

But what does that 2.7 million tell us?

New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago are the nation's three largest cities. But NY and LA differ from Chicago in significant ways.

Chicago is the most traditional city of the three in terms of how we see a municipality. NY and LA are more like urban regions than traditional cities.

Everyone who lives in Chicago has a Chicago address. In New York, your address may be Brooklyn or Astoria. In LA, it might be Brentwood or Encino.

Chicago is one. Both NY and LA are plural. The New York that was Manhattan consolidated in one step with four adjacent counties that became boroughs; none was connected to it by land. LA used water rights to acquire the San Fernando Valley, much of the westside, and down to the harbor in San Pedro.

What does that mean? In NY and LA, many moves that puts you in the periphery of those cities puts you within city limits. In Chicago, it puts you in suburbia. Yes, Chicago is smaller. But significantly Chicagoland is much larger than it once was. And Chicagoland has true meaning; Chicago means little more than where you get your water, your garbage collected, and your streets cleaned. Chicagoland is the organic one, a metropolitan area that functions as an economic unit, not a line drawn on a map. Does it matter which side of Howard Street....Chicago or Evanston....that you live? No.

San Francisco is one of the world's greatest cities. It is the 4th largest city in California. Within the Bay Area, is comes in 2nd to San Jose. So what? The Bay Area is a huge, exceedingly important, major, major metro. SF is its core. That SF has 800,000 people is irrelevant. Small city; major metro......but the metro, the Bay Area, keeps San Francisco great.

Same with Boston, a fraction of Houston's size, again a small city in a large metro. Houston swallowed up all the land around it. Suburbs tend to be within city limits. The very Houston that seems somehow to scare Chicagoans with its "challenge" to its vaunted #3 size is no bigger than D/FW in its own state when you look at metro population.

Following WWII, Chicago's core underwent an extraordinary period of explosive growth as downtown changed into a lifestyle center that more approached the 24/7 many dream about. The Loop became a Super Loop. The timing was right for this to happen. And the conditions of the city were favorable. Chicago's downtown area was surrounded by rail lines that could be turned to redevelopment without mass eviction, an almost gift of real estate to the city.

Flash forward to today. Chicago's population drop that has occurred mostly in poorer areas of the South and West sides leaves land open for redevelopment. Now if this were Detroit, sadly that redevelopment would unlikely take place. Empty land in that city, based on what has become of it, just doesn't contain the value.

But Chicago has a grand center to it, a job and lifestyle cash cow. And the timing is right for the areas that have fallen into disrepair to be redeveloped. The very automobile that drove us on the expressways it built to suburbia has become some expensive to use and trapped us in endless traffic to became a negative. Chicago's growth in the last 30 or so years has been among the wealthiest of its people as gentrification expanded the core and emcompassed much of the North Side.

But the new growth that will likely be a part of our new era will be different. It will be more middle class, more working families who will seek housing that is affordable on the West and Side sides that gives them economical public transportation to jobs that are conveniently located, many of which of course will be downtown. The West and South sides are the coming cure for endless sprawl and the dreams of suburbia that turned into nightmeres.

Without the very "underpopulation" that seems to have people worried, this could never happen. ANd it can't happen until the timing is right, when organically the growth takes place. IMHO, that timing is now.

great post!

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by emathias

I walked to work ...

But did you exhale anything deadly?

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by Chi-town Native

But did you exhale anything deadly?

isn't that a question one is supposed to ask Bill Clinton?

[TheSunshineKid]

Originally Posted by edsg25

isn't that a question one is supposed to ask Bill Clinton?

No, Al Gore.

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by TheSunshineKid

No, Al Gore.

touche

[randomchicagoan]

I visit downtown very often.. probably around 5 times a year AT LEAST, and from what I can tell, the city is far from underpopulated. But that's just me. I always have to wait because everything is so crowded and such.

[sunnyandcloudydays]

If your in the loop the change is not noticeable.
South and far South sides along with the West sides its visible.

One cant help but notice the boarded up homes.

Seems the areas will transform into healthy neighborhoods again.

The burbs that flourished in the 80's adn 90's will be less desirable with the rising cost of fuel. Matter of time and timing.
.

[SJaye]

Originally Posted by sunnyandcloudydays

If your in the loop the change is not noticeable.
South and far South sides along with the West sides its visible.

One cant help but notice the boarded up homes.

Seems the areas will transform into healthy neighborhoods again.

The burbs that flourished in the 80's adn 90's will be less desirable with the rising cost of fuel. Matter of time and timing.
.

Most people who come to this conculsion about the future do not factor in the possibility of improved technology/ alternate fuel sources. I honestly do not forsee our nation turning it's back on all of the investment we have made over the past century in roadway infastructure. Car companies are producing more efficient cars and working on cars that run on alternative fuels.