Why is UpTown considered bad? (Chicago, Springfield: fit in, living, cost)

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

These people that get off on human suffering to lend a hint of "authenticity" to a neighborhood are beyond horrible. I'm sorry that bourgeois middle class america is too boring for you, but you need to stop using urban grit as some kind of backdrop for your hipster wet dream. You don't live in a ****ing Nelson Algren novel. This is a real neighborhood where people work and live.

I think you're confusing "getting off on human suffering" with the desire to avoid the further human suffering that results from kicking those who are suffering out of their neighborhoods.

Suffering doesn't go away when an area gentrifies. The yuppies just don't have to see it anymore, so they can pretend it doesn't exist. If anything, it's that mentality that is "beyond horrible."

[TBideon]

That's silly. An area suffers often because of the criminal or hostile actions of a few. Gentrifiers help mitigate that blight and give the neighborhood an opportunity to become easier/livable for the functional residents who otherwise are at the mercy of the bad apples. Stop acting like gentrification ruins lives; you think the residents of Cabrini were better off in that hellhole before mixed housing and the Division shops came in?

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by TBideon

That's silly. An area suffers often because of the criminal or hostile actions of a few. Gentrifiers help mitigate that blight and give the neighborhood an opportunity to become easier/livable for the functional residents who otherwise are at the mercy of the bad apples. Stop acting like gentrification ruins lives; you think the residents of Cabrini were better off in that hellhole before mixed housing and the Division shops came in?

I think they were probably not much better or worse off there than they are now in whatever new hellhole they were relocated to. That's my point.

I'm not even taking an anti-gentrification stance here. That would be silly, since it's a sociological phenomenon that happens and can't really be prevented. Plus, as a middle class white guy who moved to Pilsen, I'd be a hypocrite to say gentrification is inherently bad.

I'm just saying it's ridiculous to accuse those of us who don't mind (or even prefer) a little socioeconomic diversity in our neighborhoods of "getting off on human suffering." Poverty and suffering exist whether it's in your neighborhood or a different one. Acknowledging it isn't the same thing as getting off on it, and ignoring it doesn't make it go away.

[rubbersoul89]

Lookout, you have it way backwards.

most neighborhoods you'd probably live in wouldn't be what they are now if people that "get off on human suffering" hadn't moved into them at one point in the past.

just a little ironic, no?

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

Poverty and suffering exist whether it's in your neighborhood or different one. Acknowledging it isn't the same thing as getting off on it, and ignoring it doesn't make it go away.

I agree with your larger point, but you are missing a pretty important nuance which is that Chicago as a large urban area always has attracted FAR more than its "homegrown" share of the downtrodden, and this plays out in varying degrees of intensity depending on where you live in the City.

It's not like there's something inherently messed up with Uptown - it's that yeah, social service providers tend to attract people who need the social services. If they are homeless, it's not really a surprise they may tend to tend more of their time in that area.

I bring this up as I live by the lovely little squatter village which makes decent coin panhandling on the Belmont & Kedzie off ramps. If you think these people are all products of the neighborhood, you couldn't be more mistaken, with one glaring exception.


To be clear, I am very supportive of support measures, but I think the liberal crowd continues to get its clock cleaned by making such assertions as "housing is a right," and putting that on a plane with freedom of speech and assembly.

That's where this all breaks down. One of those beggars is a career drug addict and petty thief. If it isn't her parents' responsibility to house her (they live on my block), how is it mine?

I think it's great for society to place a priority on affordable housing and so on, but to call it a right? Wrong. Things are a right that involve your own body. Providing and maintaining housing requires other people's work.

This is why Cabrini and all those high rises ultimately failed. Sociey quite literally had difficulty paying people to go work in the buildings to do routine maintenance, and repairs were undone very quickly. After a while, people just get sick of supporting that stuff.

Then there's the issue of people in public housing growing their families into perpetuity - that clearly wasn't going to work forever. The people who went on TV talking about how they had been in Cabrini for 30+ years were unwittingly signing their own eviction notices.

Public housing should come with a 5-10 year time limit. If you can't turn yourself around in 5-10 years, you 1) aren't going to with further help and 2) have no business keeping someone else from doing so. Because there's an opportunity cost with this stuff.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

I'm just saying it's ridiculous to accuse those of us who don't mind (or even prefer) a little socioeconomic diversity in our neighborhoods of "getting off on human suffering." Poverty and suffering exist whether it's in your neighborhood or different one. Acknowledging it isn't the same thing as getting off on it, and ignoring it doesn't make it go away.

That's a straw man and a half. I'm referring to little wise ass hipsters from the suburbs who love the "edginess" of a neighborhood as some sort of imaginary movie set they live in. For anyone to say Uptown is fine "as is" is just an absolutely ridiculous statement. It is a place where people fall through the cracks in our society. Drug treatment centers, halfway houses, housing for sex offenders, flop houses with horrible conditions, nursing homes that collect disability checks but provide terrible care, drug abusers and pushers on every corner... This is the "edgy" Uptown. Sure, it makes a great setting for your next novel, but it's actually a pretty terrible place with a lot of human tragedy.

Uptown is racially and economically diverse, and I don't think these are bad things. I just don't think the government should step in to create "affordable housing" to socially engineer the diversity in to the place. But we've beat that topic to death in this thread.

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

That's a straw man and a half. I'm referring to little wise ass hipsters from the suburbs who love the "edginess" of a neighborhood as some sort of imaginary movie set they live in. For anyone to say Uptown is fine "as is" is just an absolutely ridiculous statement. It is a place where people fall through the cracks in our society. Drug treatment centers, halfway houses, housing for sex offenders, flop houses with horrible conditions, nursing homes that collect disability checks but provide terrible care, drug abusers and pushers on every corner... This is the "edgy" Uptown. Sure, it makes a great setting for your next novel, but it's actually a pretty terrible place with a lot of human tragedy.

Uptown is racially and economically diverse, and I don't think these are bad things. I just don't think the government should step in to create "affordable housing" to socially engineer the diversity in to the place. But we've beat that topic to death in this thread.

I think you're getting warmer, but Uptown did not create those problems, it's just where those problems happen to be treated in terms of social services.

Uptown's major flaw is that the entire North Side has tried to shoehorn its mentally ill people there. It's not like there's something inherently wrong with the land or water, or the majority of its residents or its schools, etc.

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by Chi-town Native

Public housing should come with a 5-10 year time limit. If you can't turn yourself around in 5-10 years, you 1) aren't going to with further help and 2) have no business keeping someone else from doing so. Because there's an opportunity cost with this stuff.

I hear what you're saying, but people have to live somewhere. You can argue that poor people don't have a right to housing, but you can't really argue that they don't have a right to exist. Where should they go? Other neighborhoods? Other cities? Shelters? Parks and viaducts?

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

I'm referring to little wise ass hipsters from the suburbs who love the "edginess" of a neighborhood as some sort of imaginary movie set they live in.

I think you're mostly making these people up in your head. Have you been studying Hipsterology 101 with Prof. Chet? Do their bicycles, thrift store clothes, and expensive beers p*ss you off, too?

I basically see people who don't want poor people in their neighborhoods, and people who don't mind poor people in their neighborhoods. If they're in the latter category, I don't really care if some of them think their neighborhood is a movie set. (I'd guess that to be a delusional 1% or so at most.)

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

but it's actually a pretty terrible place with a lot of human tragedy.

And I get that you don't want human tragedy in your neighborhood. You've made that clear. My question is where do you want it to go? Pushing it out isn't fixing it.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by Chi-town Native

I think you're getting warmer, but Uptown did not create those problems, it's just where those problems happen to be treated in terms of social services.

Uptown's major flaw is that the entire North Side has tried to shoehorn its mentally ill people there. It's not like there's something inherently wrong with the land or water, or the majority of its residents or its schools, etc.

Not just mentally ill, but criminals, drug abusers, sex offenders, etc. I lived in Uptown for eight years and had more than my fair share of negative encounters with the various characters. I don't think you can really appreciate the depth of the problem without living there for many years.