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Old 01-03-2015, 02:42 PM
 
Location: Chicago, IL
304 posts, read 361,790 times
Reputation: 325

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Quote:
Originally Posted by chet everett View Post
I find it beyond hilarious that instead of focusing on improving schools or preserving home ownership some of the posters seem overly concerned with "bodegas". Funny thing too is the closest thing that Chicago might have had to that sort of family owned business is very likely the rapidly disappearing little stores tucked in along regular residences. At one time these were pretty common in Lincoln Park. I used to get a nice meatball sandwich at a similar place in Bridgeport but it has closed.

I wonder if mainstream economists that study income inequality would have something to say about the shift to rent seeking housing options that seem to concentrate wealth among the already rich as the lower income strata are forced out in gentrification... Stiglitz: Why Inequality Matters and What Can Be Done About It | Next New Deal

Doubt bodegas will be compatible with $15 craft bourbon cocktails that seem a sign of faux affluence by those suckers that feed the rent seeking of the elite pushing higher property values...

While some of the prescriptions that mainstream economists offer for addressing income inequality seem worse than the problem (even more intrusive government regulation being high on such a list...) the fact the Illinois' politicians have benefited so much from the apathy and stupidity of the low information voters is nowhere more apparent than the entertainment oriented Bacchanalia of neighborhoods that have gentrified in the pattern of Wicker Park. One might hope that college educated young people might see the degree to which such policies have made Chicago more unequal. The hopeful part of me thinks such things could be reversed with appropriately responsible political leadership -- Stiglitz and Toward a Theory of the Rent-Seeking Society - Coordination Problem
OK Chet, I really really liked a lot of the things that you said about the issue of income disparity and inequality within the city. I agree that things such as home ownership and public schools are more important than bodegas. Please realize that the post regarding "bodegas on every corner" was more of a yearning for Mom and Pop small business type amenities to be prevalent within walking distance correlated with a healthy density. You must also take in regard that I am 27 and the person I quoted is 28 and many folk this age don't necessarily have children yet.

Please also consider I'm still recovering from a warped New York City perspective, and guys like me get alarmed when they hear "best public schools in city limits" branded to a neighborhood. Why? Not because we don't want our city's children to attend great schools. But because we're I come from in NYC the interests of people are so skewed by the very disparity you just spoke of. A neighborhood with great schools means that in about 2 years it will be a identical replica of Park Slope, Brooklyn and become a haven for strollers and yuppies and a one bedroom will be $2,000 over our budget. Once again, this is the twisted NYC perspective I'm quickly trying to get rid of.

I'm a straight up blue collar tough guy who works in manufacturing (woodworking). It's true that what I do is more of carpentry but because it's done in a shop it's technically manufacturing. And nothing makes me happier than the screaming sound of a precision - engineered American made machine, roaring loudly at 7am and eating up old logs and planing them into beautiful pieces of lumber. With my screaming eagle tattoo exposed, and the glimmer of the metal label on the old 60s machinery "Made Proudly in the USA Kalamazoo, MI.". It's no wonder we use saws and stuff from the 60s because there so much more accurate than the garbage made in China today.

Now - as far as income disparity and inequality that you speak of I believe a lot of this is due to the deindustrialization of Chicago and the surrounding area. The city has shifted from a blue collar industrial past to a more white collar and serviced based economy. OK. Fine. I get it. Life is not going to be like it was in the good old 50s. But does that mean that vast amounts of the industry and manufacturing jobs have to be completely freaking gone and all but disappear? Surely not.

Here's a perfect example. I make small talk with the people who ring up my groceries at Jewel Osco. They are all from the very far South side (down in the 100s). They tell me they walk for a while to 95th/Dan Ryan and then take a 2 hour commute up here on the Red Line to come work there (ringing up groceries for say 8.00 or 9.00 an hour. These are very impoverished neighborhoods in the 100s where there is major income inequality compared to the North side.

Let's pretend for a minute that there were manufacturer jobs ample in say, Bridgeport. We could teach those folk how to cut wood, weld steel, process chemicals/food, assemble trusses for houses, make auto parts and e.t.c. Then they could make $12.00, $15.00, and $20.00 per hour and there you go. We have some less income disparity and more people at livable wage and less people in extreme poverty slinging Crack and dope, and what not. And a much shorter commute too! I have read some recent articles on manufacturing may be making a comeback in the U.S. so let's keep our fingers crossed and vote for the right people/zoning variant/whatever.

that being said I see your one of the main posters on this forum and have a lot to say. I hope your kids goto a nice school and wish them well.
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Old 01-05-2015, 04:22 PM
 
Location: East Central Pennsylvania/ Chicago for 6yrs.
2,535 posts, read 3,256,907 times
Reputation: 1483
Quote:
Originally Posted by PerseusVeil View Post
How exactly does this contradict my point that many young people cannot afford any of these houses?

Also Logan Square is gentrifying, but it is not fully gentrified yet. There are still sketchy/dangerous areas.
I presume you mean... once fully gentrified? Even the 1920 $160,000 bungalow in Logan Square will go for over Half a Million $'s. ? Like the 1900 Cottages in Ukrainian Village today?
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Old 01-05-2015, 05:23 PM
 
28,455 posts, read 84,957,533 times
Reputation: 18725
Default If you read my posts you'll see that I am lot more like you than most...

Quote:
Originally Posted by tommy_407 View Post
OK Chet, I really really liked a lot of the things that you said about the issue of income disparity and inequality within the city. I agree that things such as home ownership and public schools are more important than bodegas. Please realize that the post regarding "bodegas on every corner" was more of a yearning for Mom and Pop small business type amenities to be prevalent within walking distance correlated with a healthy density. You must also take in regard that I am 27 and the person I quoted is 28 and many folk this age don't necessarily have children yet.

Please also consider I'm still recovering from a warped New York City perspective, and guys like me get alarmed when they hear "best public schools in city limits" branded to a neighborhood. Why? Not because we don't want our city's children to attend great schools. But because we're I come from in NYC the interests of people are so skewed by the very disparity you just spoke of. A neighborhood with great schools means that in about 2 years it will be a identical replica of Park Slope, Brooklyn and become a haven for strollers and yuppies and a one bedroom will be $2,000 over our budget. Once again, this is the twisted NYC perspective I'm quickly trying to get rid of.

I'm a straight up blue collar tough guy who works in manufacturing (woodworking). It's true that what I do is more of carpentry but because it's done in a shop it's technically manufacturing. And nothing makes me happier than the screaming sound of a precision - engineered American made machine, roaring loudly at 7am and eating up old logs and planing them into beautiful pieces of lumber. With my screaming eagle tattoo exposed, and the glimmer of the metal label on the old 60s machinery "Made Proudly in the USA Kalamazoo, MI.". It's no wonder we use saws and stuff from the 60s because there so much more accurate than the garbage made in China today.

Now - as far as income disparity and inequality that you speak of I believe a lot of this is due to the deindustrialization of Chicago and the surrounding area. The city has shifted from a blue collar industrial past to a more white collar and serviced based economy. OK. Fine. I get it. Life is not going to be like it was in the good old 50s. But does that mean that vast amounts of the industry and manufacturing jobs have to be completely freaking gone and all but disappear? Surely not.

Here's a perfect example. I make small talk with the people who ring up my groceries at Jewel Osco. They are all from the very far South side (down in the 100s). They tell me they walk for a while to 95th/Dan Ryan and then take a 2 hour commute up here on the Red Line to come work there (ringing up groceries for say 8.00 or 9.00 an hour. These are very impoverished neighborhoods in the 100s where there is major income inequality compared to the North side.

Let's pretend for a minute that there were manufacturer jobs ample in say, Bridgeport. We could teach those folk how to cut wood, weld steel, process chemicals/food, assemble trusses for houses, make auto parts and e.t.c. Then they could make $12.00, $15.00, and $20.00 per hour and there you go. We have some less income disparity and more people at livable wage and less people in extreme poverty slinging Crack and dope, and what not. And a much shorter commute too! I have read some recent articles on manufacturing may be making a comeback in the U.S. so let's keep our fingers crossed and vote for the right people/zoning variant/whatever.

that being said I see your one of the main posters on this forum and have a lot to say. I hope your kids goto a nice school and wish them well.

You are correct that, once, in the not too far past Chicago had LOTS of great manufacturing jobs. And the funny thing is not too many were tied to any ONE industry. There used to be precision machine tools, electronics, consumer goods, rail related industries, food processing, chemicals and literally dozens of other great sectors represented. The pay was pretty good and overall lifestyle was decent. The trigger for some employers to seek more suburban work sites probably started with the racial unrest of the 60s but it still pretty honest to Chicago a "working class town" Under the whole of the elder Daley administration, he died in 1976.
Big shifts in each of those sectors started around the time that energy costs spike in the 70s and accelerated under inept political leadership that made decisions that drove out industry for residential and retail redevelopment in many corridors. Fortunately service sector employment in the Loop most made the northside residential areas more desirable but the south and west sides are largely still in decline.


There is little reason to believe that necessary "mix" of skilled workers and employers willing to reconstruct work sites in Chicago will ever come together -- there is an awful amount of hostility toward the tax policies that business find unfair in Chicago, Cook Co and the State of Illinois. Illinois Job Killing Policies

Small businesses that exist in swanky northside boutique areas just do not generate enough revenue to ever replace the losses of better paying jobs -- Sorry Class Warriors, Small Businesses Are Not The Backbone Of The U.S. Economy - Forbes It is probably becuase of info from such sources the Rahm Emanuel touts the "new jobs" from brand name firms -- Google Moving Chicago HQ To Fulton Market Warehouse « CBS Chicago But given how many of the "jobs" created are likely to be glorified Yellow Pages salespeople I have my doubts that this will really have any meaningful on the viability of city for middle class workers...


Most folks that really measure what makes one place have a higher quality workforce than another pinpoint differences in education. Sorry if you don't want moms / nannies pushing stroller to interupt your pub crawling activities but globally that seems to be a stratgey for more sustained growth -- The competition that really matters.

Chicago's failure to address decades of broken schools that leave too many "left for dead" and end up helping the "rich get richer" in lavish magnet schools are the worst way to make inequality worse... The Mauritius miracle: What can the United States learn from this tiny island nation?
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