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Well, I'll put it this way. First, yes there's a lot of millionaires here. It's the third largest city, so it's no surprise that it has the 3rd most millionaires of any city. There's a lot of well off people here in reality (there's also a lot of poor people but that's another story...there's quite a few millionaires and there's quite a few people who are close to the millionaire status).
Ravenswood and those areas are interesting. Basically those houses are very historical so they cost more. There are SFHs in areas like Ukrainian Village that are just as big as this for under or around $500,000 and a lot more modern. In many regards, they're nicer than Ravenswood homes.
By "here" I meant this forum since the discussions are among members here. And by "anywhere" I mean the overall population. I know there are enclaves of millionaires, but I didn't think this forum was such place. I assume millionaries are an exception here much like the overall population. But maybe I'm mistaken about this crowd.
My broader point was I wonder if some members are coming from vastly different economic perspectives than others, without readers knowing which is which (not that anyone is obligated to disclose by any means). When someone shares the urban virtues of Manhattan, I assume that's far out of reach of most members here, but I've been wrong a thousand times before...
There are SFHs within maybe a half mile to a mile of Sears Tower if you go west only...every once in awhile, but they barely have back yards or front yards (if at all). If people think that's suburban, then they'd never been to a real suburban environment where yards are a quarter acre or larger.
A quarter of an acre is a rather high standard. I don't know where the OP is from, but if he's from some parts of Europe any area with blocks of detached houses and yards of some size would be described as suburban. For example this French poster:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rozenn
I think so too. Conversely, no one in france would call areas like this urban.
I wonder if there's any city in the USA 100 per cent European style, with peole living in buildings intead of houses all around the city?
I'm not sure of any major European city that would even fit that description. European cities have suburbs as well. They're just not as big because they have not seen the same population growth in the last 50 years. If you look at growing cities in Europe, you will see that a lot of the new development is suburban.
hard to find much in the way of detached houses. New York is bigger than Paris, and eventually has much more low density areas but it takes a long distance before finding lots of blocks of houses.
Regarding, Chicago and SF. Chicago has a greater variance. More very tall superdense but more low density areas too. SF is more uniform, and people there would be very unhappy if a developer proposed tearing down some of their old average density housing stock in order to build tall superdense structures. Which is part of the reason housing is so crazy expensive there.
It happens in Chicago too when the building is of good architectural value. When it's not of good architectural value, people don't care. I live downtown here and there's still some low density buildings downtown. There was a plan that came out the other day for a building down the street from me, a 6 story one (around there), to be torn down so a new 25 story condo/rental building can go up. People were kind of pissed because the building is old and is actually in good condition still looking great.
However, across the street from me almost is a small building that used to be used for whatever, but now Barnes and Noble uses it to store books for Loyola University Business/Law School. The building is crap and a month ago it was proposed for a 35-40 story residential unit be built there. Nobody cared and was all for it, but next door they're tearing down a 5 story building to make way for a new 10 story extension of the Law/Business schools and people were kind of up in arms about it because the building while not amazing, still adds good variance and a great contrast considering the area around here is almost completely dominated by high rises.
No matter what happens though, stuff usually gets built here. The preservationist society big time tries to block stuff and usually they never fully win. It's actually really sad what's been torn down here over the last 50+ years. You should look at old pictures of some areas of the south side and west sides. It's night and day and quite amazing.
We're talking about housing form here, which is related to but different from density. So in the city of Chicago, 70% of units are in buildings with 2 or more units (this does not included attached single family houses--townhouses or rowhouses). In San Francisco, it's 68%. In the city of Los Angeles, it's 54%. It's Manhattan it's 98%, in New York City as a whole it's 84%. Clearly the outer boroughs have a higher percentage of single family units, but nowhere near a majority. Boston with its triple deckers has a small share of houses--it's 82% multifamily. Some of the attractive beachside communities are heavily multifamily--Miami Beach is 89% and Santa Monica is 77%.
San Francisco and Chicago spark argument about density and urbanity because they're close. And because San Francisco doesn't have a real equivalent to the lakeside apartment tower areas, but also doesn't have some of the desolate emptied areas that Chicago has.
A quarter of an acre is a rather high standard. I don't know where the OP is from, but if he's from some parts of Europe any area with blocks of detached houses and yards of some size would be described as suburban. For example this French poster:
The french poster probably doesn't know much about Chicago. The area which he referenced via Google Maps is pretty much one of the exact areas I mentioned as having SFHs moreso than other areas. The area the french poster referenced is over 6 miles from the CBD. I think most of us are in agreeance about various things regarding non NYC american cities though.
Anybody can google map anything and say "oh, look at this." I can Google map Istanbul, one of the largest, densest, and most urban cities in the entire world right now and still show you single family mansions along the Bosphorus.
The french poster probably doesn't know much about Chicago. The area which he referenced via Google Maps is pretty much one of the exact areas I mentioned as having SFHs moreso than other areas.
Well no. He was referring to that particular block, not the entire city.
I didn't see that you had referred to that area, and his comment was an example he brought up months ago (he's never been to Chicago).
You can also find houses 6 miles past the city center in Paris (see the one I posted above). They are outside the city limits, though.
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