Green Conscious neighborhoods in Chicago (Energy, Time: real estate, safe neighborhoods, college)

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by bkerl

For those who offered helpful responses - thank you. I guess we'll spend some time getting to know Hyde Park next time we visit the city.

To the others, I just don't get spending time writing sarcastic message board responses, but whatever, it's your life to waste.

give Logan Square and Avondale a shot if the north side is a possibility!

[Chicago76]

It's true that Chicago doesn't really do the co-op thing, but to be fair, part of the reason is that we have enough mom and pop food places that have some of the same charactersitics.

Co-ops are big on community, reduction of packaging (green), organic or locally sourced food, etc. Mom and Pop stores provide a lot of this here. If you want organic produce at prices lower than you'd find for non-organic at a supermarket, go to Stanley's. There are also seaonsal farmers market all over the city, weekend produce on carts in Logan Square/Avondale, etc. If you want good meats, hit a mom and pop deli in places like Avondale. There are butchers like Gene's that do grassfed well at reasonable prices, carnicerias in Pilsen, Avondale, etc. You can go to Randolph for wholesale seafood markets. If you want more exotic legumes, rice, etc, you can get it on Devon.

The only downside is that you can't get everything in one place, but if you pick neighborhoods wisely (for example West Town, Ravenswood/Lincoln Square/Albany Park), things are relatively convenient.

If you become a regular at smaller places and you're looking for something they don't carry, there is a very good chance they will if you ask for it.

[chet everett]

I agree that Chicago has a nice mix of non-chain grocers that do respond to their customers. In fact I think this current LACK of responsiveness is a HUGE part of why the now non-local owners of Dominicks & Jewel are doing so poorly -- their far away data driven bottom line number crunchers want to shove their crappy mass produced house brands down our throats while we have really been WAY AHEAD of the curve in having "boutique" offerings that are mainstream -- any Polish deli probably has three of four kinds of horseradish, any Italian deli will have multiple variants on giardianara, any Mexican deli will have their own recipe for chorizo. Oberwiess ice cream BLOWS AWAY the sorry excuse for mass produced over modified goo that corporate ownership has done for Ben & Jerrys, HageenDaz or even our once local Dove Bars... Every Oberweiss store has a little card explaining why they prefer to just raw milk from honest small farmers instead of some ?certified organic" mega farm that complies with rules that allow sick cows to be milked...

Chicago has a history of marching to its own beat. We don't like "healthy foods" nor do the "elites" do well here. In other towns (especially college areas) the coops are usually huge with the "I eat so much better / more socially responsibly than YOU crowd" -- here even in rather intellectually high powered Hyde Park the coop collapsed. I suspect the "free market thinkers" could not bring themselves to support a venue that at its core is contrary to capitalist principals. Any "dividend" was also all but impossible to earn given the high costs of running any business, especially a low margin type business in costly Hyde Park. The other thing about Chicago is that its "hog butcher to the world" heritage is antithetical to the standard fare of "tempeh and tofu" that are the top sellers at most coops...

Originally Posted by Chicago76

It's true that Chicago doesn't really do the co-op thing, but to be fair, part of the reason is that we have enough mom and pop food places that have some of the same charactersitics.

Co-ops are big on community, reduction of packaging (green), organic or locally sourced food, etc. Mom and Pop stores provide a lot of this here. If you want organic produce at prices lower than you'd find for non-organic at a supermarket, go to Stanley's. There are also seaonsal farmers market all over the city, weekend produce on carts in Logan Square/Avondale, etc. If you want good meats, hit a mom and pop deli in places like Avondale. There are butchers like Gene's that do grassfed well at reasonable prices, carnicerias in Pilsen, Avondale, etc. You can go to Randolph for wholesale seafood markets. If you want more exotic legumes, rice, etc, you can get it on Devon.

The only downside is that you can't get everything in one place, but if you pick neighborhoods wisely (for example West Town, Ravenswood/Lincoln Square/Albany Park), things are relatively convenient.

If you become a regular at smaller places and you're looking for something they don't carry, there is a very good chance they will if you ask for it.

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by bkerl

but whatever, it's your life to waste.

Great response, you would'a made a great nun. Are you sure you don't have a vocation? Then you could live a humble "green lifestyle" growing vegetables and grapes in some bucolic monastery or nunnery. Simple clothes and diet, working the soil for God's glory and a very small carbon footprint to boot.

How are you on the humility and poverty thing?

[AmosBanks]

There were three Hyde Park Co-op Markets


I think they went under because they expanded to three Hyde Park locations when 1-2 would have been more prudent. The one pictured is now Michael's. The one on 53rd is now Hyde Park Produce's new larger location and they are doing brisk business. The one on Lake Park & Garfield is a Treasure Island. Treasure Island charges the same or more than the Co-op, but TI found a way to make people feel better about blowing a whole paycheck there.

I live in Hyde Park and I like that we have the blue trash cans. The city comes through every other week. We fill up one per week (including the college kids in the apt buildings across the alley tossing in their stuff) so we got a second can. That is about as green as I get. I fill up the recycle cans almost 10-1 compared to the black cans and it's nice to know that I am helping to divert a little something from the landfill.

[paytonc]

The Cities are far more coop-y than anywhere else in America, even Madison. It might be the whole egalitarian Scandinavian tradition, it might be the scads of old hippies, it might be that another round of committee meetings sounds like a swell way to huddle together during a cold winter: for whatever reason, you won't find nearly as many co-ops elsewhere. I will say, as a Dill Pickle board member at the time the store opened, we found Logan Square to be an immensely welcoming community for our little endeavor -- and we really love that we've created a community around tasty, healthful, local food. Big corporate groceries can't be as responsive to their communities, can't easily purchase from smaller suppliers, and are just kinda boring all around. I'm quite proud that our neighborhood built and funded a business that's created jobs for neighborhood residents and helped build business for many other farms and food producers in and around Chicago, instead of sending money out to some faceless corporate HQ.

To be clear, I lived a block from the Hyde Park Co-op for years. It felt like a corporate grocery store, only more poorly managed and with some odd quirks like the annual used-book sale and the credit union in the basement. It was established in the 1930s, during the first big wave of co-op creation, and did not have the same 1960s/1970s ideals that guided most of the other co-ops in America. Despite the love/hate relationship many of its neighbors had with it, the Hyde Park Co-op probably would have done fine or perhaps even evolved to fit the times had it not signed a lease on 47th Street with some spectacularly stupid terms.

That said, Hyde Park is also a great multi-generational neighborhood, with lots of greenery, an engaged citizenry, and amazing educational opportunities. The university and the Hyde Park Art Center have really upgraded the area's arts offerings in recent years, so it finally feels like there's some cultural ferment. It will feel very quiet compared to Uptown Minneapolis, but the entirety of Chicago is nearby. Andersonville feels most like Uptown Mpls to me, Logan Square has the city's richest locavore food scene, Lincoln Park has a great weekly Green City Market, and Rogers Park has plenty of old hippies should Hyde Park prove wanting in that department.

For the cynical bullies: someone else is trying to make the world around *you* a cleaner place, and your response is to blow smoke in their face. I don't understand how people get off on showing off their hyper-selfishness. Do you kick over trashcans for fun? Jab people's wounds? What would your grandmothers have to say about that? Sheesh.

[Drover]

"Green-conscious neighborhoods." Good God. Just go do your thing and don't fret about whether your neighbors are as self-righteously "green" as you are.

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by Drover

"Green-conscious neighborhoods." Good God. Just go do your thing and don't fret about whether your neighbors are as self-righteously "green" as you are.

Feeling a little defensive?

I'll tell you what, if you want to clean up after the people who dump their motor oil right down the drain, throw whole bags of McDonald's waste out their windows on the highways, you be my guest.

To paraphrase an old sign we had up in our 12-person college house:

"This ain't your mama's City - clean up after your own damn self."

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by paytonc

For the cynical bullies: someone else is trying to make the world around *you* a cleaner place, and your response is to blow smoke in their face. I don't understand how people get off on showing off their hyper-selfishness. Do you kick over trashcans for fun? Jab people's wounds? What would your grandmothers have to say about that? Sheesh.

I probably did more than anyone you know to make the air and water around us cleaner. But I don't claim any virtue, I did it for the most reliable of motives, the money. Not a Goddam "lifestyle".

You're a scold.

[almost3am]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

I probably did more than anyone you know to make the air and water around us cleaner. But I don't claim any virtue, I did it for the most reliable of motives, the money. Not a Goddam "lifestyle".

You're a scold.

Yeah, but why would you mock someone that wants to live in an area with certain amenities that fit what they like to do and how they like to shop? When I choose a place to live, it is based on what the priorities in my life are, so is this person.