How many people should live in Chicago? (Cicero, Oak Lawn: townhouses, employment)

[chiMT]

Originally Posted by eating while walking

I have some smug California friends and relatives so I would be happy to see Chicago beat LA in population. Whatever their number is, let's beat it by 1 person.

See, I haven't seen many people offer a good reason to increase the population. It nearly always seems to be this, the fact that we want to "compete" against other cities. Like an inferiority complex. Come on. Does it really matter? Is this really a good reason to have more people, just to "boost our numbers?"

Originally Posted by A2DAC1985

Maybe, and correct me if I'm wrong, this seems to be a more suburb centric view.

Nah, it's just that my vision of an "ideal" city is not a place where you can barely move (on foot or in a vehicle). I have to admit that my main beef is how much a pain it is to drive to and from work every day. If we changed just that, I would love this place more. I don't see how more people would change that for the better.

[eating while walking]

Originally Posted by chiMT

See, I haven't seen many people offer a good reason to increase the population. It nearly always seems to be this, the fact that we want to "compete" against other cities. Like an inferiority complex. Come on. Does it really matter? Is this really a good reason to have more people, just to "boost our numbers?"




Nah, it's just that my vision of an "ideal" city is not a place where you can barely move (on foot or in a vehicle). I have to admit that my main beef is how much a pain it is to drive to and from work every day. If we changed just that, I would love this place more. I don't see how more people would change that for the better.

Maybe you missed the title of my post: "I'm no urban planner so this is all in fun.."

[chiMT]

I don't see how my post goes against that.

[marothisu]

Well, I can tell you that the increase of population for myself is for more vibrancy on the streets. I think that everyone thinks that density always means overcrowded, but there's such a thing as healthy density and unhealthy density. Chicago is not in the realm of unhealthy density where things feel too cramped. I have been in those situations before and Chicago is a long, long ways from being there. Not even most of NYC is there, at least when you're on the street (except for a few areas at short periods of time per day). Size of living quarters is another story.

So personally, I would love to see the population get larger so there's more areas of vibrancy on the streets in certain areas. If it were to do this, and maintain the quiet areas too, the city would become even more attractive to people looking to move to an actual city.

[Tenzo]

Originally Posted by A2DAC1985

At 234 square miles and 2.7 million residents, how many people, in your opinion, should/could live in Chicago?

There is no right or wrong answer, but please explain your answer.

As many as want to.

[Chubsworth]

Four million live in Melbourne, a pretty nice place, so I'm going to go with that.

[justalicious6989]

Chicago had over 3 million at one point, so why not? Benefits over more people living in the City are, closer commute to work, reduce the sprawl we call the suburbs. Public transit ridership would increase, thus the CTA Would be forced to make improvements at a faster pace. There's plenty of articles out on the Internet as to why City living reduces people's carbon footprint etc. I'm all for cities! Long live the density! Open spaces scare me.

[ColdAilment]

4 MILLION! Chicago needs to pass up Los Angeles!

[Kamms]

Originally Posted by justalicious6989

Chicago had over 3 million at one point, so why not? Benefits over more people living in the City are, closer commute to work, reduce the sprawl we call the suburbs. Public transit ridership would increase, thus the CTA Would be forced to make improvements at a faster pace. There's plenty of articles out on the Internet as to why City living reduces people's carbon footprint etc. I'm all for cities! Long live the density! Open spaces scare me.

Chicago had closer to 4 million residents than 3 million at one point; something like 3.6 million. Anything that would help the CTA rebuild and provide innovative 21st Centry public transportation. Chicago should be closer to 4.5 million in the city given its past population peak.

[hjt123]

Around 4 million. The amount of empty depopulated space on the south and west sides is a terrible tragedy.

It's unfortunate because when those sectors of the city are built up again, it will probably be with ugly, impermanent architecture like the kind that is currently dominating new construction in LA.