Why isn't Chicago Metro growing.... (construction, restaurant, statistics)

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by edsg25

as far as Chicago's core and surrounding areas declining, the Trib, as I noted them noting, said the area received about a 37% boost in population and, in fact, is terribly undersupplied with residential units (the topic of the article was how Rahm wanted to see more intense residential development near CTA and Metra stations to increase the number of available units.

Anybody with 10% of a brain who has paid any sort of attention to what's actually happening in the core and some of the surrounding areas knows this. Anybody who denies the fact that the core is actually growing is nothing more than either (a) an idiot or (b) a complete troll or (c) has zero idea of what they're talking about but still talking about it.

And nobody can deny that other, especially more industrial areas, are not exactly growing (quite the opposite usually). These two things are pretty much evening things out - so yes, on the whole the city is not growing really much population wise. However, it's been evened out by the growth in a handful of neighborhoods. If those neighborhoods like on Near North Side were not growing, we'd see population estimate changes in the negatives and not the positives (even if that's only a very small percentage currently). Not to mention that the last final unemployment rate, 6.7% from May, is down 4% from June 2013 when it was 10.7% (SOURCE: Local Area Unemployment Statistics Home Page)

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by steeps

No other city in the US will have the scale of Manhattan.

and the question is: would any city want to?
that's the last thing i'd like to see in Chicago. and thank goodness we don't have 1000 ft.+ thin-as-a-needle destroying the skyline with their out-of-scale monstrosity nature. when it comes to scale, give my boston, chicago, and san francisco any day over new york.

[steeps]

Originally Posted by edsg25

ok, Nola, where did I say that Manhattan hasn't been growing for 40 years? I said that back in time (around the time of the consolidation of Greater New York, Manhattan had a population of 2,000,000. of course, for well off, wealthy enclaves like manhattan, population can actually go down as fewer people live in a unit (no that isn't happening in manhattan,but it could…sometimes lowering of population may bring success.

as far as Chicago's core and surrounding areas declining, the Trib, as I noted them noting, said the area received about a 37% boost in population and, in fact, is terribly undersupplied with residential units (the topic of the article was how Rahm wanted to see more intense residential development near CTA and Metra stations to increase the number of available units.

as for making no sense, you, NOLA, the master of negativity, take the cake: all you do is come here and ***** and troll about how much you hate chicago and how bad it is. if you dislike and disrespect chicago so much, why do you even bother to post here?

i'm go out on a ledge sticking off the sky deck of sears tower on this one and say that your credibility on this sub forum is somewhere in the range of, oh, perhaps….0%.

According to Wikipedia. Manhattan lost 9% in population in the 70s and 6% in the 80s. Remember too NYC was on the verge of BANKRUPTCY IN THE 70s. The US Federal Government bailed it out.

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Anybody with 10% of a brain who has paid any sort of attention to what's actually happening in the core and some of the surrounding areas knows this. Anybody who denies the fact that the core is actually growing is nothing more than either (a) an idiot or (b) a complete troll or (c) has zero idea of what they're talking about but still talking about it.

i checked with the louisiana board of public education and the anybody-in-question comes with 8% of a brain, so you have been proven right. thanks for reminding me, marothisu, and i should pay attention to the signs, like the ones i see at Lincoln Park Zoo: DON'T FEED THE TROLLS.

[FAReastcoast]

Originally Posted by edsg25

and the question is: would any city want to?
that's the last thing i'd like to see in Chicago. and thank goodness we don't have 1000 ft.+ thin-as-a-needle destroying the skyline with their out-of-scale monstrosity nature. when it comes to scale, give my boston, chicago, and san francisco any day over new york.

Out of curiosity, why don’t you like thin skyscrapers? They provide much better human experience at ground level. I wish Chicago would adopt this practice, but with so much developable land, and less than ideal parking requirements, I don’t see that happening. Any of the current 1,000 + ft building going up have less of a street impact than a 400 + ft building in Chicago. The streets of chicago are slowly turning into parking podiums, and half block long developments.

[jdiddy]

Originally Posted by FAReastcoast

Out of curiosity, why don’t you like thin skyscrapers? They provide much better human experience at ground level. I wish Chicago would adopt this practice, but with so much developable land, and less than ideal parking requirements, I don’t see that happening. Any of the current 1,000 + ft building going up have less of a street impact than a 400 + ft building in Chicago. The streets of chicago are slowly turning into parking podiums, and half block long developments.

Yep.

[chet everett]

Well NY has at least some trends moving in an encouraging direction -- Comptroller: NY reached record employment in 2014

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by FAReastcoast

Out of curiosity, why don’t you like thin skyscrapers? They provide much better human experience at ground level. I wish Chicago would adopt this practice, but with so much developable land, and less than ideal parking requirements, I don’t see that happening. Any of the current 1,000 + ft building going up have less of a street impact than a 400 + ft building in Chicago. The streets of chicago are slowly turning into parking podiums, and half block long developments.

i find them terribly out of scale. i don't like the effect the billionaires row condos have on the skyline; they stick out like a sore thumb, their narrowness makes them appear rectangular, almost boxy. i would have had problems with the chicago spire for the same reason…..it just was too big to fit.

i don't disagree with what you observe about the effect of high rises on the streets in chicago. it's unfortunate that more of the garages are not built underground. a nice exception is a building i had touted on another thread here……9 W. Walton, which does bury the garage below grade.

as far as the "human experience" you mention, i have to wonder how "human" it feels to place those behemoths not on one of manhattan's wide avenues, but on one of the narrow streets, W. 57th; talk about feeling congested

[FAReastcoast]

Originally Posted by edsg25

i find them terribly out of scale. i don't like the effect the billionaires row condos have on the skyline; they stick out like a sore thumb, their narrowness makes them appear rectangular, almost boxy. i would have had problems with the chicago spire for the same reason…..it just was too big to fit.

i don't disagree with what you observe about the effect of high rises on the streets in chicago. it's unfortunate that more of the garages are not built underground. a nice exception is a building i had touted on another thread here……9 W. Walton, which does bury the garage below grade.

as far as the "human experience" you mention, i have to wonder how "human" it feels to place those behemoths not on one of manhattan's wide avenues, but on one of the narrow streets, W. 57th; talk about feeling congested

9 W. Walton looks like a great building, if they actually use real materials (stone instead of precast) it should look great and make a great impact on the street. Unfortunately for every 9w Walton, there are dozens of precast towers on parking podiums going up.

As for 57th St, while I agree that the towers would fit in better on the avenues, they would obviously loose the iconic Park view. I actually don't think most of the billionaires row buildings are that bad from the street, and you really don't realize how tall they are until you look up. Regardless, I think NYC has a pretty ideal setup for it's buildings: Midtown and Lower Manhattan (FiDi) have all of the supertall construction, while the remainder of Manhattan is filled with more human scale developments.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by chet everett

Well NY has at least some trends moving in an encouraging direction -- Comptroller: NY reached record employment in 2014

Of course - the city is doing well (and actually the unemployment rates of both NY and Chicago are actually as of today fairly similar) and growing as are some of the other places nearby like Jersey City.