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They're coming into the city one way or another though. Car owners and car free people both find them to be convenient, myself included, so I frankly don't have a problem when Target (and other large businesses) open them in a fairly dense neighborhoods with the above or below garage style parking.
The Target on Broadway by Sunnyside is far less annoying than the Jewel just south of it, for example.
If you mean to say that the literal configuration of the Jewel's surface lot is somehow better for the area than the hidden lots of Target that is pretty strained argument.
If, however, you want to argue about the folly of allowing big box stores of any kind to dominate the retail scene that is a whole other ball of wax. On the one hand, I am not a particular fan of NYC when it comes to the stink of ancient and improperly maintained sewers but fact is that having the hodge-podge of tiny listreet level storefronts that in Chinatown might be filled by entrepreneurs selling bubble tea and smoothies while closer to the Empire St. building you've got similar spaces filled with selfie-sticks and "I♥NY" t-shirts that seems to be a much more dynamic and truly free-wheeling sort of capitalism that essentially allowing Target to monopolize a whole city block.
When, not if, Target eventually implodes, just as Carson's has and Marshall Fields did, the difficulty of finding anyone to redevelop these costly and clunky behemoths will be a lesson in why street level retail diversity or at least subdivability is better than bowing to the demands of powerful corporations.
If you mean to say that the literal configuration of the Jewel's surface lot is somehow better for the area than the hidden lots of Target that is pretty strained argument.
The bottom portion of your post didn't apply to my comment, so I cut it. I have no interest in discussing whether or not Target may one day fold.
As for the part that I did quote, that's the opposite of what I said. I prefer the hidden garage style parking at the Target on Broadway versus the Jewel just south of it that has a large surface level parking lot.
As a person without a car who occasionally walked to that Jewel to shop when I lived nearby, it was a pain crossing the lot to get back to Broadway with my purchases. Especially since the drivers weren't paying all that much attention half the time. The Jewel on Broadway by Addison is far less annoying to deal with because it only has a handful of spaces in front of the building, and the rest is garage. It's far easier to get back to the sidewalk.
Interesting discussion here... But this thing never should be built, and it never will. First of all, we have clearly learned from past mistakes of letting highways care scars through the hearts of our cities. The main reason this wasn't built was because activists fought hard against it, because it would have required the destruction of 30,000 homes. If you want to destroy the southwest and west sides, and cause crime in the area to spike like no other, then go ahead, build a highway and destroy neighborhoods and history. But it will never happen, because people are smarter now. Today, cities are making clear movements away from the highway. If any sort of big infrastructure project is built in the next 20 years, I would expect it to be another train line, or some other form of improved transit, and not something that would destroy a good portion of the city.
Caveat: people want to bike without fearing that they will become a statistic. This requires a different infrastructure than the one that exists. They want a train system that is reliable and extensive. They want neighborhoods that are walkable to get to and from the train, and stores, and entertainment, and everything else that makes living in a big city worth it.
People didnt know they needed smartphones until they got them. Many people dont know what its like to ride a train to their destination every day, or to bike to errands without feeling vulnerable. Once given the support structure though, many find its actually not that bad after all, and in fact make it part of their lives.
Government can favor any development pattern it chooses. Why do we have zoning that allows for strip malls on dense urban streets? Why do we allow drive throughs on prime corners? Why, until very recently, did we not encourage developers to build car-free apartments next to train stations? Why was suburbia subsidized post-WWII?
Dude, the city of Chicago was not built to be hip, walk able and dense. It was built the way it was because until the 1920ies public transit was often your only choice and before the 1950ies fewer people owned cars. We allow strip malls because they are an urban form useful to people who have cars.
There are plenty of car free apartments near BUS lines and some near train lines on the west and south side of the city. It is more than that...
Lots of people know what it is like to need to ride the train or use the bus for every daily task, and frankly it's hell. The automobile is faster for most trips in the city, able to carry more, not limited to an time table, not limited as to distance it can travel and so on.
Suberbia arose because the reasons why Chicago was built so dense didn't exist anymore. With an car and an refrigerator shopping by the week becomes possible. Factories no longer had to be tied to the schedule of the train lines an workers no longer needed to live quite as close to the factory.
What is new is this car free lifestyle of young urban professionals. It works because the small apartments and lack of car are much more easy to manage without an family and it is much more easy to manage when you have an 9-5 job in the loop.
Depends where the grocery stores and Targets are located. I've seen various Targets and grocery stores downtown and on the North Side that have little to no lot parking like you'd find in the burbs, and instead they have added parking either above or underneath their own buildings.
Obviously not universal throughout the city (or even the North Side), but they can built without the massive suburban parking lots.
They are built that way because the land available and the price of land demands that this kind of parking be used and parking above or underground is always more expensive and often less safe(i.e. An place for someone to lurk around unobserved.). They are not trying to be accommodating to the pedestrian.
So the argument here is that if this highway is built, beautiful neighborhoods like Garfield Park and Englewood might not look like Amsterdam. OK.
As someone who takes with almost equal frequency Metra, CTA, Uber, bike, and car, and also lives in a very walkable area, all forms of transportation are important and each have their own unique strengths and advantages.
Dude, the city of Chicago was not built to be hip, walk able and dense. It was built the way it was because until the 1920ies public transit was often your only choice and before the 1950ies fewer people owned cars. We allow strip malls because they are an urban form useful to people who have cars.
There are plenty of car free apartments near BUS lines and some near train lines on the west and south side of the city. It is more than that...
Lots of people know what it is like to need to ride the train or use the bus for every daily task, and frankly it's hell. The automobile is faster for most trips in the city, able to carry more, not limited to an time table, not limited as to distance it can travel and so on.
Suberbia arose because the reasons why Chicago was built so dense didn't exist anymore. With an car and an refrigerator shopping by the week becomes possible. Factories no longer had to be tied to the schedule of the train lines an workers no longer needed to live quite as close to the factory.
What is new is this car free lifestyle of young urban professionals. It works because the small apartments and lack of car are much more easy to manage without an family and it is much more easy to manage when you have an 9-5 job in the loop.
im aware of all these things. i understand the layouts of Rome and Vienna are products of their time, just as much as the development of Phoenix and Dubai and Houston are products of their time. you tell me which ones you prefer spending time in though. should Paris or Stockholm knock down the middle of their respective cities for stripmalls and expressways because that would be more convenient to car owners? if not, why should we value ours any less?
also, a well designed city or neighborhood does not require a train or bus ride for "every daily task". ideally most of those things should be walking distance.
Last edited by via chicago; 10-07-2015 at 12:46 PM..
im aware of all these things. i understand the layouts of Rome and Vienna are products of their time, just as much as the development of Phoenix and Dubai and Houston are products of their time. you tell me which ones you prefer spending time in though. should Paris or Stockholm knock down the middle of their respective cities for stripmalls and expressways because that would be more convenient to car owners? if not, why should we value ours any less?
also, a well designed city or neighborhood does not require a train or bus ride for "every daily task". ideally most of those things should be walking distance.
Our cities are not quite so old. Old cities can have much more problems in terms of infrastructure(i.e. even if there was an expressway in the middle of rome all those tiny traffic clogged streets lacking parking wouldn't allow much more in terms of cars). Frankly, when I see pictures of Rome, I think how pretty the old stuff is and thank god I live in the USA where I can get in my car and drive around town easily if I want to.
As for tasks within walking distance, good luck hauling groceries for 2 working parents and and a child in an granny cart. Sure you can limit yourself to tasks you can perform in your little area, but with an car the city and the burbs are at your disposal. Need to drop one kid off at daycare in mourning and take the other kid to tutoring after school and somehow get to work in between, good luck doing it without an car.
What is happening is that the well offs are pushing the less well offs out of an area and those less well offs are not always poor people. Can you imagine an guy who works in an factory, has an good income but needs his car attempting to live in Lincoln park? I know he sure isn't depending on the CTA to get him to work before 6.a.m..
i should Paris or Stockholm knock down the middle of their respective cities for stripmalls and expressways because that would be more convenient to car owners? if not, why should we value ours any less?
Paris and Chicago have entirely different city centers. The cities are vastly different.
And no one is proposing that Chicago's core be knocked down for stripmalls and expressways.
Our cities are not quite so old. Old cities can have much more problems in terms of infrastructure(i.e. even if there was an expressway in the middle of rome all those tiny traffic clogged streets lacking parking wouldn't allow much more in terms of cars).
we have the exact same problem though. maybe to a lesser extent, but ultimately at the end of the day a car coming off an expressway needs a place to go, and that place is still a city grid layout designed in the early 19th century. and its clearly not working well given the levels of congestion we experience every day.
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As for tasks within walking distance, good luck hauling groceries for 2 working parents and and a child in an granny cart. Sure you can limit yourself to tasks you can perform in your little area, but with an car the city and the burbs are at your disposal. Need to drop one kid off at daycare in mourning and take the other kid to tutoring after school and somehow get to work in between, good luck doing it without an car
this is all about how you structure your life, and how we as society structure our built environment. which is why im arguing for more density and better transit links. if the daycare and tutoring and grocery store and place of employment are in your neighborhood (or close to it), suddenly the overwhelming need to get on an expressway to do those things is no longer necessary.
im not saying we need to eliminate cars, theres always going to be a need for them. but decreasing our dependence on them is not such a bad thing. but it requires a certain kind of neighborhood to be successful, and petitioning for more expressways in the city does not lead to that kind of neighborhood.
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