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Location: East Central Pennsylvania/ Chicago for 6yrs.
2,535 posts, read 3,282,012 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FAReastcoast
First off, comparing San Fran and Chicago is apples and oranges; San Fran does not have the racial tension, and levels of poverty Chicago has. Secondly, I think we will see a San Fran with 1M + people in our lifetime (good or bad is debatable).
To reply to your initial question, "Global Chicago" (ie. the good parts), will continue to do well and thrive, while the Black Belt of Chicago will continue to Struggle. I just don't see areas like Englewood ever coming back.
I think Chet's reply is pretty spot on from a political perspective, as long as the machine keeps trucking along, the financial situation will not improve.
As for "progress", I absolutely hate the city Chicago is turning into; I'm not a native Chicagoan, but the city has lost it's soul in my opinion. I'm not interested in walking past parking podium after parking podium, and I hate the lack of preservation in this city, the number of historic/classic buildings being torn down for shiny glass boxes on parking structures is really depressing. So while, I don't think Chicago is in any danger of being the next Detroit, as the city "progresses", it is slowly turning into a generic, cookie cutter city. I know that is Harsh, but just my opinion having lived here for 3 years.
I was a bit FLOORED when I read you say Chicago HAS A LACK OF PRESERVATION??? I believe Chicago HAS..... VERY ACTIVE PRESERVATIONIST.
Downtown Chicago has a TON of RESTORED and RE-PURPOSED Classic Chicago old Skyscrapers. Saving the BEST of the Old is clearly seen walking around the Loop especially. One thing Chicago did better then NYC even.... is MNY FULLY RESTORED and CLEANING Of its entire exterior too. Not just the interior and street-level.
I always felt Chicago did a AWESOME job of Preserving buildings. The OLD THEATERS were SAVED. Sadly I believe a couple were lost... before Preservationist PREVENTED THE OTHERS FROM A WRECKING BALL. Till the idea of a LIVE THEATER DISTRICT Developed as today. I understand the Chicago Theater on State was almost lost.... The Cultural Center today as it was the former Main Library was ALMOST LOST and then saved. Even streets along the "L" were restored and cleaned and re-purposed.
I do believe some GREAT OLD BUILDINGS were lost already in the early 20th century from the 1800s. But none really alive remember them. But Pictures prove how awesome they were.
LaSalle St still has most of its Older buildings.... of courses few were replaced. Same with Michigan Ave. Yes a couple were lost. But PRESERVTIONIST made sure as many others as they could.... got saved. TODAY IT IS AWESOME and keeps getting better.
Chicago has a AWESOME MIX OF OLD AND NEW SKYSCRAPERS . Look how Printers Row was Spared.
Sure there are some Boxes built in the 60s and 70s . But still it was aspect of them decades architecture. But All decades since the Great Fire have examples Downtown. Chicago has some totally new sections of Downtown From parts of the Near North through Streeterville. The New River East or New East side to the new Eastern Loop and South Loop.
I surely AND TOURIST NOTE.... Who the city virtually MANICURES DOWNTOWN. Planting seasonal flowers and green medians with trees even on the "L" streets had Green planters added.... State to LaSalle and Wicker Dr. to Michigan Ave look awesome with their green an flowers. Even hanging off the Antique street lights.... I LOVE the Reproduction street lights. Even City hall and Cultural Center has flowers on window planters.....
You want a city that virtually REMOVED ALL THEIR OLDER CITY.... BUT FOR HAND-FULL OF BUILDINGS.... IR'S HOUSTON. It still is allowing older buildings to be leveled..... NO ACTIVE PRESERVATIONIST THERE AT LL IT SEEMS...
Chicago still has AWESOME VISTAS of NEW AND OLD ARCHITECTURE.... ALONG WITH A BLEND....
Some may see just some black to shiny boxes in this awesome picture.... but it is as a PAINTING as buildings fall into place.... for CHICAGO... New and Old.....
In fairness, I kind of feel the same way about NYC. Many of my native New York friends who grew up in NY feel the same way about their city. DC people have the same complaints.
IMO, Philly has done the best job of becoming modern while still preserving its historic identity and soul. Boston also does a pretty good job of maintaining the modern with the historic, and retaining some of its unique soul.
I've lived here for about 3 years also, and I also haven't been too impressed with a lot of the modern buildings that have gone up in replacement of the historic. But many other cities have that problem too.
My understanding is when people say NYC is losing it's character, it is because longtime business (Bodegas, Music Venues, etc) are closing and trendy boutiques, restaurants, and national chains are opening in their place; it is not because NYC is literally tearing down it's history. For the most part, virtually all of Manhattan and Brownstone Brooklyn (the two areas most guilty of losing character) look almost exactly as they did 100+ years ago. Whereas in Chicago, many areas are literally being bulldozed for modern buildings and parking structures.
Admittedly, a large percentage of the general public prefer new glassy buildings with plenty of parking to 100+ year old structures not always up to modern standards, but I would take character and the architecture over convenience.
No one claimed that SF is successful because of population growth. It's a result, not a cause, of prosperity.
SF has amazingly fast population growth and that is testament to an amazingly strong local economy and extreme desirability.
not my point, NOLA. my point was that population growth in San Francisco is negligible, in real numbers very small because SF is a small city that will remain a small city because (1) it is and always was a compact tip of a peninsula, some 49 sq mi on a hilly terrain tightly packed with no room for growth and (2) SF is more than comfortable with its size and has no desire to change it.
I don't find anything "amazingly fast" about the growth of a city that traditionally hovered around 750,00 and liked it that way. SF itself has absolutely no desire to measure itself by population growth. Never had. Never will. And the boom-times, such as they are, is mostly fueled by an internal movement of people within the Bay Area, high tech guys giving up the suburban life style they abhorred in a reverse back-to-the-city migration that takes them up the peninsula from Silicon Valley to SF, carrying a number of high tech firms or at least part of them with them to Soma, Mission Bay, and other points south of Market.
SF and Boston, two very successful cities, small but the heart of large metros, will never grow large. Neither (and certainly not SF) have any desire to be Houston or, quite frankly, New York.
it's not just the place they call "The City": the entire Bay Area is not a population growth machine. Why? Well, it sure isn't because of desirability (where the Bay Area in many ways blows away any other US metro) and it certainly isn't because of a lack of a booming economy.
No, neither of those are right. What it stems from is that the Bay Area, pretty much across the board, has fought large scale, dense residential construction, even in places where logic might dictate that it go: you know, like BART stations in peripheral areas of East Bay or in core areas of San Jose/Silicon Valley.
You want to see the Bay Area's attitude towards growth and development: take that short (well, at least when traffic is light) trip from DT SF and head over to one of the treasured pieces of gorgeous and astronomically expensive real estate by crossing the GG into Marin…..a place today that has remained BART-less by choice and where open space abounds and remains undeveloped surrounding Sausalito, Belvedere, Tiburon, Mill Valley, etc., all at the southern tip of the Marin peninsula. That the Marin headlands, facing out over the Golden Gate to the Presidio and the whole city beyond, remain green (ok…brown…the new California norm) and development free.
Kamms (I'm fairly certain it was him, though I could be wrong & sorry if i am) had posted here (and that post has disappeared, at least on my computer) that SF would end up being 1,000,000+ at some point….and on that one, I would strongly disagree. a million-and-change San Francisco would destroy San Francisco and make it lose the very attributes that make it so great and so desirable. SF goes tight and dense but not high outside the greater downtown district. You simply don't see any real high rises outside of the core, measured by me as being east from Van Ness to the Bay and north from Mission Bay to the north waterfront of Pier 39, the wharf, Ghiradelli, Aquatic Park. Where would SF grow those additional 200,000 people: the only areas that would be ripe for redevelopment are depressed areas go south of downtown along the bay all the way to candlestick point…..and I don't think anyone would allow that waterfront property to be walled off from Mission, Potrero, and other neighborhoods to the west by a string of high rises. Where in the hell is SF to grow a couple of 100,000 more people….and still be SF?
It's the way they like it, NOLA, and want it.
And it is one reason why despite what other forumers had posted that when I started this thread (a mistake I will admit since it turned into the very s**tfest that marothisu {"but the entire thing is going to end up as bait for a few people and will no doubt be closed in a matter of a few days"} accurately predicted on the first response to my thread starter) I wasn't thinking about "population growth" as a key factor in a Chicago comeback and another golden age.
maybe I'm an outlier here on city-data. I'm just not the big fan of growth than what would seem to be the norm on this forum.
nothing I know of is built on the concept of "endless growth" except for cancer. and like a cancer, it is consuming us. Growth suggests capitalism's (particularly today's later stage predatory capitalism) "endless supplies for endless demands", a battle that mother earth is reminding us more and more is a folly that cannot (and will not) survive. Do I think that our great coastal cities, places the likes of NY and SF (and that no-brainer which would be Miami), will pay a helluva price for their locations with rising sea level and, particularly on the east coast, far stronger Sandy-like storms? For the record: damned right! Do I think the vaunted "Global Economy" will have a short shelf life? Guility on that one, too…..yep, I buy into that (again a city-data heresy, i fully realize)
Back in "the day" (hell, it was little more than a century back), cities were not measured in greatness by size and density as opposed to the unique attributes they possessed. And a mere 100 years ago (to show how short our understanding of time is), NYC was nowhere near the top of the list of global cities we would have considered "the greatest"). and Paris arguably was at the top of the list, hardly based on population or economic growth. With time increments becoming shorter-and-shorter as everything speeds up, who is to say what city (if any) will be at the top of the heap in another 100 years…..and whether that city (fairly unlikely) with be in the western world of the North Atlantic that embraces both NYC and London today.
Look, NOLA, you and I disagree greatly. And much of it is opinion, it's how we see things. You seem to drool over NYC's current spike in growth, its arrival at (and a very recent arrival I may add) that the movement of people into the city (largely immigrants) exceeds New Yorkers exiting. I see NYC differently. Personally all the growth that is exploding in Manhattan is something that I see as potentially turning that city into a hell hole. Nothing is more depressing than the unbelievably tall, narrow towers of Billionaires' Row on W. 59th city that crow the cityscape, cast their ugly shadows over Central Park, and more and more give the impression that NYC is there for the rich (who, for the record, don't even live in those towers but might spend a week or two there during the year). Manhattan grows cold and corporate and generic (consider Hudson Yards). And is there sanity in a 1000 ft+ tower to rise over Brooklyn.
To each his own. I don't have any desire to see that kind of growth in Chicago. But I would like to see South and West Sides neighborhoods rebuilt, see people moving in and see them functioning again.
And when I started the thread, I fully embraced Chicago's considerable woes and, quite frankly, the Emerald City that is downtown, the lakefront, and areas going up the North Side cannot and will not thrive if the third world city that is much of the south and west sides doesn't drastically change.
What I wrote here, which seems forgotten, is just that: Chicago is in trouble today. Chicago has been in trouble in the past. But it always seems to bounce back. People write it off and the city comes back, sometimes with a vengeance.
So all I was asking here was this: can the city, with its undeniable, incredible, world class assets use what its has (and would be the envy of so many, many other cities) to bring Chicago to new greatness? not comparative, not "versus", not what NYC or SF or Podunk are doing, not taking away (or giving) to any other city….but focusing on Chicago on its own and its ability to reinvent itself once more.
and through three pages of discussion here, nobody (and I mean nobody) has addressed that issue. Indeed, this thread (as marothisu so accurately predicted from the get go) is nothing more than the painfully usual, the painfully endless "What's wrong with Chicago (apparently everything) and why is in the shadow of all those great cities out there"
marothisu also noted this thread would have a short shelf life and get closed down soon. hopefully, he's right on that score, too.
Can you give some examples of buildings that have been torn down that you were disappointed to have seen not saved/rehabbed?
For me it is death by a thousand cuts. A good portion of Chicago's italianates have been bulldozed in River North and Lincoln Park, and replaced by glass towers and/or McMansions (Look at 1900-1800 blocks of Burling, Orchard or 2400-1700 blocks of Howe, Dayton, Freemont, Kenmore, etc).
There are literally hundreds of other examples out there. Just alone in my neighborhood of west Lakeview (Southport), there are dozens of great Greystones being torn down for McMansions. Additionally, my in laws are real estate developers who work in Lincoln Park, and anecdotally they have torn down 50+ buildings alone over the past 5 years, and the majority were built 100+ years ago.
On top of all of the buildings being torn down currently, Chicago has many scars from the 70's, 80's and 90's that are still around, such as Drive Thru's, Strip Malls, Surface Lots, and Housing Projects.
Check out North Ave from Wells to Halsted, perfect example of all of the above, and that stretch has not recovered, and looks awful, and is in the core of the city.
So, as the city continues to transform/progress, much of the city's architecture and soul will be lost forever. Do you really want to live in a city full of Glass Boxes and Parking Structures? Look, Chicago is a great city despite all of my criticism, but I really do dislike the city it is turning into.
Please note, obviously not every building is worth saving, and there are examples where glassy towers make sense.
Last edited by FAReastcoast; 12-13-2015 at 05:31 AM..
just out of curiosity, chet: isn't NYC the absolute poster child for "tear down and rebuild", far exceeding any other US city?
NYC has also torn down some Gems as well, but far less so than Chicago. Much of NYC looks exactly as it did 100+ years ago. Virtually all Manhattan neighborhoods are landmark districts, where teardowns don't exist the way they do in Chicago.
Here is another peeve of mine in regards to Chicago; why do these glass condo buildings need to take up an entire city block? Chicago needs to have code in place with reasonable lot sizes. This parking lot should support 5-6 buildings, instead we get another building that takes up another block: A Look at the New Luxury Condo Tower Planned for River North - Development Watch - Curbed Chicago
I know I am ranting a bit, but this is exactly what I dislike about Chicago; and I find it tied to the OP's original question.
As long as you keep on voting for leaders who do the same ol same ol, you will get the same ol same ol.
As long as people want to be forever indebited to the Democratic "vote for me and i will give you goodies" and they believe it, and then these promises turn out empty.. you will continue to get the same ol same ol.
Cant we have any good leaders to nominate?
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The Cultural Center today as it was the former Main Library was ALMOST LOST and then saved. 
Even streets along the "L" were restored and cleaned and re-purposed. 
Look how Printers Row was Spared. 
