CHICAGO | Politics and Current Events

[LouisVanDerWright]

Burke just got raided again lol:

https://chicago.suntimes.com/?post_t...source=twitter

Down and down the rabbit hole we go! Hopefully the Feds will run across evidence to throw a few more aldermen and maybe some state level politicians in jail.

On thing I have to say for the rent control people is that at least they are honest about their goals of dispossension and theft of private property. Animals like Burke who steal through deception and corruption need to be taken out to the farm...

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by cityofneighborhoods

1.) Writing off entire neighborhoods as "shitholes": do you personally know people who live in Englewood, Greater Grand Crossing, etc.? If so, do they call their neighborhoods shitholes? Do you tell them their neighborhoods are shitholes?

^ You've got to be kidding me--I never said that.

I stopped reading your post as soon as I encountered that ridiculous sentence, and I won't engage you further.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Burke just got raided again lol:

https://chicago.suntimes.com/?post_t...source=twitter

Down and down the rabbit hole we go! Hopefully the Feds will run across evidence to throw a few more aldermen and maybe some state level politicians in jail.

On thing I have to say for the rent control people is that at least they are honest about their goals of dispossension and theft of private property. Animals like Burke who steal through deception and corruption need to be taken out to the farm...

Yep. Like I said before, this "Chicago machine" and the "don't send nobody nobody sent" culture in Chicago is positively stifling at a minimum, and destructive at worst. It's hurting our ability to grow and attract talent, in my opinion. It. Needs. To. End.

[cityofneighborhoods]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ You've got to be kidding me--I never said that.

I stopped reading your post as soon as I encountered that ridiculous sentence, and I won't engage you further.

Originally Posted by cityofneighborhoods

I've read forumers openly call entire parts of town that are not the downtown or Northside shitholes, make claims that the only way to improve neighborhoods is via gentrification, claim it is irresponsible for families to live and send kids their kids to schools in certain South and Westside neighborhoods if they any means to "escape", there are no issues with housing affordability in the city, etc.

I never said you specifically said any of these. You seemed to agree and take ownership over these opinions:

Originally Posted by the urban politician

No, you don't want to hear my ideas. That's the whole point. You already decided that you understand them and that they are "classicly douchy".

Do we really need to start naming names of who said each of these? I have no interest in singling anyone out, but all of these have been said multiple times on the forum.

[Bonsai Tree]

I hope though, that we all can recognize that the city does in fact have an affordability problem. What I hate hearing (and have heard) is that the city is affordable because of average statistics. Sure, some sections of the city are plenty affordable, but others are definitely not. Our city should be affordable to all people, no matter where in the city. I'd love to see affordable housing in the Gold Coast or in Lincoln park. Moreover, it is the job of everyone involved in housing to help mitigate this. Government, Landlords, developers and tenants need to come to a consensus on what to do. I agree that rent control is a terrible idea, but so is letting developers and landlords off the hook when it comes to solving the problem. Both of these solutions go to the extremes of the spectrum, and fail to reach a logical consensus. The city needs to provide incentives to new developments. Instead of putting money into that stupid "neighborhood" fund the city should trade density for affordable housing. In exchange for higher density, developers would have to include affordable housing (and I mean true affordable housing, not that BS affordable housing in the 78) in their developments. I know this overwrites the Aldermen, but when it comes to affordable housing wealthy ward aldermen can go shove it.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Bonsai Tree

I hope though, that we all can recognize that the city does in fact have an affordability problem. What I hate hearing (and have heard) is that the city is affordable because of average statistics. Sure, some sections of the city are plenty affordable, but others are definitely not.
...

In what world would it even be physically possible to have affordable housing able to meet all demand in every neighborhood?

It's the responsibility of the City to help ensure that there are affordable areas which are safe and have transportation systems that enable commuting to places with good jobs. But that's it. There is absolutely no imperative for any locality to guarantee low-cost housing in every existing district, that's insanity.

[emathias]

Double post

[ChiMIchael]

Originally Posted by emathias

In what world would it even be physically possible to have affordable housing able to meet all demand in every neighborhood?

[B]It's the responsibility of the City to help ensure that there are affordable areas which are safe and have transportation systems that enable commuting to places with good jobs.[/B ]But that's it. There is absolutely no imperative for any locality to guarantee low-cost housing in every existing district, that's insanity.

But the city hasn't been doing that particularly well which is the center of the problem at hand. There's plenty of affordable housing if you find gunshots therapeutic.

I do think the residents of those communities need to have more pride in them and stop perpetuating the problems there, but the city needs to be held accountable for their contributions to the state of those communities.

[Kngkyle]

Originally Posted by Bonsai Tree

I hope though, that we all can recognize that the city does in fact have an affordability problem.

Nope, not at all.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Until rents rise above $700-800/mo for a 2 BR apartment two blocks from the L, no we cannot all acknowledge Chicago has an affordability problem. And no, it's not particularly violent there, there's been a grand total of six homicides in Little Village so far this year which is only one more than Logan Square and nowhere near some of the "shooting gallery" hoods we do have.

The notion that Chicago lacks affordable problem is a figment of the imagination of bleeding hearts who have never actually left the N or NW side. It doesn't reflect the reality on the ground of the other 75% of the city period.

Again, you can claim such things all you want, but I have been offering $800 transit adjacent apartments for years on here and have yet to get even one request from any of you which tells me you are all satisfied with your own housing situation and don't actually know anyone who is having issues finding a place they can afford.

Meanwhile I continue to deal with real people who actually can't afford expensive rent like the old lady I just helped find and move into a section 8 building at Barry and Sheridan where she will now be paying $183/mo after subsidy for a nice ass 1 BD apartment three blocks from the lake in Lakeview.

Again, you can perpetuate this myth all you want, but it's a total load of bullshit if you actually deal with this issue on a day to day basis. I have never once had a tenant that I've asked to move have any difficulty finding a new similarly priced apartment somewhere of equal or better quality to where they are at now. In fact, about 90% of the time I find that tenants I am "displacing" wind up in much more comfortable quarters than they were before because it turns out your apartment gets pretty fucked up after you live in in for 10, 15, or 25 years. Almost every time the new unit they move into results in much much better living conditions than whatever cheap ass fucked up apartment I'm asking them to leave. I know it's shocking to you, but two little old ladies on fixed incomes of $700/mo each shouldn't be living in a unit with rates holes and an old claw foot tub they could bust ass getting out of that hasn't seen a dime invested in it since 1995. Instead they have a recently updated unit with a new walk in shower half as far from the train. But yes, because they are now paying me $700/mo instead of $600 Chicago has an "affordability crisis"...

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Bonsai Tree

I hope though, that we all can recognize that the city does in fact have an affordability problem. What I hate hearing (and have heard) is that the city is affordable because of average statistics. Sure, some sections of the city are plenty affordable, but others are definitely not. Our city should be affordable to all people, no matter where in the city. I'd love to see affordable housing in the Gold Coast or in Lincoln park. Moreover, it is the job of everyone involved in housing to help mitigate this. Government, Landlords, developers and tenants need to come to a consensus on what to do. I agree that rent control is a terrible idea, but so is letting developers and landlords off the hook when it comes to solving the problem. Both of these solutions go to the extremes of the spectrum, and fail to reach a logical consensus. The city needs to provide incentives to new developments. Instead of putting money into that stupid "neighborhood" fund the city should trade density for affordable housing. In exchange for higher density, developers would have to include affordable housing (and I mean true affordable housing, not that BS affordable housing in the 78) in their developments. I know this overwrites the Aldermen, but when it comes to affordable housing wealthy ward aldermen can go shove it.

I couldn’t disagree more.

I don’t accept the argument that 1) Chicago has an affordability problem, 2) that it is a municipality’s responsibility to distort the market unfairly so as to reduce prices for lower income voting blocks, and 3) that landlords and property owners should in any way feel obliged to lower the price of their product because of a mandated “duty”.

There is plenty of affordable housing stock, people just need to move to it. We all move. If I can move countless times in my life (Michigan—Philly—Nashville—Chicago—Washington DC—New York—Wisconsin—Chicagoland) I’m sure others can too. No one group of people can simply claim that an area is theirs in perpetuity, no matter what the market demands, ever. That is a preposterous notion.

The reality is, there is no “problem” that needs solving. This is all about careers. People create “problems” to solve to justify their ongoing employment. Lawyers and their lobbyists pass silly rules so that they have to be hired. Job security. Politicians and Sociologists have fabricated the “problem” of affordable housing and offered their own “solutions” so that they can keep speaking about it on the radio, TV shows, and write articles about it. It’s job security, and it’s disingenuous because they would never have a frank discussion about whether said problem even exists, and whether all options are even on the table to fix it.

If politicians were honest and not so ready to rob people of their livelihood at every chance, they would fix this so-called problem by using tax dollars to build massive amounts of low income housing, like the FHA did decades ago. But they know that this would be expensive and politically untenable, so it’s easier to simply rob a private person’s property and force them to lower their prices instead. Win win for everyone, right?

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Until rents rise above $700-800/mo for a 2 BR apartment two blocks from the L, no we cannot all acknowledge Chicago has an affordability problem. And no, it's not particularly violent there, there's been a grand total of six homicides in Little Village so far this year which is only one more than Logan Square and nowhere near some of the "shooting gallery" hoods we do have.

The notion that Chicago lacks affordable problem is a figment of the imagination of bleeding hearts who have never actually left the N or NW side. It doesn't reflect the reality on the ground of the other 75% of the city period.

Again, you can claim such things all you want, but I have been offering $800 transit adjacent apartments for years on here and have yet to get even one request from any of you which tells me you are all satisfied with your own housing situation and don't actually know anyone who is having issues finding a place they can afford.

Meanwhile I continue to deal with real people who actually can't afford expensive rent like the old lady I just helped find and move into a section 8 building at Barry and Sheridan where she will now be paying $183/mo after subsidy for a nice ass 1 BD apartment three blocks from the lake in Lakeview.

Again, you can perpetuate this myth all you want, but it's a total load of bullshit if you actually deal with this issue on a day to day basis. I have never once had a tenant that I've asked to move have any difficulty finding a new similarly priced apartment somewhere of equal or better quality to where they are at now. In fact, about 90% of the time I find that tenants I am "displacing" wind up in much more comfortable quarters than they were before because it turns out your apartment gets pretty fucked up after you live in in for 10, 15, or 25 years. Almost every time the new unit they move into results in much much better living conditions than whatever cheap ass fucked up apartment I'm asking them to leave. I know it's shocking to you, but two little old ladies on fixed incomes of $700/mo each shouldn't be living in a unit with rates holes and an old claw foot tub they could bust ass getting out of that hasn't seen a dime invested in it since 1995. Instead they have a recently updated unit with a new walk in shower half as far from the train. But yes, because they are now paying me $700/mo instead of $600 Chicago has an "affordability crisis"...

Don’t you see, though? There is no point in having this argument. People have already made a career of “solving” a problem whose very existence is still very debatable. You’re not going to convince the Mattie Hunters of this world of anything because talking about rent control, etc gives her a job. This is about keeping oneself relevant.

That’s why having career politicians is such a problem for our country. If we could go back in time to the drafting of the US Constitution, one thing I would change is imposing a 2 term limit on all elected offices in the land. The menace of a self-serving Government would have never gone out of hand like it did had the founding fathers done that.

[Stunnies23]

Originally Posted by Bonsai Tree

I hope though, that we all can recognize that the city does in fact have an affordability problem.

The city does not have an affordability crisis. Right now, you can rent a 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment with off street parking and heat included for $850 a month in the Clearing neighborhood. It is right next to the Midway Airport Orange line stop. The neighborhood has had zero murders this year, and is incredibly family friendly. The schools are pretty darn good too. Once you get out of the north side bubble, its easy to see Chicago is a VERY affordable place to live.

[Bonsai Tree]

Originally Posted by Stunnies23

The city does not have an affordability crisis. Right now, you can rent a 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment with off street parking and heat included for $850 a month in the Clearing neighborhood. It is right next to the Midway Airport Orange line stop. The neighborhood has had zero murders this year, and is incredibly family friendly. The schools are pretty darn good too. Once you get out of the north side bubble, its easy to see Chicago is a VERY affordable place to live.

This is exactly what I was talking about. This methodology. Sure, the city overall is affordable, but when it comes to large portions of the city, it is not affordable at all. It may be affordable to you, or others, but in the end that doesn't matter. What our city suffers from is broad economic segregation. I don't care if you guys think the city is "affordable", because a shit ton of people would say otherwise. Economic disparities are severely hurting our city. There are definitely many affordable neighborhoods, but in the end even these middle class neighborhoods are being squeezed between the two extremes of wealthy and extremely poor neighborhoods. It is undeniable that Chicago has lost many of its true middle class neighborhoods over the years.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Bonsai Tree

This is exactly what I was talking about. This methodology. Sure, the city overall is affordable, but when it comes to large portions of the city, it is not affordable at all. It may be affordable to you, or others, but in the end that doesn't matter. What our city suffers from is broad economic segregation. I don't care if you guys think the city is "affordable", because a shit ton of people would say otherwise. Economic disparities are severely hurting our city. There are definitely many affordable neighborhoods, but in the end even these middle class neighborhoods are being squeezed between the two extremes of wealthy and extremely poor neighborhoods. It is undeniable that Chicago has lost many of its true middle class neighborhoods over the years.

I don’t see the problem with highly desirable neighborhoods being expensive.

What’s the whole point of going to College, going to school, and working hard, if it doesn’t get you something nice? Might as well not even finish high school, extrapolating your logic

[BorisMolotov]

This is exactly what I was talking about. This methodology. Sure, the city overall is affordable, but when it comes to large portions of the city, it is not affordable at all. It may be affordable to you, or others, but in the end that doesn't matter. What our city suffers from is broad economic segregation. I don't care if you guys think the city is "affordable", because a shit ton of people would say otherwise. Economic disparities are severely hurting our city. There are definitely many affordable neighborhoods, but in the end even these middle class neighborhoods are being squeezed between the two extremes of wealthy and extremely poor neighborhoods. It is undeniable that Chicago has lost many of its true middle class neighborhoods over the years.

So now it's a basic right for someone to be able to live in the Gold Coast, no matter their income level? That just doesn't make sense. The fact of the matter is that there are neighborhoods in this city that have larger, nicer, and more expensive housing than others and you can't live there unless you can afford it. That's the way it is in every place in the world since forever. I'd have loved to have grown up in a big house in Barrington Hills but my family couldn't afford it so I grew up in Bartlett instead. Are you suggesting I was denied a right to live in Barrington Hills?

[emathias]

A problem with putting affordable housing in high-rent neighborhoods that you don't even seem to grasp is that the businesses and services in high-rent areas are much more expensive. So you arrange someone to have cheap rent, great, but now do they have to commute out of the neighborhood to do all of their shopping, or have you just increased their living expenses outside of rent by 50-100%?

Groceries are more expensive in the Gold Coast, haircuts are more expensive, hardware store items after more expensive, pet food is more expensive, clothes are more expensive. And they're not just more expensive for the same items, like maybe Tide can be had for $14 in Deering but it's $18 in River North, but certain low-end brands simply aren't sold in expensive neighborhoods. In many markets outside of downtown, Goya makes up a huge percentage of available brands for many items. In downtown, you might find a few Goya items in a 5-foot "Ethnic Foods" display.

So, no, giving people cheap rent in expensive areas is a terrible idea, with many unintended consequences.

[LouisVanDerWright]

And we get to the Crux of the issue. People who make arguments like this fundamentally lack an understanding of capitalism. Sorry dude, the American system always has been and always will be capitalist, you will never change that no matter how many Che posters you buy or anarchist logos you tag on bus stops.

What these comments demonstrate is an absolute lack of understanding of just how important the allocation of capital is to modern civilization. If you think that "large portions of Chicago aren't affordable and should be" I don't know what to tell you. Are you seriously suggesting there should be no nice areas that are more expensive than other areas? Why? What's even the point of that? "Equality" for the sake of equality? If there are cheaper neighborhoods that everyone can afford that are more or less equally well located, then why do you care if there are also super nice areas? What did the people living in Lincoln Park do to you that you want to drag their community down so it's "affordable"? To me such nonsense smacks of envy like you can't stand seeing someone better off than you.

No, here's how it works. It's literally absurd to suggest everyone should be able to afford to live anywhere they want. Why? Let's do an economic thought exercise here, in economics you can often distill quite complex arguments or concepts down quickly by simplifying the scenario with a ceterus parabus example. Let's say your Utopia exists in a world where the only city on earth is Chicago. Let's also assume that there's only one "most desirable point" in this city. Let's call it Armitage and Halsted (again just for the sake of arguement). If your dream world is to exist then literally everyone would move to Armitage and Halsted because it's the nicest place on Earth. So there would have to be some kind of "The Illinois" archology built there to accommodate it. You can see that now the situation rapidly becomes absurd. Why would it be so absurd? Because that's not the real world, the real world is dominated by scarcity of resources and the construction of one giant building to house the entire city of Chicago in the "most desirable neighborhood" (which is the logical extreme of what would have to happen to make this absurd dream of egalitarian neighborhoods a reality) is not an efficient allocation of these resources.

And hence why we have capitalism which I think has done a pretty damn good job of allocating resources in Chicago to build neighborhoods and buildings of all kinds to accommodate people of all stripes and preferences. The alternatives to this system have been repeatedly tried resulting in much human suffering and failure. Lest we forget the Corbusian hellscapes our government created trying just such experiments less than a century ago.

Get over it, capitalism exists and it's actually supplying everyone in society with more and better off everything than at any other point in human history. Your student loan debt is a tiny cross to bear when your entire economic class didn't exist 250 year ago and you would likely have lived on a farm as some kind of serf or been worked like a dog in the city for some aristocrat. Which reality is worse? That Lincoln Park is too pricey for an immigrant family of 6 to afford or Dickensian London?

[Bonsai Tree]

^^I understand where you are coming from, I do. I too love what the modern capitalist American society has created. Without it Chicago wouldn't be the great city it is. But you also are mincing up my ideas. I never argued that the American system shouldn't be capitalist. I never said that. It is simply my hope that we can make our city more friendly to all people, no matter their income. Plenty of other cities in the world do a good job of doing this. I think it makes sense to have new developments in wealthy neighborhoods, (or anywhere in the city) trade density for more affordable housing. That's what I argued for in my original post. I think this is a logical way to include more affordable housing in all parts of the city. I also never said that the government should rebuild public housing. I think public-private partnerships are the perfect way to create affordable housing. I fully understand that the gold coast will never have very much affordable housing, but that does't mean it shouldn't have any. The more economically segregated a city, the harder it is for poor people to ever move up the ladder. The larger the gap between rich and poor, the more problems inevitably arise. That's just how it works, and I'm sorry if you tend to think otherwise.

Also please don't use Lincoln Park as an example of "dragging" their community down to affordable status. Lincoln Park is already dragging itself to the dump, without any affordable housing. And maybe that's just the reason why it needs some affordable housing. Your support of deleting zoning regulations would also create more affordable housing across the city, including Lincoln Park, so I feel like we have more in common than you really think. Less regulations to zoning, means more density, which means more affordable developments. We are reaching the same conclusion, and both have ways to get there. I hope this struck up some sort of middle ground.

[the urban politician]

The more economically segregated a city, the harder it is for poor people to ever move up the ladder.

I've heard this statement many times and I am curious how true this really is.

Did being next to the Gold Coast do much for the residents of Cabrini Green?

How much of this has anything to do with geography versus other factors?

And if living next to professionals is a good thing, then why are some people in Pilsen throwing such a hissy fit about white people moving into "their" neighborhood? Looks like they are content on Pilsen staying poor and Mexican.