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Originally Posted by Via Chicago
(Post 6964261)
Who cares that SROs and mental health clinics are closed as long as we get our cocktail bars, gourmet mac and cheese, and luxury micro apartments, right?
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This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't illegal to build SRO's as-of-right on every single square foot of land in the city.
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are suddenly co-opting the culture and piggybacking on years of grassroots hard work now that its suddenly trendy to be there.
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Lol, "co-opting the culture"? Really, that's not at all what gentrification is about if you look at this from any perspective not tainted by white guilt. These neighborhoods are redeveloping because of the quality of their location. People aren't moving into these neighborhoods en masse so they can get a good authentic taco. Sure that's a perk, but the neighborhoods, particularly in Chicago, have developed almost linearly without exception based upon the desirability of the location starting with the near North side working North then gradually spreading to the Northwest.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Via Chicago
(Post 6964312)
the problem with this forum is it is a echo chamber. a lot of people of the same sort of economic advantages patting each other on the back and cheer-leading the same causes, which they stand to gain from in one way or another.
im not anti-development by any stretch. but there are a lot of perspectives that are sorely lacking a mouthpiece, not just here but in the broader narrative. theres a pervasive attitude of "i got mine, the outcomes of anyone else is irrelevant"
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I think it's more split along the lines of "people who actually have skin in the game" and "people who have never done this before". I know that both TUP, myself, and a few of the other regular voices on here have bought, managed, and owned buildings in neighborhoods like Pilsen, Little Village, Ukranian Village, and Avondale. We understand the depreciation cycle, we've known tenants in these areas for years, we understand the culture, we've seen how this works, we've dealt with the city, so of course we are going to see the cycle and, frankly, the business as what it is.
It's very easy to sit back and say "well shabby buildings are like Honda's, don't dis them for not being a BMW" if you've never dealt with a 110 year old tank of a building that is in complete disrepair. Guess what, as the owner of a Honda that is going on two decades, I can tell you that eventually cars wear out, buildings do to, but you can't just crush old buildings and recycle them. You need to completely rehab them inside and out which means higher rents ("gentrification") so the numbers actually work. If the current citizens don't have the money and no one else moves in, then the neighborhood rusts and eventually goes the way of Lawndale or Englewood. Neighborhoods like Little Village are perilously close to experiencing serious decay unless they see major reinvestment. That's what us "gentrifiers" do and it takes serious time, money, and guts.
And before you jump on your high horse about "I've got mine" and "have some empathy" realize that most people don't just go around buying buildings and then evicting all of the tenants so they can raise the rents. At least that's not how it is in Chicago. It's much more fine grained that than. I don't think I've ever forced someone out of an apartment because their rent was too low. I am busy enough turning over the units in my portfolio that have gone vacant "naturally" because someone moved out. The difference is, once I've put $10k into a unit, I sure as hell can't rent it out at $400 for a 2BR anymore. So that rent's going up to $800. I have dozens of tenants who are paying low rents who I just let be. I raise their rent maybe 3% a year and, if they pay, I let them be. Why? Because they are good people, well really, because it is good business.
One building I own I actually bought from the bank after the family living in it lost it to the bank. Various family units used to live in all six of the apartments. 4 of the 6 apartments are still rented to their family at well below market rents of $450 for a 2 BR. They leave me alone and put up with the relative "shabbiness" of their units because they know they are getting a deal. I'm OK with that because I've got bigger fish to fry than chasing away paying customers so I can spend money on renovating their units. But until you look at the shape many of these buildings in these areas are in and the kind of work that needs to be done, you can't say shit about gentrification. The building owned by the family that I described above would have been destroyed if I hadn't come in and purchased it. Practically all of the exterior elements of the building were failing and they already took out $300k in loans to make improvements that they somehow blew on something else. This type of situation is rampant in these areas and that's mainly what the "gentrifiers" are buying. We aren't picking off well maintained three flats, we are buying the properties that have significant repair costs priced in. These are the properties that need the most attention and could very well be the next vacant lot.
Have you ever bought an abandoned property and then fought off a city demo case and multiple other building code cases? I have...