Quote:
Originally Posted by bcp
IF these areas want to attract private investment - and big dollars, they need to abandon the idea that SFH is the way to transform the neighborhood. That will most likely be the last and final housing type built there.
They need to support (and push) for upzoning of everything within 1/2 mile of every single transit station and along the major bus routes. Quadruple the density and you will attract retail, create jobs, and it's booming from there - density also will keep prices in check, and move way faster than any gov't support SFH program...for all their scheming and funding, it's slow and barely transformational compared to the free market (granted, free market needs the gov't to upzone to kick this off!)
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LOL. As marothisu already noted, this was and still is on the high end of density for Chicago neighborhoods
even with 63rd in its bombed out state and a population decline of 2/3rds from its peak. Right or wrong, the leaders in the community (mostly oldtimers) associate multifamily housing with neglect and absentee landlords. Hell, there was a 4 year period in the 1960s when 362 buildings burned down, many of them likely arsons by landlords.
So, the answer is that they
don't want private investment. But they have tolerated new SFH because practically there is no good legal tool to stop SFH construction, and because the end result is ideally a Black middle-class household staying in the neighborhood and gaining control over the land. This bias seems to be pretty widespread in the Black community, not just in Woodlawn, which is why the only private investment in Bronzeville is SFH and townhomes and the only apartment construction is led by nonprofits or CHA.
The new alderman Jeannette Taylor seems a little more open to TOD and density next to train stations/reduced parking, but if she's gonna demand any new apartments be social housing then the neighborhood will be stuck with only a trickle of investment for the foreseeable future.