CHICAGO | General Discussions

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by Stockerzzz

It's not smart to lock down the city and kill small businesses when everyone stopped adhering to the Stay Home Order weeks ago.

Drive around the neighborhoods on a Saturday or Sunday. No one is staying home.

Less than 50% are wearing masks.

People's non-compliance are factored into the model, but I agree, that a lock down had higher compliance (or... enforcement) would be much more effective and would have lasted less long.

[emathias]

Living in the very core might actually become more popular if businesses don't decamp to the suburbs. After all, living downtown in Chicago means you can walk to work and avoid public transit. But we'll see, I don't know what to expect in the midterm. People who hate being cooped up aren't likely to enjoy living in the suburbs. In the long term, the research into universal vaccines may bear fruit in 10-20 years. At that point, if society hasn't collapsed, What will the impact be for cities?

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by emathias

Living in the very core might actually become more popular if businesses don't decamp to the suburbs. After all, living downtown in Chicago means you can walk to work and avoid public transit. But we'll see, I don't know what to expect in the midterm. People who hate being cooped up aren't likely to enjoy living in the suburbs. In the long term, the research into universal vaccines may bear fruit in 10-20 years. At that point, if society hasn't collapsed, What will the impact be for cities?

To the contrary, I think the suburbs are highly desirable right now.

While in normal times I will always prefer dense and walkable urban environments, right now I am better off in sprawl. Easy to isolate. When traveling by car you are never exposed to anybody.

But more pertinent—everything that I love about city living has vaporized with stay at home orders and social distancing. Other than going for strolls, there’s no destination! No bars, no restaurants, so many neat shops are closed. Festivals are all canceled, you can’t enjoy the lakefront, you can’t visit the river walk, riding trains has begun to spook people, etc.

I mean, why pay the higher rents for city living if you can’t enjoy it? Might was well live in the burns and drive around on relatively low traffic roads with low gas prices. We go on bike rides, walk around our neighborhood, and have been grilling on our deck almost every week. I’ve become somewhat of a connoisseur of grilling steaks at home.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

We go on bike rides, walk around our neighborhood, and have been grilling on our deck almost every week.

My family has been doing the exact same things here in Lincoln Square.

Uprooting our whole lives right now and moving out to the burbs would be a rather drastic long-term solution to a very temporary problem.



But perspective has never been an American strong suit, so......

[IrishIllini]

I don't know what'll happen, but I know for a fact people said the city (commercial/residential high rises) was over after 9/11 and we went on to see downtowns across the country surge in popularity. Humans need cities for social and economic reasons and the general demographic trend of this country is increasingly pro-urbanization.

[OrdoSeclorum]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

To the contrary, I think the suburbs are highly desirable right now.

Some of the amenities that make city living attractive are diminished for the next few months. So if someone is doing a cost/value proposition and is sitting on the edge, suburbs are more likely *right now* to come out ahead. But even then it's hard to see suburbs as "highly desirable." The value proposition in the short term is less unfavorable than it was last year.

Just because suburbs are cheap doesn't make them "desirable." If people don't need to be in cities, then they don't need to be in the suburbs either. I'd rather do email on a deck overlooking a lake than next to poorly constructed single family homes and the occasional dreary commercial strips and large commercial buildings on streets without sidewalks that have been retrofitted to maximize auto throughput and parking.