Quote:
Originally Posted by bcp
It's an infrastructure issue - swaths of vacant land, dilapidated main streets, few businesses / jobs, busted sidewalks, and more that make (unfortunately) some of the areas close to transit, near the lake, with parks, and with old housing stock are probably the very slowest to improve. You've got to be a serious urban adventurist to move to 63rd and Vernon:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/S+...!4d-87.6144212 |
Woodlawn actually isn't that bad once you ignore 63rd St. Close to lots of parks and the lakefront, easy access to all the amenities of Hyde Park. People down there are hating on the Obama Center but it has no impact on the day-to-day life of people in the community - the driver of gentrification is more likely the Trader Joe's/Whole Foods on Lake Park Ave and all the other development on 53rd. Kenwood was like this in the 90s but now it's out of reach for most people.
63rd St is a weird twilight zone because there's sharp disagreement in the community on how to develop it. Will the L be extended back to Dorchester or Stony Island, etc. with a TOD development strategy, or should the L remain as-is and 63rd developed with townhouses and SFH? Fortunately there's now some attention around development at the existing stations at King Drive and Cottage Grove, and the general planning trend in the city is toward TOD/multifamily and away from townhouse/SFH. But Rev Brazier Jr is still there with his thousands of church members. I hope the city will revisit this L extension once the Obama Center is completed, I think they were hesitant to even raise the issue if it would jeopardize the Obama project. Supposedly the steel beams
are still in storage to
put the L back up, but I imagine if they built it again it would be shifted to the alleys north or south of 63rd with a concrete structure and better soundproofing.
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