CHICAGO | General Discussions

[LouisVanDerWright]

Honestly guys, I'm just as much of a preservationist as anyone, but Chicago isn't THAT bad at it these days. It's really the glaring and disgusting examples from the past and the fact that we have so many good buildings to lose in the first place that paints an ugly picture. Yeah we are losing a few dozen very nice smaller buildings a year and probably 3-4 true landmarks a year, but that's out of tens of thousands of nice prewar structures and thousands of landmark caliber structures. That doesn't make it acceptable, but it's not a wholesale slaughter either as the hysterics would suggest.

Keep in mind that for every nice greystone you see torn down in Lincoln Park or somewhere for a mansion there's half a dozen of them being rehabbed to last another 100 years elsewhere in the city.

The real slaughter of Chicago's historic building stock lies in the wholesale neglect of entire sections of the city where you might have two or three beautiful buildings on a single block in danger of being wrecked at any given time. It's also these areas where renovations once made no sense and new construction still makes no sense where I think we've ironically made the most progress in the latest boom. There is a silent revolution going on throughout the West and South sides at the moment as investors chase yield anywhere they can get it. Companies like Pangea have gobbled up tens of thousands of units and made a cottage industry of saving properties that would otherwise be left to rot until they fall down or are torn down. And Pangea is just the biggest of these players, there are dozens of smaller shops with hundreds or thousands of units of historic structures. It's now very rare for a nice six flat in Washington Park or South Shore or Austin or Englewood to bite the dust just because it needs to be gutted. Almost all of these buildings are now snatched up by investors at rock bottom prices, rehabbed, and then rented to Section 8 or even market rate tenants.

So for as awful as our current losses are in certain developing areas or the occasional moronic demolition of a Burnham design in the West Loop (these people should be dragged out in the street and tarred and feathered) we've made an insane amount of progress in stopping the real bleeding which is the wholesale destruction of the South and West sides. We've also pretty much put a complete stop to the destruction of true landmarks in an around downtown when it used to be wanton pilfering of our architectural heritage for purely business purposes. When is the last time we lost a prewar skyscraper of any note to the wrecking ball? The mercantile exchange maybe? I think the last true landmark lost downtown was Prentice.

So yeah, what we still lose every year is most definitely unacceptable, but we are working our way back from a status quo and mentality of "old=bad" to one where an extremely special purpose building like the Athletic Association can be repurposed as a wildly profitable experiential multipurpose development. 20 years ago that would be unthinkable and the closing of the original occupant of such a structure would mean the building sitting vacant for years and slowly being destroyed. Now the norm is that old historic skyscrapers become boutique hotels or condo buildings, not parking lots. We just need to organize to apply that mentality to smaller buildings in developing areas where the damage is most easily avoidable.

[10023]

I’m surprised McCormick Place doesn’t have a green roof yet.

[k1052]

Originally Posted by 10023

I’m surprised McCormick Place doesn’t have a green roof yet.

Their roofs drain to the lake, not the combined sewers.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by k1052

Their roofs drain to the lake, not the combined sewers.

Also there is literally a whole farm on the roof of McCormick Place.

https://openhousechicago.org/sites/s...-rooftop-farm/

[moorhosj]

Crain's: The best large and small cities in America

In ranking order, the top 10 big cities (and their lead attributes) were:

1) New York (culture, nightlife)
2) Chicago (conventions, nightlife)
3) Los Angeles (social media clout, diversity)
4) San Francisco (household income, educational attainment)
5) Las Vegas (attractions, culture)
6) San Diego (quality of natural and built environments, household income)
7) Houston (restaurants, number of Fortune 500 companies)
8) Miami (diversity, quality of natural and built environments)
9) Seattle (educational attainment, household income)
10) Boston (quality of natural and built environments, safety)

Source data

[bnk]

Originally Posted by moorhosj

Crain's: The best large and small cities in America


Source data

Even though Chicago and Chicagoland in general are not even listed per capital in the top 25 cities in murder rate...

Even in changing times, one factor remains a constant concern: safety.
“Chicago performs really well in all of our 'product' factors, but it doesn't perform that well when it comes to Ipsos perception,” Fair explains. “If you're asking me to take an educated guess, the bad press the city has received on murder rates and social issues is probably dragging down its perception performance,” he adds.

A lot of the bad press is 10 constant years of conservative news sources that bashed the city since Obama became elected.


The national perception needs to change. It could be our rate limiting factor on a major hq relocation in addition to the pension fiasco.


Even so, here's another snippet of the study's take on Chicago: "Programming and culture keep locals and visitors hopping, while robust infrastructure facilitates exploration. But it's the affordability of life here that keeps Chicago excited about the future."

.

[bnk]

New parkland ranking for cities. The only region left in the hq2 hunt ranked higher than Chicago is DC area.


https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/ch...rkscore-index/

Top 10 best cities for urban parks

1. Minneapolis
2. St. Paul
3. Washington, D.C.
4. Arlington, Virginia
5. San Francisco
6. Portland
7. Cincinnati
8. Chicago
9. New York
10. Irvine


http://parkscore.tpl.org/city.php?ci...100y2juah5cip9


http://parkscore.tpl.org/ReportImages/Chicago_IL.pdf

[sixo1]

Originally Posted by bnk

New parkland ranking for cities. The only region left in the hq2 hunt ranked higher than Chicago is DC area.


https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/ch...rkscore-index/

Top 10 best cities for urban parks

1. Minneapolis
2. St. Paul
3. Washington, D.C.
4. Arlington, Virginia
5. San Francisco
6. Portland
7. Cincinnati
8. Chicago
9. New York
10. Irvine


http://parkscore.tpl.org/city.php?ci...100y2juah5cip9


http://parkscore.tpl.org/ReportImages/Chicago_IL.pdf

Nice! In 2016, Chicago was 15th. Great progress. The city has even moved past NYC.

[ardecila]

I've said before how ParkScore is BS, right? SF is #5 and Chicago is #9, but the only difference is that SF is geographically tiny so their large City Beautiful-era parks constitute a large percentage of the overall city.

Also ParkScore dinged Chicago for not having more dog parks and restrooms...

#9 in the country is actually a pretty good ranking when we are being compared to little cities like Arlington and Irvine, CA. Somehow folks like Friends of the Parking Lot still think a #9 ranking is a crisis, and that we have an acute parkland shortage.

[Baronvonellis]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Three things:

1. Chicago has the best built environment in the world, not Paris. We have a lot of "missing teeth" as a city, but you can hardly fault a city so young for not yet being "complete" in the way an ancient city like Paris or London is. But our unique fabric of a thoroughly modern commerical city built on a pre-auto scale with modern planning and transit isn't found anywhere else.

Man, have you been to cities in Europe like Paris, Berlin, or Munich? The transit system is light years better there. You can get to any neighborhood to any neighborhood quickly across town. You can effortlessly hop from commuter rail, to subway, to tram, to bus. The commuter rail acts as express trains in the core city, running frequently. Just imagine Metra running trains every 5-10 mins with lots more stops in the city of Chicago, with transfers to subways. They have much better urban planning of active midrise neighborhoods, without any ugly parking podiums to be seen. Then outside the city is farm land and forests without the miles and miles of suburban sprawl we have in the US. Basically what the suburbs of Chicago were like pre-WW2. Quiet walkable commuter train suburbs with frequent trains going to downtown near nature.

[the urban politician]

^ Yeah, that's what you get when your city is built by an 18th/19th century monarchy

It sure would be nice if people actually appreciated certain American cities for achieving what they have even while protecting private property rights and facing a Government that is about as transit-hostile as could possibly exist in the western world, and zoning that has been quite hostile to dense housing. Not to call people out, but it kind of gets old hearing 10023 and his incessant questioning about "why isn't Chicago like this and that?" as if you never spent 1 day living in the United States, and certainly aren't acknowledging just how BAD 99% of American is in comparison.

I for one can move to a European city and jump for joy that I live somewhere that looks like it was built by gnomes and elves, but instead I love the fact that, AGAINST these odds, and they are indeed steep ones (population stagnation, car-culture that is even more dominant in the midwest, transit hostility, NIMBYism, etc etc etc) Chicago still is a beautiful and urban city that is becoming more so, despite some of the necessary evils.

[LouisVanDerWright]

^^^ All I know is every foreigner I've brought here who hasn't seen Chicago before loses their shit as soon as they see it. A couple of buddies of mine from London were flabergasted because London simply doesn't have the gargantuan ultra dense CBD that Chicago does. So when I say I like Chicago's built form better than any other city, I mean I think it is outstanding already and not nearly complete like much older cities that have accumulated many generations of buildings filling in every little nook and cranny. The exciting thing about Chicago is that we already have the bones we do and we have plenty of room to be the ones who "finish" neighborhoods and finally bring them to a level of maturity more like what you see in Europe.

If the entirety of Chicago was like Lincoln Park in terms of it's level of development, would you agree with me? I think you would. Fortunately for us we are living in the middle of Chicago's second gentrification cycle, we have opportunities to add to our city that haven't been available to places like Paris or London for many centuries. I mean just look at the mega development sites like Lincoln Yards, 78, LSE, etc. then look at how areas like Logan Square or Wicker Park have gone from "missing teeth" to skyscraper TOD in a mere 10 years or so. Drive down Belmont and see how they've basically demolished every rickety frame structure and built on every underutilized old industrial parcel. Look at the freaking West Loop for Pete's sake! Literally adding an entire new district to the city in what? 5 or 10 years?

So yes, we have lots to work on, yes not everything we build is going to be a masterpiece. But the opportunities we have right now are pretty much non existent in the history of cities. I mean you have places in Europe like Rome that were world superpowers for 800 years ending over 1500 years ago. That's not something Chicago is going to be able to match in a couple of centuries despite being the first truly modern industrial boomtown. Chicago in many ways set the mold for what is happening in every developing country like China where vast cities sprung up overnight. And guess what, I think the original is still the best. Oh and those boomtowns are going to also have to face their own busts at some point as well. There will be a depreciation hangover at some point for any city that blows up like Chicago, and it's almost more fun to be given the opportunity to work on rebuilding the city for the first or second time than it is to build it or be working in the constraints of something more or less complete that anciently sacred.

[Baronvonellis]

Built by gnomes and elves haha! Funny!
Yea, I know Chicago is much better than 99% of the US. I just stopped in Louisville recently, and it was so un-urban in comparison.

I'm guessing the European's coming here are reacting to the tall buildings downtown. They don't have anything like that in Europe. All the people I talked to in Germany were blown away by all the skyscrapers, when I showed them pictures of Chicago. They are jealous of Chicago skyscrapers.

Yes, European cities have 1000 years of development since after the Viking raids subsided basically. Chicago only has 180 years of development so it has a long way to go yet, but the pace of development has been much faster now than from 1000-1500 for example.

Sure, Lincoln Park is very nice, and I'd love to see the rest of Chicago get there, with out the NIMBYs hopefully. I know Chicago is doing lots of good things right now and in just the last 10 years. The 78 and Lincoln yards look very promising, and look just like really nice developments in Copenhagen and Oslo.

I think if we can work on improving transit for the next 100 years that things will be very bright in Chicago. I hope Trump would get serious about investing in infrastructure on a big level like he talks about. We'd really need a big federal push of money for infrastructure, instead of giving more tax cuts to the rich and corporations.

[Baronvonellis]

Also, Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Rotterdam, among other cities were almost totally destroyed in WW2. Most of what you see now was rebuilt after 1945. Berlin looks very modern, not at all medieval even has elevated trains like Chicago. Same time we were building Levvitowns in the US, they were rebuilding dense walkable midrise neighborhoods in Germany. They could have also built sprawl burgs but didn't. Perhaps just by tradition. Germans are certainly big fans of driving and have lots of awesome cars. They built all the autobahns there, the same way we built interstate highways in the US.

I met an Austrian girl in Vienna, she said when the city tried to repave sidewalks with concrete the people protested, because it's not being done with traditional cobblestones, haha!

[LouisVanDerWright]

^ The Autobahn was not built the same way as the Interstate. It is a city to city connection, not cut through the urban cores like the US. This means the car is less useful for inner-city travel and used mostly for intra city travel.

The US took the concept of Autobahns and the Von Hausmanned them straight through every city. It was part of a conspiracy to do just what Vom Haussman did to Paris and undermine the middle class by spreading them out into suburbs we're they would be first bribed into submission with consumer goods and then deprived of their ability to organize a la the Paris mob. Move them to suburbs with low density disjointed cul du sacs and no central meeting grounds on which to protest. The mob rules the city so you want to move the labor out to the pasture where they can be corralled and fattened like cattle. Then you destroy the labor unions by shipping all their jobs overseas and you are left with sedated white collar workers in the suburbs and poor wage slaves living in the city. Then you make the middle class fear the city so the classes don't mix and realize you are putting them against each other.

This was a very conscious policy choice driven by the newly minted military industrial capital in the wake of WWII. The capitalists themselves decamped to the early suburbs like Lake Forest around the turn of the century in response to labor unrest in the city. There was a strong memory of this among capitalists after the war and the Soviet example showed what could happen if they didn't cement their power.

[ardecila]

I agree that a renewed focus on transit is important, especially when we are wholesale redeveloping entire swaths of the city like North Branch, West Loop and Riverline/Southbank/78.

Having one transit link at these sites (like the 78 and its Red Line stop) is considered good, but if we don't provide a menu of transit options in each of these places, then people will drown in their own congestion and I think this kind of growth will become unsustainable. I don't mind having congested roads if people have a reliable transit alternative, but in most of these cases the only alternative for non-downtown trips is the bus, and it's stuck in the same damn traffic jams. We need to start building a network of frequent reliable transit service across the inner part of the city, not just to/from the Loop.

Building bus lanes is the obvious choice but we kind of shit the bed on that one with Daley's parking meter lease. Maybe it is worth buying out the contract or at least negotiating a ransom price per mile to get our streets back...

[SolarWind]

June 12, 2018



Looks like most of the trees didn't survive.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by SolarWind

June 12, 2018
...
Looks like most of the trees didn't survive.

They look like they survived to me. This year was cold so far into spring, though, many trees bloomed far later than usual.

[SolarWind]

July 2, 2018



Trees are fenced off with bracing in place.

[ardecila]

^ Wow, when did you switch from Hayek to (David) Harvey?

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

I met an Austrian girl in Vienna, she said when the city tried to repave sidewalks with concrete the people protested, because it's not being done with traditional cobblestones, haha!

Paris and Rome actually have a lot of asphalt sidewalks. Would be unthinkable anywhere in the US to have city sidewalks made of asphalt but in Paris it's de rigueur. It's gotta be cheaper, too.