It's interesting that the City of Chicago now has more jobs downtown than outside downtown. Has that ever been true anytime on the past (obviously meaning once after Chicago was bigger than just the 1835 borders)?
Also interesting that around 28% of all added regional jobs were in downtown, an area made up of a tiny fraction of the geography of Chicagoland. In fact, the portion of added jobs that were added just in downtown is almost exactly the same as the proportion of the regional population that Chicago proper holds (about 28% for both). I think it's awesome that 40% of the region's jobs were added within the City proper. Maybe doesn't portend well for the suburbs, but should be a great thing for the City.
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Originally Posted by killaviews
If you work downtown the trend is definitely noticeable.
Looking forward to reaching a million jobs downtown in a decade or so. These numbers do not include Federal, state, or local government employees. That could be another 50k jobs downtown.
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Downtown has exploded since 2010, and it was hardly a slacker before then. The West Loop, especially including Fulton Market, is on an insane tear, River North is closer than ever to being fully built out, the South Loop is finally feeling like a cohesive neighborhood instead of a wasteland punctuated by a few luxury outposts. The same could be said of the East Loop and Streeterville. If Downtown is counted s far north as North Ave, the former Cabrini-Green area is actually making some progress toward filling in. I think the next Mayor is, while primarily trying to crack the pension crisis, going to have to start being serious about planning and adding additional grade-seperated transit in the downtown area unless they want downtown to choke on itself. It's already pretty strained, and if we add another hundred thousand+ residents and quarter million jobs in an area of only about ten square miles (Cermak Road, the Lake, North Ave, ~Ashland, minus Pilsen), the logjam that is the areas between Chicago Ave, Congress, and Canal is going to fill the entire downtown area and significantly hinder movement at any time during daylight hours.
A Circle Line with a narrower scope than the original plan would be very useful, something like a Clinton Street subway that, going south, actually splits off the Red Line at around Halsted until Chicago Ave, then swooping east under Cermak, back north roughly signed with Columbus and, after a couple jiggers, returns west under either North Ave or, ideally, Armitage. The only problem that doesn't solve is getting West Loopers to North Michigan Ave, which will matter less if the West Loop is better tired to Lincoln Yards and "The 78," which can absorb additional office space, leaving Streeterville to be mostly residential and/or just not typical commercial office space. A big chunk of the eastern leg can parallel existing Metra rails (I know they won't like that, but tough beans), the stretch through Streeterville will be a challenge, but maybe can be done as a very deep tunnel like in Barcelona, and if it goes under Clark north of Chestnut, the half-mile between LaSalle and Armitage could be cut and cover through the Park, and if the NW corner of this greater loop is nudged it a little, it comes "close enough" to be useful for Lincoln Yard, permanently solving the biggest concern for that area.
Sounds fanciful right now, but I think without it, downtown will choke on itself within a few decades unless the economy in Chicago just collapses.
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Originally Posted by IrishIllini
Yeah...the only thing that will address the murder reputation is less murder. DC is worse than Chicago, but I don't really hear or see people mention it much. It has been said before, but for better or worse, crime in Chicago is highly segregated.
I also felt more uncomfortable in parts of SF than I do here, but I know where I am when I'm here and I'm nowhere near as familiar with SF. It felt like I walked past more "sketchy" people in SF than I do here.
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Yeah, statistics aside, I really dislike San Francisco. So much of it is just ... gross. I mean, even parts that aren't actually gross, are way overblown. Boystown, for example, is way better than the Castro is. Like any big city there are, of course, some great things, like the Golden Gate bridge, the cable cars, some of the less touristy neighborhoods, but overall it just feels like a child's neglected toy idea of a city. I mean the fact that they've had decades of problems with human excrement on sidewalls is just disgusting and can't be seen as anything other than a glaring sign of apathetic, incompetent governance.
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