CHICAGO | General Discussions

[pip]

Last weekend I biked through the West Loop and explored. Second time in a few weeks. I'm really liking this neighborhood and it's growing by a ton by what I saw.





My bike in all it's glory

[the urban politician]

^ That second pic looks like the Gold Coast

[pip]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ That second pic looks like the Gold Coast

Omg it is lol. NM! That was on my way home from the West Loop

[MayorOfChicago]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

The high is 73 today.

And we had the shittiest February since shit starting existing. That month, my managers had to make countless treks out to my properties to clear feet of snow off of the sidewalks and walkways, costing me mucho $$

Pipes froze and flooded.

Yeah, we're on our way to becoming Arizona...

Other than the few weeks in February where it snowed a ton and was cold - it managed to be the warmest winter on record.

I remember at the end of January asking people if we were going to get any sort of winter at all, it was in the mid to upper 30's and quiet for all of December and January.

[the urban politician]

Looks like soon we will be cruising “Dusable Lakeshore Drive”

I think it’s a decent compromise, and boy did we dodge one there.

I suspect most people will still just call it ‘Lakeshore Drive’, and they won’t be incorrect either since that is still in the name.

[Rizzo]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

The high is 73 today.

And we had the shittiest February since shit starting existing. That month, my managers had to make countless treks out to my properties to clear feet of snow off of the sidewalks and walkways, costing me mucho $$

Pipes froze and flooded.

Yeah, we're on our way to becoming Arizona...

The neighboring apartment building dumped all their snow into my buildings gangway. I basically had nowhere to put the snow and could only clear a narrow path. Our owners and tenants were forced to walk around the building to take out the trash. On top of that, the garbage company wouldn’t pick up the trash because the alley was impassable and when the neighbors’ dumpster filled up, they just dumped their trash in my dumpsters and I still ended up paying an extra $100 for overflow. It was a frustrating month.

[Steely Dan]

What's up JBPdSLSD

or, ya know, LSD

[ardecila]

I still think this is a waste of time when we still have streets named after actual fascists and murderers.

However, if we do it we should do it properly. Would be great to get specialized highway signs like NYC uses on their parkways. Let's turn it into a moment of civic pride and identity instead of a ho-hum name change.

https://specialmoderndesign.com/projects/ny-signs/

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

What's up JBPdSLSD

or, ya know, LSD

I wonder what people will call it. I hardly think anybody is going to say, “I took Dusable Lakeshore Drive to get here”

I’m pretty sure that “Lakeshore Drive” will remain the defacto name in common usage.

[sentinel]

Why do I keep reading that Pointe de Sable (real name, NOT 'du Sable'), had slaves of his own? It seems like a highly dubious claim, especially considering that very little is actually known of him. But I've read it before, and it would be very troubling that the City and state would continue honoring such a man if there was documentation of that.
Regardless, the man's life story is clearly more mythical than anything idiot alderman want people to believe.

[ardecila]

Pretty much everyone back then was a real SOB, you had to be if living on the frontier and colonizing Indian land was appealing to you. Whether a slaveowner or not, duSable was clearly a self-interested guy and not a noble person or role model in any sense.

In the end the city's decision to honor duSable says more about us in 2021 than the actual facts of his life 200 years ago. The symbolism of including Black and native people in the city's creation myth, which I don't have a problem with. It's just so fucking clunky in execution - LSD was an iconic name without any historical baggage and the new name is ridiculous.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by sentinel

Why do I keep reading that Pointe de Sable (real name, NOT 'du Sable'), had slaves of his own? It seems like a highly dubious claim, especially considering that very little is actually known of him. But I've read it before, and it would be very troubling that the City and state would continue honoring such a man if there was documentation of that.
Regardless, the man's life story is clearly more mythical than anything idiot alderman want people to believe.

Yeah, frankly I think the fetishization of someone who was undoubtedly a murderous, greedy, colonizer is one of the more offensive government actions in recent memory. I get that they want to celebrate a free black man as the founder of the city, but the fact remains this is land stolen from the Potowatami and guys like DuSable are directly to blame for it. If they wanted to actually be politically correct they would do something, anything, to celebrate the true founders and owners of this place, not a literal colonizer. I would be much more supportive of it being renamed Potowatami Drive or something like that.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Yeah, frankly I think the fetishization of someone who was undoubtedly a murderous, greedy, colonizer is one of the more offensive government actions in recent memory. I get that they want to celebrate a free black man as the founder of the city, but the fact remains this is land stolen from the Potowatami and guys like DuSable are directly to blame for it. If they wanted to actually be politically correct they would do something, anything, to celebrate the true founders and owners of this place, not a literal colonizer. I would be much more supportive of it being renamed Potowatami Drive or something like that.

Which is why, as this point was just made two posts up, they should have just stuck with "Lakeshore Drive" because it didn't have any baggage associated with it. But, hey, politics.....

[Klippenstein]

Can anybody provide any reliable source to support the claim that he was undoubtedly a terrible person?

He was the son of an enslaved person, which would give him a unique perspective on the world compared to a lot of the Europeans claiming indigenous territories as their own. From what I read, he came to Chicago after gaining the trust of the native people and established a trading post where he had connections to many places in the area from his travels.

He actually seems like a decent and competent person. I really think it’s BS for everybody to decide just because of the time period he lived in that he was a murderous, greedy colonizer… I mean I can understand if you have a problem with foreigners living on this land without permission from the indigenous people, but it seems like we fit that more than he did.

I’m certainly interested if anybody has any evidence of his terrible nature, but I haven’t seen it. From what I understand there is more mystery around the reason why he sold his property at the mouth of the Chicago river and died as poor man. There are some theories that he was forced to sell it. Perhaps history would have been different if he would have been respected and hailed as a leader in his old age.

[BrinChi]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Yes, this.

I've realized I was doing it myself, noticing that every conversation about Garfield Park or Lawndale or any other beautiful, but stereotypically "crime ridden" area always began with accolades about the location or housing stock or transit access and ended with some form of "too bad the wrong people live there". Of course no one ever says it so directly, it's always couched in terms of poverty or crime, but that's the f-ing point.

The entire history of real estate in this country is just one race baiting dog whistle replacing the last until it became a self fulfilling prophecy where no shit you didn't want to invest there "because poors" or "because crime". That doesn't change the fact that it very much was openly about race in the beginning and now crime and poverty is so racially segregated that we can be totally racist without even bringing up the concept.

In my opinion it is racist to make investment decisions based on "crime" or "disinvestment", that's the whole damn point. If you continue to perpetuate racial and income segregation then you are the problem. Period. There is no excuse aside from "I don't have the means to actively participate in revitalizing this area". Frankly, given how low real estate prices are, that basically applies to no one in the middle class and up.


PS: perpetuating income and racial segregation also applies to the "anti gentrifiers" unless they are only resisting late stage gentrification that results in a mostly rich and white community. Anyone claiming no one should be able to move into Pilsen or Little Village if they aren't Latino is a segregationist just as much as the guy refusing to invest in Black areas. The conversation should be exclusively about "how do we enable as many people to move in as possible while allowing as many existing residents to remain and enjoy the benefits of reinvestment as possible". Any time it becomes about a place being "our neighborhood" youve gone beyond the pale and are openly advocating racial segregation.

BOOM. Well said. And I love your personal mission. I also certainly hope that if TUP's assumption is true, where you don't live anywhere near the place you're investing in, that you reconsider the location of your own home very soon.

As a white guy who lived in Garfield Park for 9 years and now Bronzeville for the last 2.5 years, it's just laughable to me when I hear people justify not going to certain parts of the city (or paying twice as much for housing to live in certain neighborhoods) because of the crime stats. I'm privileged and unlikely to be involved in a random act of crime, but the biggest frustration of my neighborhood is when litter gets out of control -- seriously that is the worst part of living in the less affluent parts of the city imo. (Recognizing that even the wealthy parts of a dense city often get badly littered, but it's usually taken care of quicker.) That's been my focus of neighborhood initiatives because most places stop looking scary when the trash is cleaned up and the grass/foliage is trimmed... even if the area has some empty lots with old foundations and crumbling sidewalks. If the city wants the south and west sides to continue attracting investment and filling in, it's essential to keep them clean. It should be a low-cost, high-return investment. This *especially* includes the neighborhood parks.

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by BrinChi

l

As a white guy who lived in Garfield Park for 9 years and now Bronzeville for the last 2.5 years, it's just laughable to me when I hear people justify not going to certain parts of the city (or paying twice as much for housing to live in certain neighborhoods) because of the crime stats. I'm privileged and unlikely to be involved in a random act of crime, but the biggest frustration of my neighborhood is when litter gets out of control -- seriously that is the worst part of living in the less affluent parts of the city imo. (Recognizing that even the wealthy parts of a dense city often get badly littered, but it's usually taken care of quicker.) That's been my focus of neighborhood initiatives because most places stop looking scary when the trash is cleaned up and the grass/foliage is trimmed... even if the area has some empty lots with old foundations and crumbling sidewalks. If the city wants the south and west sides to continue attracting investment and filling in, it's essential to keep them clean. It should be a low-cost, high-return investment. This *especially* includes the neighborhood parks.

Yeah appearances go a long way, but being saddled with poverty has a way of exhausting people and reducing the mental space for people to care or think about these things.

I took it upon myself to landscape my parkway this year. It was a patch of weedy grass. Dug it all up, put in natives, stepping stones, bunch of trees. You wouldn't believe the amount of people in my neighborhood who come up to me to thank me for what I'm doing, or to ask about a particular plant. I was worried about it getting trampled given the condition of other aspects of the neighborhood, but everyone respects it.

One older woman on the block came up to me one day and just kept going on and on about how she loves nature and how were blessed because "god loves those who love nature." Her son is a Latin king on house arrest with an ankle bracelet (I know this because I have to pass him every day in the alley). I imagine her life is incredibly overwhelming and stressful. But she went out later that week and planted a tiny little tree in her patch or parkway. Later she put in some flowers. Honestly, the tree probably won't survive the winter but that's not the point. She saw someone else value a place that's always been neglected, and it gave her a sort of permission to see it differently. At least that's what I hope. But the fact she went out and bought a little six inch tree and put it in her patch of dirt was a touching gesture. It can be suffocating living in some of these areas, and something as simple as trees and flowers can begin to change perceptions

I'm also not implying I'm some savior, I just have more time and resources to dedicate to this kind of thing compared to my average neighbor. All of us can only control the things that we actually can control, and just have to try to lead by example. I pick up the trash because I have the time to do so and I see it. If other people don't, that's also understandable because everyone is dealing with different circumstances and burdens.

[The Lurker]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

Yeah appearances go a long way, but being saddled with poverty has a way of exhausting people and reducing the mental space for people to care or think about these things.

I disagree. Filth is not a byproduct of poverty. Wealthy neighborhoods aren't immaculate because rich people with lots of time on their hands pick up trash and plant trees. Sure that helps but its mostly because people are hired to landscape and maintain the grounds. Chicago has one of the most beautiful downtowns in the world partly because the city spends tons of money maintaining planters on all the sidewalks. Why is no money spent to maintain appearances in the poor neighborhoods which desperately need the investment and could benefit from the jobs? If you ask me its a city leadership problem.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by The Lurker

I disagree. Filth is not a byproduct of poverty. Wealthy neighborhoods aren't immaculate because rich people with lots of time on their hands pick up trash and plant trees. Sure that helps but its mostly because people are hired to landscape and maintain the grounds. Chicago has one of the most beautiful downtowns in the world partly because the city spends tons of money maintaining planters on all the sidewalks. Why is no money spent to maintain appearances in the poor neighborhoods which desperately need the investment and could benefit from the jobs? If you ask me its a city leadership problem.

I mean, there is genuinely more littering and private property neglect (even when money isn’t a factor) on the South Side.

I’ve lived in a corner lot near West Town and now live in a corner lot in South Chicago. And in South Chicago, I have to pick up bottles and other litter every single day from my property.

The North side has priced out most people who deliberately litter or vandalize a block except for maybe say Wrigleyville, but it is a real issue on the South side. Service levels as far as street sweeping and road repair seem to be the same as West Town, to be quite honest.

I think it’s unfair to compare a neighborhood to the Loop considering the Loop is everybody’s first impression of Chicago and needs to be immaculate for economic growth. Also a lot of North side business strips are private money from special assessments and neighborhood chamber of commerce initiatives.

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by BrinChi

BOOM. Well said. And I love your personal mission. I also certainly hope that if TUP's assumption is true, where you don't live anywhere near the place you're investing in, that you reconsider the location of your own home very soon.

As a white guy who lived in Garfield Park for 9 years and now Bronzeville for the last 2.5 years, it's just laughable to me when I hear people justify not going to certain parts of the city (or paying twice as much for housing to live in certain neighborhoods) because of the crime stats. I'm privileged and unlikely to be involved in a random act of crime, but the biggest frustration of my neighborhood is when litter gets out of control -- seriously that is the worst part of living in the less affluent parts of the city imo. (Recognizing that even the wealthy parts of a dense city often get badly littered, but it's usually taken care of quicker.) That's been my focus of neighborhood initiatives because most places stop looking scary when the trash is cleaned up and the grass/foliage is trimmed... even if the area has some empty lots with old foundations and crumbling sidewalks. If the city wants the south and west sides to continue attracting investment and filling in, it's essential to keep them clean. It should be a low-cost, high-return investment. This *especially* includes the neighborhood parks.

Quoted for absolute truth. Keeping an area, even a relatively run-down one, clean and somewhat tidy is absolutely essential in order to attract some economic investment to start a revitalization. It's already happening in Bronzeville and some other areas, but it needs to continue.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[Via Chicago]

Yeah downtown is a poor comparison. Also, you can still make the comparison with more middle class areas as opposed to wealthy....go to a middle class area on the south side and you could cut yourself with how razor sharp the lawns and bushes are. Its not professionals, it's just people who have a little more time and money to dedicate to that. Also, some blame has to go to landlords as well given the high degree of rentals in some areas. Absolutely no effort to go above the bare minimum in terms of landscaping (compare that with the north side which have private gardens and lush trees, even in rentals)...and you can't tell me all these out of neighborhood investors can't afford it.

That said, the city does have control over more commerical streets/areas. Its an embarrassment for example modern day Ogden through Lawndale looks the way it does, and thats absolutely an instance where the city has control to beautify, or simply fix busted sidewalks and plant some shade. Given how many people drive that strip, it can immediately form perceptions about the community with the broader public, and the community has literally no control over it. Its completely shameful, and there are plenty of other examples. You'd never see a stretch of road like that on the north side.