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Originally Posted by photolitherland
Could this be the sexiest thread ever? I think so, its so amazing seeing just how Chicago has changed so dramatically in 50 years, well along with most other major cities, but still its amazing. We just keep going higher and higher. Just think of what it will look like in another 30 years or so, and in 80 years, just imagine! Wow!
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the pieces of centralization have always been in place. What I think has changed was the concept of downtown that didn't exist those 50 years back to which you refer.
The old paradigm that said Loop=Downtown was highly restrictive and kept everything enclosed from the lake to river and from the river to Congress. Once the notion that the Loop was, though admittedly core, only one part of downtown, the real explosion took place.
JHC announced that the Mag Mile and its Near North surroundings were downtown (at its most chic), spurring incredible high rise growth from the river to North Avenue. Metra stations pushed downtown west of the river to the Kennedy in an area now part of the business heart of the city (while the old east Loop areas lost offices and added huge residential components to go with their very revived extended State Street retail core) and the burgeoning South Loop is America's fastest growing urban neighborhood.
The Loop got the ball rolling. If the river and lake to the north, west, and east and the railyards to the South hadn't hemmed in the area and put space at a premium and centralization a natural, the high rises would never have gone so high (as is a similiar case in Manhattan where its island location forced it up).
A high rise Loop then gave birth to the new DT areas surrounding it, spurred on by the availability of former rail yard, factory, and warehouse....with almost miniscule removal of housing units. Amazing in that regard!