Quote:
Originally Posted by jtown,man
Nothing surprises me anymore.
I live in the South Loop and I have neighbors complaining that offices, retail, and apartments are going to be built in the 78 development south of downtown Chicago.
These people throw everything they can think of at the wall to see what sticks. The current argument? We should make it into a park! Take a look at the google link below. First, we have a couple of small parks that do the job. Second, this site literally abuts another park in Chinatown. Third, this neighborhood borders Grant Park, one of the largest and best parks in the city.
People have lost their minds.
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8623...m1!1e3!5m1!1e2
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I am not familiar with the city or that project but you are referring to that empty site along the river?
It is important to protect public access to a lakefront or riverfront, and looking at Google Maps, although there seems to be a continuous public lakefront in Chicago, the amount of public spaces along rivers seems limited. Rivers also each have their own floodplain, so there is also the problem of potential flooding. So whatever they build, there should be some parkland included in the project no matter what, both for public access and to mitigate flooding.
A location near so many heavy rail transit lines, it would be a huge waste to make it all parkland, but not to consider parkland would also be a wasted opportunity and also potentially dangerous.
I get that it is frustrating that some people even so near the centre of Chicago, beside so many heavy rail lines, can oppose such developments, but it's not the same as people in Naperville opposing such developments. Where are the high-rise apartment buildings in Downtown Naperville? The potential of Downtown Naperville seems far more unrealized than the potential of South Loop. How many of the high-rises in the Chicago area are already in the City of Chicago? 95%?
If residents of the city want to preserve some its remaining low-rise character and create new greenspace, I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. I say this not only as an outsider to Chicagoland, but also as a suburbanite, living in a Conservative riding. To increase density, encourage public transit, build multi-family housing, give people more housing options and make housing more affordable, to ultimately connect people together - the central cities and the suburbs have equal and shared responsibility, and right now the greatest opportunities for intensification, where is more high density and transit and diversity of housing options are sorely needed the most, are in the suburbs, not the cities. Even as a suburbanite, when I see people start pointing their finger at the central cities and their residents, I think it is the wrong target.