Why is UpTown considered bad? (Chicago, Lisle: live in, price, shops)

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by Aleking

The idea that there are hipsters in Uptown (lol) much less ones that find the gritty environment cool is pretty silly...talk about fabricating a demo to make a point.

That fits my experience, too. I've known a dozen or so people who have lived in Uptown over the years who might stereotypically fit that demo (20's-30's, mostly white, all college educated), and not one of them was there because they thought it was hip or edgy. They were there because it was an affordable area on the North Side near the lake. Most of them have moved on, but to other neighborhoods in the city or to other cities, not to the burbs.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by Chi-town Native

But when there is no "elsewhere" readily available, we end up having discussions like these.

That's the heart of the problem, isn't it? If the people trying to shut down the Hotel Chateau had worked equally hard to create new, well-managed supportive housing elsewhere, they would be offering more of a solution. I think the prevailing attitude in the Uptown of 2013 is that Uptown faces too much burden from these services, and that results in NIMBY-ism.

[hjt123]

Originally Posted by Aleking

The idea that there are hipsters in Uptown (lol) much less ones that find the gritty environment cool is pretty silly...talk about fabricating a demo to make a point.

I know a couple. There should be more when I think about it. Uptown kind of has a Union Square in the 70s vibe. It also has the infrastructure. Hipsters are supremely nostalgic; you'll find them in dilapidated art deco buildings or greystones. Both of which Uptown is replete with.

I don't know why you're surprised that hipsters would find a gritty area cool. I would imagine there were more performance artists and noise musicians moving to Logan Square 10 years ago than there were guys who work in insurance.

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

The position taken by Alderman Cappleman and the block clubs is that this standard of care shouldn't exist ANYWHERE, and that the place should either clean up its act or be closed down so that residents can get better treatment elsewhere.

Except they won't get better treatment elsewhere, and you know this. They'll get the same poor treatment (if they're lucky) elsewhere. So you're saying "not in my backyard," but trying to dress it up as concern for others.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

Except they won't get better treatment elsewhere, and you know this. They'll get the same poor treatment (if they're lucky) elsewhere. So you're saying "not in my backyard," but trying to dress it up as concern for others.

I see both sides of this argument regarding the closure of existing support services. My argument in the preceding pages is that Uptown is not "fine as is". It's actually a really messed up place. I made an earlier argument about governmental manipulation of real estate markets to create new affordable housing, and whether this was really needed in a city struggling to keep middle class families. That's a different issue.

Whether or not there are people who support the status quo because they hate the supposed sterility of middle class neighborhoods turned out to be a very long distraction from that conversation.

[Irishtom29]

My wife had a condo in a gorgeous old building at Ainslie and Sheridan, we married and I moved in. After a year we left because the neighborhood was full of bums, drunks, dopers, gang kids and crazy people. We were broken into twice and I became so hostile I was shouldering people off the sidewalk and cleaning my guns on the front porch in broad view. I was gonna get someone or someone was gonna get me. This was no way to live and we left, that was 7 years ago.

I would have loved it if the neighborhood filled up with boring, whitebread people from the burbs, I'd still be there. To the Devil with bums, drunks, dopers, gangbangers and madmen.

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

I would have loved it if the neighborhood filled up with boring, whitebread people from the burbs,

I'm curious, then, why not just live in the burbs?

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

I'm curious, then, why not just live in the burbs?

Because I like the city and liked Uptown other than the deadbeats who lived there. I could get downtown easily, we were right by the Lake and there was much to do. That one wants to live among respectable, hard working regular people doesn't mean they want to live in the burbs. I grew up in Austin when it was like that; full of respectable, hard working people. It was nice. And I could get downtown on the Lake St. EL and enjoy the action in no time.

[Aleking]

Originally Posted by chinaan

except they won't get better treatment elsewhere, and you know this. They'll get the same poor treatment (if they're lucky) elsewhere. So you're saying "not in my backyard," but trying to dress it up as concern for others.

+100

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

I'm curious, then, why not just live in the burbs?

I'm still amazed that people can see a huge metropolitan area where most of the middle class resides in the suburbs due to a massive out-migration of white, middle class residents in the 20th Century... And we see the obviously negative impacts of this post-war "White Flight" on city neighborhoods... But then we proceed to attack people who want to reverse this trend by having more middle class residents back in the city like the pre-White Flight era? Why shouldn't IrishTom29 want to live around former suburbanites who bring suburban expectations of property care and social behavior? He grew up in a pre-White Flight west side neighborhood, and most of his former neighbors are now suburbanites anyway.