Why is UpTown considered bad? (Chicago, Lincoln: sales, employment, vouchers)

[Plzeň]

Originally Posted by ChicagoMeO

yes and I see it in various places too.. people get defensive about their favorite place, even though someone dares to say a constructive criticism. I guess I sometimes get defensive if someone were trouncing my bff, so i understand, but it still aggrivates me. I think maybe the answer is if one person is happy in a place, fine, but then understand that not eveyrone agrees.. Like I love western Michigan, if I didn't have to work, I'd be there in a NY minute. I loooooveeee it... now someone is gonna tell me to move there.. and I might one day! in the meantime, Im medium happy where I am at now in chicago.

I've read this entire thread, and for the life of me cannot see where anyone criticized anyone else's place of living or told anyone to move anywhere else. The level of knee-jerk defensiveness here is astounding.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by Plzeň

I've read this entire thread, and for the life of me cannot see where anyone criticized anyone else's place of living or told anyone to move anywhere else. The level of knee-jerk defensiveness here is astounding.

Maybe you're right. But it's easy to imply "You should move to" from "Why don't you just live in". One problem with typed internet comments is that inflection isn't always obvious, and I may have attributed a nastier tone to ChiNaan's comment than was really intended. If so, I apologize... But I also find it ridiculous that anyone really cares.

There is a somewhat famous incident in Uptown where the old Alderman Helen Shiller said to a group complaining about crime "If you don't like it, perhaps you'd be happier in Lincoln Park". People took this as "Move to Lincoln Park", and it became kind of a rallying point against that Alderman. Issues like this are a hair trigger to defensiveness for Uptown Residents, and I am a product of that polarization, even though I am no longer a resident. I believe that it is time to retire from my involvement in Uptown political issues, and to step back from the whole mess. I'll go back to commenting on which blocks and intersections are safe, until my experiences are too dated to be relevant.

[Lifelong Chicagoan]

It's considered bad because in parts of the neighborhood the streets are dirty and bums are hanging around or people who are mentally off are walking. There is drug dealing in the open on Wilson near Broadway. This is what I saw today while walking around today, and in the seven years I have lived in the area. There have been gang shootings and occasionally bystanders have been hit by stray bullets. This is why it is considered bad.

[glass_of_merlot]

Its really kind off odd. I mean, the surrounding areas are all nice, just this small little area you "Lifelong chicagoan" are talking about makes the whole area get a bad reputation. I wish there were something that could be done about that...Im wondering, where do they all live ( the troublemakers ) ? We pay $1100 a month for a small 2 bedroom close by. Is the rent cheaper in Uptown or what? Is there a bunch of section 8 housing? Im just curious.
I love this part of Chicago and I have personal never had any problems but I hear about it.

[ScottJP]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

That's a straw man and a half. I'm referring to little wise ass hipsters from the suburbs who love the "edginess" of a neighborhood as some sort of imaginary movie set they live in. For anyone to say Uptown is fine "as is" is just an absolutely ridiculous statement. It is a place where people fall through the cracks in our society. Drug treatment centers, halfway houses, housing for sex offenders, flop houses with horrible conditions, nursing homes that collect disability checks but provide terrible care, drug abusers and pushers on every corner... This is the "edgy" Uptown. Sure, it makes a great setting for your next novel, but it's actually a pretty terrible place with a lot of human tragedy.

Uptown is racially and economically diverse, and I don't think these are bad things. I just don't think the government should step in to create "affordable housing" to socially engineer the diversity in to the place. But we've beat that topic to death in this thread.

I think you're exaggerating how bad Uptown is. I haven't been there in a long, long time but it wasn't even like that by the late 1990s, let alone now. Like, *every corner*? Come on.

As for affordable housing... I'll leave that one alone. I've learned my lesson that City-Data.com thinks affordable housing is the devil and all housing should be built for the wealthiest 40% of the population and the to hell with the rest. This country gets more and more conservative every day.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by ScottJP

As for affordable housing... I'll leave that one alone. I've learned my lesson that City-Data.com thinks affordable housing is the devil and all housing should be built for the wealthiest 40% of the population and the to hell with the rest. This country gets more and more conservative every day.

I just don't think the government should shoehorn affordable housing into a rapidly improving area to socially engineer the poor back in to the neighborhood. If someone wants to build it on their own dime, they are free to do so anywhere they please, assuming it meets zoning requirements.

Yes, the "every corner" comment was absolutely an exaggeration. If you look at my earlier comments on this thread, I've presented a more moderate view of the neighborhood.

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by ScottJP

As for affordable housing... I'll leave that one alone. I've learned my lesson that City-Data.com thinks affordable housing is the devil and all housing should be built for the wealthiest 40% of the population and the to hell with the rest. This country gets more and more conservative every day.

Being an old fashioned left-wing trade unionist I don't believe in "affordable" housing, I believe in people making enough money at their jobs to afford market housing. But it's harder to pry higher wages from business than it is to pry subsidies from the government. So the taxpayers subsidize employers.

[mjtinmemphis]

Uptown is intimidating around Broadway and Wilson. What to do about it? I don't know. They could spread the social service agencies out a little better on the red line corridor.

There is such a huge need in the city of Chicago. Some want to throw these people out of the city so they can act like they don't exist. Red lining them out of certain areas is totally immoral.

I Wish we could get help where help is needed. Everyone is going to pay the price one way or another.

[Aleking]

Originally Posted by mjtinmemphis

Uptown is intimidating around Broadway and Wilson. What to do about it? I don't know. They could spread the social service agencies out a little better on the red line corridor.

There is such a huge need in the city of Chicago. Some want to throw these people out of the city so they can act like they don't exist. Red lining them out of certain areas is totally immoral.

I Wish we could get help where help is needed. Everyone is going to pay the price one way or another.

Make no bones about it, the plan is already being implemented and the social service agencies and SROs are being removed from the ward.

[ChicagoMeO]

Originally Posted by ScottJP

As for affordable housing... I'll leave that one alone. I've learned my lesson that City-Data.com thinks affordable housing is the devil and all housing should be built for the wealthiest 40% of the population and the to hell with the rest. This country gets more and more conservative every day.

It may be that rents go up as a consequence of everything going up, trickle down theory at work - taxes go up for the home owner (or apartment building owner); and they trickle that cost down to the renters. Add in Obamacare that they may have to provide for their employees (maintenance men for example or office workers for the apartment complex) and they will trickle that cost down to you, the renter. Add in the price of everything going up and they trickle that down to you too... and if the building gets zapped with that thing they do with figuring taxes, then it will go down to you the renter, and then housing prices fluctuate, if they go up, and if you rent a condo, and the HOA fee or whatever goes up, it trickles down to the renter. whenever I see on the news that things are going up, I know it will trickle down to me the renter. And it does.

what gets me is I have watched prices of certain apartments that I would love to rent from, and I have watched the prices go up and up. theres a few buildings downtown, the rent a few years ago (maybe 3) was $1200 a month, now 3 years later it has gone up to $1500 a month. My old apartment downtown went from $1200 to $1400 in only two years, I just moved out of there because after one year, they were going to raise my rent this year $205. For no improvements!!! they call it "market rate" .. thats the one you have to watch. You get in a nice building, and its one rate, then instead of waht you expect rents to go up, maybe $30 a month, they claim this "market rate" which means they might raise it $100 to $200 or even $300 a month, for NOTHING.. except whatever they deem they want and/or can get.

the better rents that have been steady are the smaller, mom and pop buildings.. they have not gone up so high. And when they do, its only $30 or so. NOT $100 to $300 like in buildings that are owned by a large corp.