What do you think of East Garfield park? (Chicago, Oak Park: low crime, new home)

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by chet everett

I spend a lot of time getting to / from United Center and even places further west like the newer Johnnies Ice House as part of my obsession with the Black Hawks (twitter feeds are hot during the play offs, quiet now...) so I get LOTS of opportunity to see what the city has done right on the west side and what they still need to re-think. I would urge anyone considering making an investment for their own home or even speculative / invvestment purposes to think long and hard about the likely direction of inner ring suburbs vs Garfield Park.

Yeah, the thing is that Garfield Park could gentrify but it's not. Unfortunately, the areas currently gentrifying in Humboldt Park around Chicago Ave, Augusta, a little west of California, and Western is separated by a big rail yard and some more industrial stuff to EGP. It is interesting though in that some of the areas just west of the United Center have some nice residential stuff, but I'm not sure if it's truly gentrified yet. I think West of Western there is a different story but I haven't been to that particular part too much.

[hjt123]

isn't the problem with EGP that its basically bombed out and desolate? nowadays its nothing to gentrify a dangerous neighborhood when it has a solid built environment but i dont think hipsters have the stomach to move into a neighborhood that has huge swaths of open fields.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by hjt123

isn't the problem with EGP that its basically bombed out and desolate? nowadays its nothing to gentrify a dangerous neighborhood when it has a solid built environment but i dont think hipsters have the stomach to move into a neighborhood that has huge swaths of open fields.

I wouldn't call it bombed out and not everywhere in it is desolate. if you want to see without going there at least with the desolation part, go to Google Maps and zoom in. You can see where buildings are and it's fairly up to date.

[Wicket]

Originally Posted by treemoni

The entire stretch of Madison going through the west side just got a MAJOR overhaul, and it definitely wasn't renovated for the current residents. The city has plans for that part of the city. Do not listen to city-data posters, as they probably never actually venture into the parts of the city they deem dangerous.

It was renovated with federal money that Obama helped the area get. You're right in that they didn't do it for the current residents - they did it for the contractors who got paid to do it. But, if any if any of you are dumb enough to buy in East Garfield Park knock yourself out. You can be assured that someone else will as soon as you get there haha!

[todd00]

Originally Posted by pbrb

I guess city-data does have to be taken with a grain of salt, but I was hoping to get some people thinking positively of the neighborhood. I mean, this is where a ton of people go to research neighborhoods they would move to in the city.

But no one has a crystal ball either, people often speak in terms of what has been and how things are now, rather than what could be. People moving to an area look at research today if they plan a move in the near future. Looking at the crime stats, it's still not a safe area. East Garfield Park ranks 7th among Chicago's 77 community areas for Violent crime reports in the last 30 days. While West Garfield is worse, there is no stone wall separating these two areas. Listen to the scanner at night and you hear calls of nit-wit thugs driving around shooting off rounds and causing trouble. Who wants to live anywhere near that if ya don't have to? All the if's and maybe's and talk by politicians of 5 years down the road really mean very little to those looking to relocate this year. These people will be looking at facts and figures that represent in real terms how the area is today.

East Garfield Park -- Crime in Chicagoland -- chicagotribune.com

[pete6032]

Originally Posted by marothisu

I wouldn't call it bombed out and not everywhere in it is desolate. if you want to see without going there at least with the desolation part, go to Google Maps and zoom in. You can see where buildings are and it's fairly up to date.

Yes but there can still be desolation despite many buildings being there. If you drive down Lake street it looks like a lot of the buildings are vacant. Drive down Lake Street on a saturday afternoon and its kind of creepy how little traffic there is.

[treemoni]

Originally Posted by Wicket

It was renovated with federal money that Obama helped the area get. You're right in that they didn't do it for the current residents - they did it for the contractors who got paid to do it.

Riiiight...

[treemoni]

Originally Posted by todd00

Who wants to live anywhere near that if ya don't have to?

The bottom line is, most C-D posters do not want to live near around ANY people of color. Instead of admitting the truth, they talk around it and use buzzwords like "crime" and "unsafe" and "few amenities" etc etc.

Chicago will always be Chicago, [forbidden term] tension included.

[CCrest182]

Originally Posted by treemoni

The bottom line is, most C-D posters do not want to live near around ANY people of color. Instead of admitting the truth, they talk around it and use buzzwords like "crime" and "unsafe" and "few amenities" etc etc.

Chicago will always be Chicago, [forbidden term] tension included.

I currently live in Lyons, which as of right now is diverse with about half of the pop being hispanic and half of the pop being white, and maybe a few black families (it's a small town), and I frankly have no issues living here because it isn't overrun with crime. I think for you to say that people who judge a neighborhood off of the crime and how well the houses are kept by calling them basically closeted racists is pretty ignorant. I don't look at demographics of race of a neighborhood and draw conclusions from there, but not wanting to move to a neighborhood that has prostitution, shootings, constant drug dealings, infested with gangs, with boarded up windows etc., is not being racist, if by some random chance it happens to be the majority of the population being people of color. There are many white neighborhoods that I think are unsafe too. This shouldn't (and isn't) a race issue.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by treemoni

The bottom line is, most C-D posters do not want to live near around ANY people of color. Instead of admitting the truth, they talk around it and use buzzwords like "crime" and "unsafe" and "few amenities" etc etc.

Chicago will always be Chicago, [forbidden term] tension included.

So some person who moves here who wants to be directly around many bars, restaurants, etc and be in a walkable area are now being racist because they don't pick North Lawndale or West Garfield Park? Or perhaps some family that wants a safe area for their kids? Riiiiiight. Yeah, it has nothing to do with the fact that anybody looking up crime reports will see that the reports of crime are high and there's not a ton of what they're looking for in the first place there. It doesn't even matter if you know that it isn't true, it's how they interpret the data they're seeing in the first place. Most people when moving are not going to look at crime reports of an area, see a lot of crime, and say "Oh whatever, it'll be fine." If you honestly think that, then I feel extremely sorry for you for not being able to recognize the reality of why people don't move to these areas.


This reminds me of an article I read today about the lady who's changed/changing the perception of "West of Western" in Humboldt Park. She realized there was a PR problem - it didn't matter what the truth was, most people thought of the area as dangerous, even if it wasn't. So instead of coming online to ***** and moan about it, she actually did something about it and changed the perception of the area:

Humboldt Park's Reclaimed 'WOW District' Thrives 'West of Western' - Humboldt Park - DNAinfo.com Chicago



Sorry, but this has nothing to do with racism and I think people who claim these things automatically and just assume are just as bad at generalizing as the bigots they claim the others to be. Part of this may be a PR problem, but the other part of the problem also has to do with how people interpret crime reports, and also amenities. And most people moving to Chicago don't come to this site. It's probably less than 1/100 of 1% of all people who move every year. Keep sidestepping the issues though and claiming racism though. It's not going to get you anywhere because it's not actually the reason why most people aren't going to these areas.