What do you think of East Garfield park? (Chicago, Madison: crime, cheap home)

[pbrb]

I'm trying to do some research on the neighborhood as I think it's starting to get new interest. What do you think of the area between 290, the Metra line to the North, the conservatory to the West, and California to the East? I know it's really rough still, but what do you guys think about 5 yrs from now? I can't believe how quickly the area around Humboldt park changed, and then the United Center too.

[ToriaT]

I think its far too dangerous. Friends of my son got the idea to move there a few years ago to a gentrified building. One was robbed in the alley with a knife against his throat and another was in the house sleeping in the basement while it was being robbed. Fortunately the robbers never knew he was there. They only lived there for around a year or so......and this happened. I would not go there...it would take years for it to turn around.

[noid_1985]

East Garfield Park has been an "up and coming" neighborhood for some time now. The gentrification process in this area has stagnated over the years and I'm not so sure 5 years from now it will be any different. It seems like a lot of Northside neighborhoods are going through a re-gentrifying phase and that's where the focus is for right now

[via chicago]

Its been 5 years away from being gentrified for 30 years.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by noid_1985

East Garfield Park has been an "up and coming" neighborhood for some time now. The gentrification process in this area has stagnated over the years and I'm not so sure 5 years from now it will be any different. It seems like a lot of Northside neighborhoods are going through a re-gentrifying phase and that's where the focus is for right now

...they just cannot avoid the inevitable downturns of business cycles and other forces. When there is a "retrenchment" the areas that are least stable don't just take a step or two back, they often fall back far more than the more upscale areas.

The flow of money in "tough times" is over whelmingly toward areas that are already a "safe bet" and the riskier areas "get bad again".

Thing too is even relatively upscale / stable area can and have literal "black holes" that suck out other development when big projects / developers go broke -- the most obvious case in the greater downtown area is currently the Spire site, but over the years there have been "ghost towers" in Streetville and along the river / Wacker Dr that are literally shutdown local businesses, devalue adjacent parcels and hurt the localized valuations.

The feud that is boiling over in the Podmajersky dynasty threatens to create some uncertainity for the speculative land uses in Pilsen --- Pilsen Land Baron's Ugly Family Fight |Crain's Chicago Business

[CCrest182]

West GP is obviously 20x worse, but East GP is still really bad, and 5 years really isn't long enough. Despite gentrification, it's still ridden with crime and corruption, not worth it even IMO in 5 years.

[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.

[pbrb]

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.

This is something I've noticed. Revitalization is key to turning a neighborhood around. I know the area is livable as I have a few friends who bought huge beautiful cheap homes to live there, but I'm trying to gauge the general perception of it. 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.

[marothisu]

I think it depends on where you are. There are actually nice residences there if you know where to look, like in old warehouses and such, or so I've seen...but I'm not sure I would live there. I've walked around parts of it before during the day which were fine - a little industrial in some spots, quiet in others, but I'm not sure I'd want to get caught walking there at night. If I used a car to get everywhere and was more of a homebody, it might be different. And yeah, WGP is way worse, but EGP is still no walk in the park IMO.

I have noticed too that a little north of there, like north of Franklin some of the streets in the east are actually pretty well maintained (i.e. the greenery, properties, etc) , but I think that's actually technically Humboldt Park and it's kind of hit or miss with that too.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by marothisu

I think it depends on where you are. There are actually nice residences there if you know where to look, like in old warehouses and such, or so I've seen...but I'm not sure I would live there. I've walked around parts of it before during the day which were fine - a little industrial in some spots, quiet in others, but I'm not sure I'd want to get caught walking there at night. If I used a car to get everywhere and was more of a homebody, it might be different. And yeah, WGP is way worse, but EGP is still no walk in the park IMO.

I have noticed too that a little north of there, like north of Franklin some of the streets in the east are actually pretty well maintained (i.e. the greenery, properties, etc) , but I think that's actually technically Humboldt Park and it's kind of hit or miss with that too.

The problems of the "west side" have come before on these boards -- it is not just about "safety" is the whole pattern of land use and redevelopment that has gone before the current era.

Way way way back after the CIVIL WAR when coal powered trains chugged from the west side out to California that was an "unwholesome" part of the region where competing rail lines could count on desperate "cheap labor" to be easily hired out of "flop houses" for drunks and whores and made into "security guards" on trains likely to be targeted by robbers. There are stories of these worthless drunks quite literally being used a "human sandbags" that the real guards did not mind the theives using for target practice while they out flanked the gunmen...


During the subsequent decades of Prohibition these warehouses and maze like streets that cropped up in the former shanty towns of the Depression served as good cover for bootleggers.

Post WWII efforts to "clean up" the west side were not all that effective despite investments of the city into useful public works efforts like schools. The appeal of suburbs drew more affluent former city dwellers out to "inner ring" suburbs that were cleaner, more leafy and largely a better value. That left the west side as prime residential stock for the growing population of former share croppers and such fleeing the harsh conditions of the pre-civil rights era. Unfortunately the tinder box of the issues that exploded in the 60s say the west side erupt in violence, traces of arson still linger some 5 decades hence...

What rebuilding the city has done is largely NOT AT A TRADITIONAL PEDESTRIAN SCALE of quaint areas on the north side. The giant "median planters" may have appealing to Daley but folks with a better sense of aesthics realize these things contribute nearly nothing positive to the neighbor feel and along with the choppiness that comes from the Green line El tracks and parallel UP-W lines does negatively impact the ability of the area to ever be as charming as even Bucktown...


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.