We need to stop caring about the demographic composition of neighborhoods. No ethnic group has a right to any area, and I’m sick of people complaining about the rise of one and the decline of another. Just upzone, build housing and let people live wherever they want while turning a deaf ear to those who whine about “displacement” or “gentrification”.
I heavily disagree and this attitude only serves to drive more people to NIMBYism. We absolutely should care about existing residents, and try to develop in a way that displaces as few people as possible. This has nothing to do with ethnicity and everything to do with housing cost. We can build housing without massively increasing the cost of living in an area.
Agreed. We don’t simply need more housing. We need a system of housing growth that does not *predictably* turn existing normal people into psychopathic anti-growthers. Part of that system must include proper consideration for existing residents.
This article really hits home 🏠 But seriously the part about Chicago needing to legalize it’s own existing housing stock is so true. I owned a three flat in Bridgeport by 31st Ave and Halsted and technically it violated the city code! Even Chicago needs to learn a few things from Austin and get with the growing YIMBY trend because restrictive laws make conditions more expensive and even more ethically segregated and unequal. The East Riverside project was classic gentrification but from reading the brief Wikipedia article about it sounds like the neighborhood is actually pretty nice to live in. And the other reality about the Chicago metro area is that it is still losing population so that has to be factored in to the comparison with Austin. Great article and I’m glad you did the reverse move!
Chicago loosing population is a bit of a trick. The entire downtown near west and northside is growing or stable (ish). And most of the areas that are stable or slightly loosing population is due to parents having fewer kids not lower demand.
The author's "incremental growth" concept would seem to resemble a couple recent zoning developments going on in Chicago. The first being the significant reduction of parking minimums (which should encourage a gentle increase in density across many neighborhoods over time). The second being the ADU ordinance on the cusp of passage. One could even make the case that the compromise whereby only 1 adu per block, per year in the bungalow belt (but more permissive in more dense neighborhoods) is very much in line with the idea of incremental growth.
I like the ideas, but many seem to think that housing policy will drive integration in neighborhoods. It's not going to happen. Chicago is segregated because Chicagoans want to be segregated. Black families don't want to move to predominantly white areas bc they don't want their kids to be the "1%", and white families won't move to black neighborhoods for fear of crime that has yet to be addressed
I wish it wasn't like this, but it is. The sooner we accept it and find a way to address THAT, the sooner we can create plans that will actually work
very interesting case study. I'm curious what's stopping the landlord of your old apartment in Crestview from raising the rent to match the market value of the neighborhood? Or maybe you had a mom-and-pop with a soft spot for their renters, but what about when they retire and sell the building? I agree with everything you are saying but it seems like there is also a crucial component of rent control and government policy to make sure affordable housing stays affordable.
I'm also not familiar with Austin as much as Chicago, but I'm curious if they also have giveaways to developers like TIFs that undercut the tax base of a neighborhood and speed up gentrification.
The development was mixed-income and had some income-restricted units, but we were in the "market-rate" tier, so that didn't apply to us. I don't actually know how they came up with the rents, and neither did the folks at the front desk - the parent company used an algorithm. I assume they were charging the maximum they thought they could given market conditions and the age of the property.
Note that our rent did go up while we lived there, but only by about 6-7% each year during the worst of the Covid housing price spike. Had we stayed it would have likely gone down - rents in Austin are actually falling now in no small part because so much got built.
Also, hilariously, they're billing themselves as "luxury living" now despite being a mixed-income development! Just goes to show how meaningless a buzzword the term "luxury" is in housing discussions.
We need to stop caring about the demographic composition of neighborhoods. No ethnic group has a right to any area, and I’m sick of people complaining about the rise of one and the decline of another. Just upzone, build housing and let people live wherever they want while turning a deaf ear to those who whine about “displacement” or “gentrification”.
I heavily disagree and this attitude only serves to drive more people to NIMBYism. We absolutely should care about existing residents, and try to develop in a way that displaces as few people as possible. This has nothing to do with ethnicity and everything to do with housing cost. We can build housing without massively increasing the cost of living in an area.
Agreed. We don’t simply need more housing. We need a system of housing growth that does not *predictably* turn existing normal people into psychopathic anti-growthers. Part of that system must include proper consideration for existing residents.
This article really hits home 🏠 But seriously the part about Chicago needing to legalize it’s own existing housing stock is so true. I owned a three flat in Bridgeport by 31st Ave and Halsted and technically it violated the city code! Even Chicago needs to learn a few things from Austin and get with the growing YIMBY trend because restrictive laws make conditions more expensive and even more ethically segregated and unequal. The East Riverside project was classic gentrification but from reading the brief Wikipedia article about it sounds like the neighborhood is actually pretty nice to live in. And the other reality about the Chicago metro area is that it is still losing population so that has to be factored in to the comparison with Austin. Great article and I’m glad you did the reverse move!
I moved for family reasons but haven't looked back once since I got here, Chicago is awesome.
Chicago loosing population is a bit of a trick. The entire downtown near west and northside is growing or stable (ish). And most of the areas that are stable or slightly loosing population is due to parents having fewer kids not lower demand.
Precisely. Chicago actually has more households now than at any point in it's history!
The author's "incremental growth" concept would seem to resemble a couple recent zoning developments going on in Chicago. The first being the significant reduction of parking minimums (which should encourage a gentle increase in density across many neighborhoods over time). The second being the ADU ordinance on the cusp of passage. One could even make the case that the compromise whereby only 1 adu per block, per year in the bungalow belt (but more permissive in more dense neighborhoods) is very much in line with the idea of incremental growth.
Any idea when and why all these neighborhoods across Chicago got downzoned?
Short version: 1960's onward to prevent neighborhood change.
Long version: https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Place-History-Zoning-Chicago/dp/0809335344.
I like the ideas, but many seem to think that housing policy will drive integration in neighborhoods. It's not going to happen. Chicago is segregated because Chicagoans want to be segregated. Black families don't want to move to predominantly white areas bc they don't want their kids to be the "1%", and white families won't move to black neighborhoods for fear of crime that has yet to be addressed
I wish it wasn't like this, but it is. The sooner we accept it and find a way to address THAT, the sooner we can create plans that will actually work
very interesting case study. I'm curious what's stopping the landlord of your old apartment in Crestview from raising the rent to match the market value of the neighborhood? Or maybe you had a mom-and-pop with a soft spot for their renters, but what about when they retire and sell the building? I agree with everything you are saying but it seems like there is also a crucial component of rent control and government policy to make sure affordable housing stays affordable.
I'm also not familiar with Austin as much as Chicago, but I'm curious if they also have giveaways to developers like TIFs that undercut the tax base of a neighborhood and speed up gentrification.
The development was mixed-income and had some income-restricted units, but we were in the "market-rate" tier, so that didn't apply to us. I don't actually know how they came up with the rents, and neither did the folks at the front desk - the parent company used an algorithm. I assume they were charging the maximum they thought they could given market conditions and the age of the property.
Note that our rent did go up while we lived there, but only by about 6-7% each year during the worst of the Covid housing price spike. Had we stayed it would have likely gone down - rents in Austin are actually falling now in no small part because so much got built.
Here's the website if you're curious - https://www.argosyatcrestview.com/
Also, hilariously, they're billing themselves as "luxury living" now despite being a mixed-income development! Just goes to show how meaningless a buzzword the term "luxury" is in housing discussions.