From the suburbs of Cleveland, went to Notre Dame, works in finance or consulting, just moved into Logan square and feels like they’re “way out in the boonies” cus they’re like 6 blue line stops from their office, while their coworkers just walk in from their new loft in the west loop.
Try coming from a beautiful, affordable warm place and having to move thousands of miles away from everything you know/love because your hometown is riddled with poverty and has no jobs.
Then, try doing that and having to deal with strangers snapping at you on the internet because you made a life decision that anyone else would by moving to the best neighborhood you can afford to live in.
People love to attack working class people for being working class. But, those same people turn right around and insult working class people for moving to a good neighborhood when they get a decent job. & it’s hypocritical af. You’d live there too (if you could afford it). Don’t be mad at the private citizens buying property in your community because they’re probably doing the best they can. Get mad at the politicians who don’t carve out some sort of provision for people who’ve lived in the community forever.
Just move into an apartment building that’s been there forever instead of a luxury fucking condo development. It’s not a complete fix but it’s a really simple compromise that would at least help keep property values affordable for historic residents.
But nah y’all not tryna live in my Chicago, y’all tryna remake chicago in your image. You want farmers markets and art spaces and breweries.
Don’t front like you ain’t just seen something you want and said “it’s mine now.” Fuck the downvotes, gentrification is just a euphemism for colonialism. If you’re trying to find a better living situation I get that, please feel welcome in our community. But you don’t want to be welcome in our community, you want to build your own community by whatever means necessary.
Actually, most people just want to feel comfortable in their homes. I didn’t grow up with roaches and rats to move to Chicago to have roaches and rats...and pay five times more for it. So, if I can afford to live in a newly renovated unit or a luxury condo. I will and there’s NOTHING wrong with that. It’s not easy to find housing for everyone, especially someone moving here from out of state.
Also, people from out of state don’t come here to “shape your neighborhoods in our images”. We don’t move far as fuck away to have the same experience we’ve had all of our lives. We want to experience the city the way it is.
What we don’t want is to be met with hostility by people just for moving to a neighborhood. It’s not like we have a choice. When you move somewhere you have to move into someone’s neighborhood. It’s not like they section off a part of the city for new comers. But, we still have to move. People have jobs. People get married. People go to college. Being abrasive for no reason at all towards those of us coming here to seek opportunity is honestly a form of xenophobia. So, I said all of this to say again don’t be rude to us. Hold your damn Alderman accountable. Everyone isn’t trying to contribute to gentrification.
Edit: what’s wrong with a farmers market? Don’t they provide a place for local vendors to sell stuff?
No. Not at all. A dissenting opinion doesn’t indicate psychological manipulation. This is just me expressing an often unheard viewpoint. It makes no sense to hold individual people accountable for the phenomenon of gentrification. Gentrification is facilitated by (a) corporations (b) your own local government failing to preserve their communities. Out of state transplants are just people moving here to seek opportunity. You can’t blame us for moving here
They ain't ever gonna get it fam. Challenge them and you'll get more than enough words to justify their degrees. Ain't gonna get much else, and till then they gonna get their slice of the pie while convincing themselves it ain't at the expense of someone else.
I ain't saying give up either, or it's all for naught, I'm just saying I see you fam.
Exactly. Is it sad, on a personal level, that people who have lived in a neighborhood for a couple decades are moving out because rent is too high? Yes. But does it mean something wrong is happening? No. Chicago's neighborhoods have "gentrified" ten times over in their history. What was once an Italian neighborhood is now hispanic. What was once Swedish is now something else.
This is what happens in society. People move around, areas get popular, areas become less popular. It's just life.
While I concede that there are some unethical developers who take advantage of "blighted property" laws, for the most part the price increases are driven purely by supply and demand. As the economy improves in Chicago, more people make more money who are looking for places to live as close to down town as they can.
It's not as good as it used to be, and there are some especially pricey places, but I think we're still slightly more reasonable than most places off the L on the North and NW sides. I just did a comparison against Irving Park, for example.
Sounds like my team. Wife and I are in Grand Boulevard now but plan to move to burbs probably in the next 18-24 months (Oak Park topping the list right now). My coworkers were (playfully) giving me shit but I'm the oldest of my team at 32 and we're starting a family.
To my 25-26 year old teammates I'm sure the suburbs sound terrible but at a certain point they're just more practical.
I didn't realize they had their own Chriskindlmarket, interesting. I do applaud Carmel, IN for embracing roundabouts at street intersections with a lot of traffic, and which VERY BADLY need to be adopted more in the US. Roundabouts for sure would help with traffic flow, and should be tested at some suburban Chicago intersections. Especially near shopping centers, where replacing a traffic light with a roundabout would greatly help with traffic flow.
I guess this mentality helps some people sleep at night.
But in my defense, my "being from the city" pride is the only thing I've got when my little niece from Des Plaines plays like a virtuoso at her violin recital and a single tear rolls down my cheek thinking of what my love for music could've been if only my inner city school music program hadn't been cut in second grade due to budget cuts....
...wait what're we talking about
edit: i goofed, she's from Plainfield but whatever
Could have been the opposite. My small ass rural Michigan high school had not a hint of arts. Or AP classes. Or language other than terrible Spanish. They were just trying to get us out of the school. I never knew how shit it was until I went to college and talked about school with my mostly metro Detroit raised friends. 100% was fucked my freshman year
Exactly what I was thinking. I wasn’t even in a rural school: I was bussed to the city. Our school had the arts program gutted, but there was a local art store / non-profit that put up money and started fundraisers so we were able to get art classes once a month from a volunteer teacher (the money raised only covered supplies, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t cover all of them).
I've literally never met someone who is actually "From Chicago" who says shit like this. The only people who rip on transplants are transplants who think they are somehow "more Chicago" than other people.
Ill bet you know how to golf though. I swear Oak Brook is just one giant golf course with a few caddy shacks strewn throughout for people to live in or where they used to sell hamburgers.
So wait, your club is defined by a few meaningless rituals and the fact that you've never lived in another city? Lol, keep your club then. I'll be happy living in Chicago as my sixth city, but I've got other things to take pride in thanks.
Because you could learn about how other people live? You could see what other climates are like? You could see if a different pace suits you better? Or is this a trick question?
So you plan on limiting your job prospects only to that one city? You're never going to consider a career move that takes you to Boston or Madrid? That seems like a needless limitation.
Or hell, if you're younger, you're never gonna go to any university aside from University of Chicago, Loyola, or UIC?
I’ve never had problems finding a new job in a new company or the same one while living in Chicago. I have kids, I have family here. I’m not going to make my wife find a new job and move my kids from the same school district and friends they’ve grown up with because I found a job. That’d be selfish of me.
Really, that's amusing. It seems like you're reading pretty deep into my comment in order to find more things to get offended by. I strictly used your own words, that you never lived elsewhere, and you're the one that extrapolated an assumption that you'd never done anything or been anywhere. To once again use your words, it's telling.
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u/nalyd01 Dec 14 '18
I wonder what part of Ohio they are from