Chi-town gentrification tour- surface impressions
Chicago, like New York, but without the pesky New Yorkers and surrounded by Midwest farmland. I took a bunch of pictures, and I need to download them and label them properly. Then again 1/2 of them may be crap and only worth a delete button.This weekend I did the Robert Taylor tour. We drove down to south Chicago, after getting bagels in Sokie.
Just my first impressions, there's a lot of empty land round the former Robert Taylor Homes. I'm trying to imagine them with big ol' apartment buildings on them, but all I see are acres of empty land and thinking, urban agriculture. It didn't help that I also so plenty of community gardens and seethed with envy. Also Chicago, much bigger than DC and with tons more space. When I was reading about the Robert Taylor Homes in Sudir Venkatesh's books I imagined something more compact, like Sursum Corda.
My guide and driver was also from Florida, so we kept comparing it to depressing parts of Orlando. There was enough barren open spaces, storefront churches, run down looking buildings that if you knocked off most of the 2nd and 3rd floors, you'd have Orlando.
Well after taking a few pictures, wandering over to the University of Chicago area and hitting a neat little farmer's market attached to a nice community garden you could walk through, we drove to Gary, IN, for more looks at depressing areas.
Once I ID most of the pictures and locate the SD card reader, I'll post more.
Labels: gentrification
posted by Mari @ 25.8.08
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