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As recently as 3 years ago condos at 3550 W. Franklin Blvd sold well above $200K. A 2-bedroom in the building is currently available for $1,900. If you need more space you can buy a 3-bedroom, 2-bath for $3,500.
And, if you’ve bought the hype that Humboldt Park is “the next hot neighborhood,” you can pick up dozens of condos, single-families and 2-flats for under $20k apiece.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Joe, it almost appears as if you take pleasure in the “I told you so” about Chicago’s struggling neighborhoods.
I really hope it doesn’t come down to that.
tup,
No sane person can take any pleasure in the degraded state of all too many of Chicago’s neighborhoods, or the lack of civic leadership that almost demands that state.
My position is the same as it’s always been: people need to be realistic about the realities of neighborhood change in Chicago, about the long odds against improvement on a short time horizon, and the many forces arrayed against any improvement.
I’d have to agree with you urban politician. This is not the only comment I’ve come across that has smacked of what you suggest. To you this may be some kind of joke or a cheap laugh, but actual human beings live in these neighborhoods. You may see these areas as hopeless, but some Chicagoans actually call this their neighborhood. Don’t let me stop you from having a good laugh.
Ben, I think the reality is somewhere between what I suggested above and what Joe Zekas claims.
I think he would like to see many of Chicago’s poorer neighborhoods fair better, but he also takes a wee bit of pleasure in the whole “I told you so” stance.
Of course, I have long held some skepticism about the true motives of a person who himself claims he plans to “retire in Manhattan”. It would be nice to know that the person behind a website titled “YoChicago” actually has a vested interest in staying around, especially since, if I were to surmise correctly, he’s already pretty close to retirement age as it is.
Tup,
Unlike (I’m guessing) many of our readers I grew up in a very gritty neighborhood in northern New Jersey and attended high school in a raw section of Newark. I spent 4 ½ years as a social worker and welfare-rights organizer in Milwaukee’s slums. For 5 years I did pro bono legal work part-time on behalf of individuals and groups in some of Chicago’s tougher neighborhoods. I identify, at a very visceral level, with the people in those neighborhoods and the difficulties they experience in changing them.
I’ve followed the progress – or lack of it – of Chicago neighborhoods for nearly 36 years now, not from a distance but from the field, talking to 1,000s of people who have “skin in the game” – from community groups and residents to real estate brokers, bankers and developers. I also, of course, read the academic and popular literature on urban development. I like to think I’ve acquired some small sense of what it takes to effect change in a neighborhood.
Like everyone else I’m often a poor judge of my motives and reactions, but I think I take more pleasure in having the passage of time prove me wrong about neighborhood change (e.g. Bucktown and, to some extent, Uptown) than in being proved right.
As to my ongoing stake in YoChicago … I’m 65. The business that supports YoChicago is based on print advertising in newspapers by real estate brokers, i.e. a niche that’s been melting down and is unlikely to recover to previous levels. I have obligations to stakeholders in that business who matter to me (my kids and long-time employees) to see the business into its solely Internet-based future, of which YoChicago is only one facet. So, I’ll be here for a while. Manhattan is still a goal, but for now a distant one.