“Someone is going to redevelop all the vacant land and the abandoned loft buildings as well as replace or renovate the sub standard houses many of which will become unhabitable once the current resident vacates. There just aren’t that many people looking for 2 closets with a smallish living room and kitchen appliance room with space heat and termites, cracked windows, and a rotted mold covered bathing room with a toilet about to fall thru the floor. Unless illegal immigration picks back up you can kiss tenantz who put up which such sub standard living quarters goodbye.”
“Pilsen was long plagued by absentee landlords who kept their properties in substandard condition, without interference from city building inspectors. There was always a demand for that kind of housing at the right price. Has something changed in Pilsen to remove or police the absentee owners and diminish the demand for low-quality but affordable housing?”
“Yeah Joe, something has changed. UIC has moved all the way to the 16th Street viaduct, students are being priced out of Taylor Street, young professionals don’t want to pay an arm and a leg to live in Lincoln Park or Wicker Park, and the location is within a stone’s throw of downtown.”
“Young professionals who can afford to still want to live in Lincoln Park and Wicker Park. They still do.”
“The prime geographic locations in the central city are not the appropriate place for low income housing. If the central city is to prosper economically, the best locations have to be used to provide housing that will attract people with above average income and even ones who are rich, so that they will live in the city instead of the suburs, in order to provide the city with sufficient tax revenue to properly fund its needs, such as, for example, paying for the expansion of parks. That requires tax revenue. If such prime areas are used for run-down, low income housing, Chicago will become an impoverished slum like Detroit. Other, less desirable locations are more appropriate for affordable housing.”
– Viktor, Joe Zekas, UICstudent, Zekas again, and CaptainVideo, in an animosity-free edition of the continuing back-and-forth over Pilsen. Click those links to read the full conversation. Just make sure to take your blood-pressure medicine first.
(Photos from YoChicago’s Pilsen set on Flickr.)