You have to hand it to RedEye. The Trib’s zombie rag today republished a rewritten version of the neighborhood name game story that Crain’s published on May 1, and they did almost half as good a job. The hook for the Crain’s story was a major new South Loop development in the pipeline that will be promoted under a completely new neighborhood name – River South. The RedEye piece much to our surprise was more general and less informed. The writer focused on names like East Village and University Village, which began to stick a long time ago, and missed efforts like River South, The Cathedral District, SoFo and SoLo.
The South Loop USED to be called ‘The Levy’ and was a notorious nationally (and even internationally) red light district. Maybe we can go back to that..
I didn’t see the Crain’s article, but the one you linked to in the Trib was a yawner. I’ve never lived in the city proper, so I can’t get a handle on neighborhood names anyway!