A 29 year-old paralegal moves back to Portage Park and dreams of a Starbucks. An alderman says “most of his new neighbors come from trendy neighborhoods to the east.”
The white population of Portgage Park decreases by 12.9% and the Hispanic population increases by 25.4%. Professionals pack up and move on. Storefronts empty.
That’s enough for today’s Sun-Times to conclude that Portage Park is going “posh, with south of the border spice.”
Yo’s offering to pop for El fare to send the Sun-Times reporters out for a look around Portage Park. According to the Sun-Times “It’s just blocks from the Kennedy and Edens expressways. The three major bus routes intersecting at Six Corners and the Blue Line L train are within walking distance from nearly everywhere in the neighborhood.”
Once the Sun-Times reporters have taken the two-mile walk from the Blue Line at the northeast corner of Portage Park to “nearly everywhere in the neighborhood” they’re likely to have a different take on Portage Park. Posh? Bosh!
Not where I live in Portage Park..I paid $275000 for a solid brick home with wood floors, crown moldings, and pine molding everywhere. It waas built in 1943 when craftsman not labors buit home and actually gave a sh%*. Today, 4 years later it is appraised at 410,000. Yes, it was a terribly written story but anyone who has sense sees the direction it is moving (posh, professional middleclass families). 4 miles from Wrigley, 15mts for Ohio st, and plenty of parking.
Those are certainly some compelling advantages – 4 miles from Wrigley, 15 minutes from Ohio Street, and plenty of parking.
With all that to offer, who wouldn’t move to Portage Park?
I’ll tell you who: middle class professional families. A trickle might move there hoping for the kind of appreciation you’ve experienced. They’ll move on when they need to send their kids to school. The hell-holes that pass for public schools in that stretch of Chicago don’t cut it with professional parents.
hmmm. I’m going to have to look for that story….. We’re pretty happy in Portage Park. We’ve enjoyed a similarly nice house appreciation in four years. We’re a professional couple – with a toddler. I’m hoping we can stay, and I’ll just note that many professional couples in the city count on private/ parochial schools, not that I’m convinced the publics there are hell holes….