“When I walk home from the train and see apartments that are now condos, I didn’t know how common that was. Now I do. The next question is, to what extent has this affected affordability?”
– David Merriman, co-author of a Loyola University study analyzing 15 years of residential construction in Chicago, quoted in today’s Chicago Tribune
If the Trib story contained a single phrase about the possible beneficial effects of the city’s adding so many condos, I couldn’t find it.
Here’s another statistic you won’t find in the Trib story. The 1990 Census found 21,363 renter-occupied units in Rogers Park; in 2005 the number was 21,553 – an increase. The Trib story paints rentals as a vanishing species in some neighborhoods, including Rogers Park. The facts tell a different story.
Sure, owner-occupied units increased almost 5-fold in Rogers Park over the study’s period. But, a substantial part of the difference is accounted for by 1) new construction and 2) a decrease in the overall vacancy rate. And, many condo units are renter-occupied.
Again, more unbalanced reporting on neighborhood change.
Joe,
even if you took the numbers in the story at face value, which I don’t. all it basically showed was this.
Population of the city remained relatively the same.
Fewer apartments.
More condos.
Logically, one could infer from that fewer people are chasing fewer apartments. That is a very simplistic way of looking at it but it is true or at least “trueish”. I am sure the actually story is much more complicated. With the exception of the “Chicago Reporter” which sometimes does long interesting stories on these type of changes the major media in this town fails. Actually, “Chicago Reporter” ain’t major media so there is no exception. Dat’s da fact, Joe or Jack.
The story’s not much more complicated – in fact, it’s overly simplistic since it fails to mention some of the potentially zinger biases built into the study, which is based on Assessor’s data.