“What I remember from back in 1966 is being warned that there was extreme danger west of Halsted,” says Coldwell Banker agent Lino Darchun as he reflects on his early days in Lincoln Park and the changes that have swept through the neighborhood in the four decades since.
Lino is the charter member of our new Chicago Real Estate Experts network. You can see more videos with Lino on the Real Estate Experts YouTube channel.
There are some that like to advance a warm fuzzy fairy tale about community activists and preservationists saving Lincoln Park, but it’s more of a success story of both urban renewal and real estate speculators. Urban renewal funds improved infrastructure, revised traffic patterns, and supported small scale selective slum clearing. And with all the public money pouring into a place with proximity to the lake and downtown, speculators jumped in.
mc,
Your points are well taken. I’d simply add that speculators in Lincoln Park came in a variety of guises – including the people who took a chance on living there back in the day and worked to improve the community. The developer speculators couldn’t have been successful without them, and they wouldn’t have succeeded without the develpoer speculators.