On Tuesday — the last day of summer? — Joe and I rented a Zipcar and zipped over to the Garfield Park Conservatory, where we met Mike Tomas, the director of the East Garfield Park New Communities Program.
With Mike narrating, we spent about an hour driving the streets of East Garfield Park, looking at some of the new residential and commercial developments that are coming to the West Side neighborhood. One of the biggest problems that East Garfield Park residents face is that there isn’t a single bank in the neighborhood, Mike says, so he’s excited that a new CVS will be bringing ATM service to the area.
Another tour through one of Chicago’s half-empty ghettoes.
Depressing. It’s really sad how desperate some communities of the city are. Excitement about a drive thru CVS? Look at all of that vacant land–does it really need a “campus park”? For crying out loud, that whole neighborhood already IS a campus park.
Like many of Chicago’s mostly-destroyed south and west side neighborhoods (if we can still call them “neighborhoods”), this part of town needs PEOPLE, not parks and ugly drive thru pharmacies.
“this part of town needs PEOPLE, not parks and ugly drive thru pharmacies.”
Don’t you think that it just might be difficult for a neighborhood to lure new residents when it is lacking pharmacies, ATMs/banks, and other amenities? Obviously a neighborhood needs people to thrive, but neighborhoods such as East Garfield Park aren’t going to experience much growth in PEOPLE unless they have halfway decent amenities. I think the new CVS and supermarket on Western will be a huge step in the right direction for East Garfield Park, in terms of being able to attract more people.
It sounds like it will be a full service pharmacy that offers a drive thru, as many do throughout the Chicago area. I agree with Sir Issac, not only do you need businesses to attract residents, but you need the right type of business. Pete’s Market on Madison and Western is a step in the right direction. As far as parks are concerned, I feel the more open space, the merrier. Chicago certainly lacks in open space. East Garfield is taking steps to make this a green area, which I think is fantastic.
I agree that more businesses will attract residents, but am always suspicious of the lack of open space claim I always get from community organizer types. Chicago is fairly low density and has a lot of private open or outdoor space in yards, etc, compared to say, New York, hence the need for large and small parks isn’t as great as in other cities.
Case in point; the little ‘pocket’ park at Thorndale and Sheridan on the SW corner – it is across from the lakefront park, and would be more useful to the city bringing in tax revenue – all of it’s amenities could have been built in the exsiting park on the lakefront rather than having two parks (some of this might be due to the down-zoning of Sheridan as well, which makes the property too expensive to use for the allowed zoning).