READING FEEDBACK

58 Charles S. Suchar

report is noted here. That the target date for this plan is the same as the City's Central Area P lan is no accident, since the latter was written in full recognition of the basic framework of the ini­ tial Chicago Metropolis 2020 plan, which was released several years prior to the City's plan.

"Choices for the Chicago Region" shares sev­ eral characteristics with the Central Area plan and its vision. At the core of the metropolitan re­ gional plan is an emphasis on efficient and effec­ tive public transportation links between suburbs and city, residence, work, and recreation, and an improved regional environment with sustain­ able growth and protected open spaces. The dif­ ference between this broader, metropolitan plan and that of the Central Area plan is that "Choices for the Chicago Region" includes a much more decentralized view of development needs, fa­ voring regional, multiple-nuclei development, while at the same time seeking efficiencies and functional integration of resources, services, and amenities.

The plan calls for a regional effort to dis­ tribute affordable housing and assure equitable educational opportunities. It calls for an invest­ ment in and development of strong regional cities that would work in partnership with the city of Chicago. To accomplish these goals on a regional scale, the plan calls for, among other things, coordinated transportation and land­ use planning and, most significantly, a rev­ enue and tax-sharing system that is based on a broader geographical base than individual communities presently have. As might be ex­ pected, in a period of a declining national econ­ omy and significant state and local government budgetary shortfalls, the revenue and funding recommendations, especially in the 2002-03 reports, seem very optimistic-if not slightly more pipe-dream than practical solution. The revenue-sharirig scheme also includes politi­ cally sensitive issues that would have been dif­ ficult to surmount even under good economic conditions.

The implications of "Choices for the Chicago Region" for the physical transformation of the metropolitan area would principally rest with the goals of linking public transportation (and land-use policy) to walkable distances between

residential, work, and shopping and recreational facilities and those services that would ease traffic congestion in a growing metropolitan population. In addition to the preservation of open space and the encouragement of redevel­ opment to make best use of the available re­ sources in the built environment, the plan also promotes affordable, mixed-income residential development near job centers, schools, services, and public transit centers that would create metropolitan development nodes and concen­ trations, thus eliminating the need to travel great distances, especially by automobile (see Chap­ ter 23, for a more comprehensive exposition of Chicago Metropolis 2020's vision).

THE VISION IN LIGHT OF OTHER CHANGES IN CHICAGO'S NEIGHBORHOODS

What do these visions of Chicago and its metropolitan region reveal? These views of the future Chicago see a city vastly different from the industrial city that emerged in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and as it existed during the first three-quarters of the twentieth century. Chicago, hog-butcher to the world, the manu­ facturing center for clothing, steel, and food­ products, with a city center devoted to retail­ ing and trade, had become, especially in the last quarter of the twentieth century, a postindus­ trial city. As such, its physical presence reflected a fair amount of fatigue, decay, and obsolescence in the former industrial central-city hub, built environment, and physical infrastructure.

But, while this devolution was taking place in its industrial identity and function, Chicago was also experiencing a significant social and cultural revitalization of its central city neighborhoods-a postindustrial, social, eco­ nomic, and cultural transformation of signifi­ cant proportions. "Central city'' and certainly "inner city" had begun to mean different things by the late 1970s and early 1980s in Chicago, particularly on the city's Near North Side. By the 1990s, the revalorization or revaluing of the central city area was clear: It had be­ come a very attractive area for increasingly

well-educated, younger, and upwardly mobile urban professionals. Lincoln Park, the Near North Side, Wicker Park, Bucktown, and other gentrifying neighborhoods just to the north of the central-city area, had already been in sig­ nificant stages of development. Downtown and the Loop had been replaced by residential place­ names-South Loop, Printer's Row, Dearborn Park, Near West Side, River North, River West, Museum Park, Streeterville, East Loop-that had been rarely used before in popular discourse on the city's neighborhoods. These designations were unrecognized as neighborhoods, and their emerging use is testimony to the effect of the re­ altor's inventive, creative, and powerful labeling ability.

On the basis of this neighborhood transfor­ mation (very little of it the direct consequence of either of the earlier central area plans of 1973 and 1983), the 2002 plan projected its vision of the future of central Chicago. In fact, it might be argued that much of the 2002 Central Area Plan, and also components of "Choices for the Chicago Region," would not have been possible without these earlier neighborhood transforma­ tions.

While names and plans for new communities were being touted for the central city, places like Cabrini-Green, Taylor Homes, ABLA Homes, Stateway Gardens, Henry Horner Homes­ some of Chicago's decaying and infamous public housing projects-were also undergoing long­ needed transformations. Although peculiarly absent in the planning documents of the city and elsewhere, these plans would also potentially im­ pact and transform the urban landscape of the central city. The Central Area Plan contains few references to the issues of resident displacement, housing replacement, social class and racial ten­ sions, and the city's plans for responding to these problems. In fact, much of the Central Area Plan and various Chicago Metropolis 2020 doc­ uments, while mentioning the need for "afford­ able housing" and noting the massive decline in rental units during the decade of the 1990s (e.g., Chicago Metropolis 2020 2001, 28-32), makes surprisingly little mention of many of these se­ rious problems affecting the residents of these communities.

Chicago's Central Area 59

CHICAGO TAKING SHAPE BEFORE OUR EYES

Beginning in the spring and summer of 2002 and extending to the summer of 2003, the series of photographs in this chapter highlights the phys­ ical transformations that were most reflective of the new central area cityscape. This photo­ documentary project follows upon an extensive visual documentation of the gentrifying com­ munities in both Chicago and in Europe (Suchar 1992, 1994, 1997,2004a,2004b).

The most recent photographic documenta­ tion of Chicago's central area revealed a land­ scape in significant stages of redevelopment. The most noticeable and extensive changes have taken place within an area of longstanding in­ terest to urban sociologists.

More than 80 years ago, the pioneering work of Robert E. Park, Ernest W. Burgess, and Roderick D. McKenzie in the landmark book The City (1925), and in subsequent studies by disciples at the University of Chicago (known as the "Chicago School" within the discipline of sociology), drew particular attention to the pat­ tern of urban development and urban growth taking place within the city of Chicago and pos­ tulated a "concentric zone theory."

Of particular interest to sociologists for sev­ eral generations were the zones in the center of the city, most especially the area labeled the "Zone in Transition" -an area almost exactly co-extensive with the "Central Area" of Chicago discussed in the previous section. This area be­ came the object of the present visual documen­ tation for the very reason that it reflected the greatest amount of contiguous physical trans­ formation taking place within the city over the past 10 to 15 years and that it resonated with and reflected this longstanding, even traditional perspective within urban studies. Map 5.1 (see color insert) details the specific sites and lo­ cations for the photographs included in this chapter.

Park, Burgess and McKenzie labeled the "zone in transition" as such because it re­ flected dominant traits of instability and change, due to two leading factors: the invasion of industry-the influx and growth of an industrial

70 Charles S. Suchar

PHOTO 5.11. A gated luxury residential development on the North Branch of the Chicago River opposite the East Bank Club ("Kinzie Park"), off Kinzie Street. Such gated communities were rare in Chicago until quite recently. Both banks of the river in this section of the near North Side have seen significant development during the past few years.

considered Chicago's new "Gold Coast;' reflect­ ing the changes in desirability, value, function, and look of Chicago River-side real estate.

The valuable stretch of the North Branch of the River from Wolf Point to the Mont­ gomery Ward riverside development (and ul­ timately North to Goose Island) is gradually taking shape, with a premium being placed on high-density, upscale, market-rate housing with robust in-fill development. The attractiveness of the River North area as a "lifestyle" com­ munity is quite apparent. The neighborhood's proximity to downtown, the established restau­ rant and entertainment center of River North along Wells Street from Chicago Avenue to the river, and the art gallery district enclave to south of Chicago Avenue make for a real estate de-

veloper's dream set of ingredients to spark the interest of well-heeled consumers. Money, real estate, culture, cuisine, and proximity to central­ ized power mark what urban sociologist Sharon Zukin refers to as "landscapes of power." The shared social consumption characteristics and proclivities of the new urban elite who inhabit these new central city urban zones are quite a change from those who inhabited the zone in transition identified by the earliest sociologists commenting on Chicago's central area (Zukin 1991, 179-215).

Despite the robustness of development along the River North community, all is not tranquil. Photo 5.12, depicting the gated community of townhouses off Erie Street, also shows a 3 7-story tower at Lake and Canal Streets. This is The

Chicago's Central Area 71

PHOTO 5.12. Luxury townhouses along the North Branch of the Chicago River and several luxury high-rise condominium developments in the background. A slow economy and worrisome vacancy rates in some of the high-density developments during 2001-03 have caused some concern among financial investors and developers.

Residencies at River Bend, a new luxury con­ dominium development. In August 2003, it was announced that the developer of this project, B.J. Spathies, was unable to pay off loans total­ ing $44.5 million, because of a 32 percent va­ cancy rate, and that a foreclosure auction of the development entity that owns the unsold units was imminent (Corfman 2003c). The de­ cline in demand for such housing is attributable to the sagging economy in 2001-03, the in­ crease in condominium prices, and overbuild­ ing. This decline has concerned developers and particularly the lending companies who finance these projects. As in the case of other projects, the River Bend condominium is financed by a number of lending banks from as far away as New York (Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc.) and

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California ( Construction Lending Corporation of America). Although Chicago enjoys a repu­ tation as a good city for new housing invest­ ment by such firms, the current slowness of the luxury housing market may affect such devel­ opment. The office vacancy rate in the River North area has also increased in the past sev­ eral years, from a rate of 9.24 percent in 1999 to 25.3 percent in 2002 (Black's Guide 2002-03). This rate is highest in the central area, with the exception of the south Loop, where the 2002-03 vacancy rate was at 31.67 percent (Black's Guide 2002-03).

With the demise of Cabrini-Green public housing, the trajectory of Near North Side de­ velopment is quite clear. A helicopter passen­ ger flying over the northern portions of central

76 Charles S. Suchar

Sharon Zukin's conception of "inner city" and "landscape of power" ( one might add "zone in transition"), provides contrasting characteri­ zations of the central area that signify a historical trajectory of change that is probably less uniform and homogenous than is commonly thought. Pockets of social class, lifestyle, ethnic, and racial variation reflect a more complex, cosmopoli­ tan configuration to the demographic com­ position of the central area's population. The actual or planned built environments that pro­ vide shelter, space for commercial development, and the infrastructure of services to sustain such urban transformation are highly depen­ dent on market forces ( e.g. , financial lending and investment practices, developer entrepreneur­ ship) and political and governmental regula­ tion and decision-making (e.g., zoning regu­ lation, ward politics, tax-incentives, municipal services, transportation policy, and government subsidies).

At present, the forces that control this trans­ formation are greatly influenced by and re­ sponsive to the needs, interests, and spending capital-the "power of consumption"-of peo­ ple who have come to inhabit this "landscape of power." In Chicago, this new urban elite has already affected what Zukin calls the "critical in­ frastructure"

... through which cultural values are appreci­ ated. They conduct walking tours through seedy neighborhoods, pointing out art and history amid decline. They visit restaurants writing up reactions to dishes . .. By these activities, the crit­ ical infrastructure establish and unify a new per­ spective for viewing and consuming the values of place-but by so doing they also establish their market values.

From this point of view, gentrification-like cuisine-is transformed from a place-defining into a market-defining process .... For develop­ ers, centrality is a geographical space; for gentri­ fiers it is a built environment. But for the popu­ lation that is socially or economically displaced from older cities, centrality is a struggle between

their own segmented vernacular and a coherent landscape of power." (Zukin 1991, 215)

In Chicago, this segment of the population al­ ready has established the prism through which culture, lifestyle, and issues of "community de­ velopment" are viewed. Through neighborhood organizations, block clubs, political engagement and influence, and the control and influence over consumer-driven recreational and com­ mercial development, this new urban elite has come to dominate the attention and "place and market defining" characteristics of this urban landscape.

Chicago's pattern of physical development re­ flects a cityscape and landscape of power that, while striving for coherence, lacks the overall communal integration that would auger well for its future. Different racial, ethnic, cultural, and social class constituencies are wary of private and public intentions for the "new Chicago." These groups have too many unanswered questions about their future stake and role in and benefits from the many changes that have taken place in the city. The building of an integrated, coher­ ent central area, utilizing coordinated planning and problem solving and benefiting the widest possible number of residents in its many dif­ ferent sectors, is a most formidable task. City government, the private business sector, com­ munity organizations and institutions, and cit­ izen and resident groups must find the will and means by which to achieve a common ground for dialogue and understanding. These con­ stituencies need to establish a vision and agenda for community planning that recognizes the interests, rights, hopes, and aspirations of all Chicagoans, regardless of background and sta­ tus. If centrality brings with it power, that power, for the common good, needs to be carefully allocated and shared. The future and strength of Chicago, like all great cities, lies in its het­ erogeneity and diversity and in the common­ ground of aspirations achieved and hopes realized.