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Chicago 2016 decided that Washington Park was the best place to build an 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium.
Now the challenge for Washington Park neighborhood leaders -- once again -- is convincing people that it's a good place to build a simple shop under the "L" tracks or a town house nearby.
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Reading this reminded me of interviewing people in Hyde Park back in fall of 2007 about their thoughts on the changing neighborhood. Many of them had heard the area might be "getting the Olympics" and had pinned their hopes on housing prices shooting through the roof and city money pouring in.
Alas.
Less may be more, fellow Windy Citizens.
When you visit the Chicago Historical Museum on Clark Street, you'll discover that Washington Park was once host to one of Chicago's upscale equestrian racing venues.
With dense, high-rise living in much of the surrounding South Side communities, shouldn't residents have their own Central Park serenity nearby?
Let's consider construction an environmentally-friendly European exercise trail to invite Windy Citizens to enjoy.
The problem is that in poor neighborhoods parks generally are not so much a site of serenity as a place for drugs to be sold and street-less street violence to occur. As for the exercise train, unless the more comprehensive changes occur to the neighborhood it will be a case of "If you build it they will not come because they will be too afraid."
This quote from Ald. Preckwinkle didn't sit too well with me:
The neighborhoods in question on the North side demand high prices for a host of reasons beyond "location." To imply that when you know it's not true doesn't make much sense.
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