Shortly after I moved to the South Loop from Edgewater, someone asked me how it felt to not live in a neighborhood anymore.
The question came back to me as I read about the Chicago Neighborhood Project. The University of Chicago initiative invites people to draw their neighborhood borders as they perceive them. There are no right or wrong answers, reflecting the fluid nature of boundaries here, but the researchers are hoping to find more consensus about neighborhoods. You have until December 31 to take the survey at https://chicago-neighborhoods.com.
Project developer Emily Talen, a professor of urbanism at the University of Chicago, suggests that the old-time concept of neighborhood — where people shopped in the corner grocery store and walked to church — has lost meaning. Neighborhoods have become “geographic locators” to answer questions about where you live, she told Chicago magazine.
“The first step of elevating a neighborhood as being important is naming it and identifying it and thinking of it as a real place,” Talen said.
Going by Talen’s assessment, downtowns aren't the only areas that lack the neighborhood feel. But as my questioner implied, high-rise downtowns are singled out as incompatible with the concept of neighborhood.
”High-Rises Kill Livability” is the headline of an article on the Smart Cities Dive website. The author, “Bloomingrock,” argues that high-rises separate their residents from street life and the outdoors and lessen the possibility of chance encounters. Residents are encapsulated in silos, especially in buildings with amenities like gyms and markets, where they mostly interface with people of the same socioeconomic strata.
Following Bloomingrock’s reasoning, I should be glad instead of disappointed that my high-rise building lacks a community room because it forces me to go out when I have cabin fever.
I agree that high-rise living can feel anonymous, although I don’t understand why I run into some people often and some never. Except for a couple down the hall who became my good friends, my friendships in the building did not happen spontaneously. They came out of a social group that some of us seniors formed.
High-rise livability would improve with more communal amenities distributed throughout the building instead of placed on a single level, according to “Improving the Social Sustainability of High-Rises,” a research paper on the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s website. I wonder whether Bloomingrock would say that more amenities would produce more siloing. I doubt that would be the case in downtowns, whose attractions are what draw residents.
On the Chicago Neighborhood Project site, I drew my perception of the South Loop’s boundaries — Ida B. Wells Drive on the north, Lake Michigan on the east, the Chicago River on the west, and 16th Street on the south.
Does it feel like a neighborhood by Talen’s standards? I eat out more often outside the area than in it because most of my friends do not live around here. Although I could attend a church nearby, I go in River North. There are some locally owned stores, but most stores are chains — and I shop very little anyhow.
Clearly, my life isn’t centered on the South Loop, but I do feel connected to the area. I’ve learned its history and show it off on Chicago Greeter tours. When someone asks where I live, I point out that buses, el trains, the Museum Campus, the lake, and the Loop are within walking distance, and that there are two grocery stores on the corner.
Loving my location may not be the same as loving my neighborhood, but I’ve never regretted moving here.
A neighborhood is where you feel at home. Sounds like you have one!
ReplyDeleteI like that definition, Molly.
DeleteI would argue that my building is my smallest community. My larger neighborhood is Printers Row/ Dearborn Park. I see my neighbors every day on the elevator. I know people who have lived here over 30 years, over 20 years and over 10 years. We are bound together economically. We have community board meetings, we have a book club. We have social events. The neighborhood has a community organization called South Loop Neighbors. Originally, they were formed to make sure they had a voice in how development would proceed in one of the fastest growing neighborhoods in the city. We have a local church where many community meetings are held. Candidate forums are held prior to elections. I have met many a local politician there. I started the Dearborn Express to help define the neighborhood. To report on subjects that are important in our neighborhood. We walk to restaurants, we walk to grocery stores, we are 100% walk-able. I would argue that some suburbs with their subdivisions, with their attached garages, with their strip malls a mile or two away, are no more a neighborhood than where I live right now.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of starting with your building and expanding out from there, and I think you have a good point about suburban subdivisions. Your level of activity in the South Loop is a great example of how one creates neighborhood.
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