Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Integration and more gentrification in Chatham?

This comment was made on the Facebook page a few days ago:
(East) Chatham has been like that for a while. (Northwest) Chatham (a.k.a. Park Manor) is still decent. But it's always been rough from Cottage to Langley. But what needs to happen is MORE gentrification. They not gon' have violence where the white folks live. So, let's be open to them moving back in.
Hmmmm. I think this statement needs a tackling.

Well this was in response to a link I posted there from the CAPCC blog once again proclaiming Chatham is still "Just like Detroit".

I suppose we can talk about Chatham "Hyde Parked" once again! In this regards we'd be talking about integration again.

My goal for Chatham as always is to attract younger people with children, well families to the neighborhood. To do that we may need to find ways to bring needed amenities to this community. And make sure our local schools are in good shape.

As for gentrification. We might need to define that more. There will be those who will be opposed to that although it should be understood that if there is a problem things can't stay the same as they are currently in Chatham.

Of course as always I would just like to say that comparing Chatham to Detroit is very much over-the-top!

1 comment:

  1. While I will agree that 79th street needs some major changes I'm against changing Chatham to Hyde Park, South Loop, Uptown, etc. Chatham is Chatham and it will decide its own image just as those neighborhoods defined theirs. I hear this argument to bring in stores such as Panerra, Qdoba, Potbelly, etc but where are you going to put them? Do you now tell store owners on 79th street you are not in style and you gotta go? What about the small business owner, is he no longer welcome in Chatham because a younger demographic says they don't like small business?

    I say No to that. Yes I would like to see some more development that offers the stores the residents of Chatham have told several developers we want. Living here twenty years we did not tell anyone we wanted 20 beauty shops, dollar stores and greasy spoons. One developer who promised, but lied, stated he was going to have Carribou, a high quality chinese food outlet and a bank branch turned around and gave us Little Ceasars another phone store and nothing and unfortunately its too late to stop it.

    Yes, there is a problem near Cottage Grove and it has no easy solution. Those large corner apartment buildings are a throwback of a period long gone. But what do you do with them? Several buildings were converted to office buildings and they had more problems with commercial tenants than residential. Also, what do you do with those small apartments? The way several owners have solved these problems are the root cause of the problem on 79th. Renting to any warm body with cash in hand doesn't and isn't going to work.

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