Saturday, January 14, 2012

Watching this YoChicago video on Englewood


[VIDEO] It was contained within a recent post entitled "Does Englewood have any hope of recovery?" Joe Zekas takes a drive along Normal Avenue starting from 63rd to about 57th Street. In that posting he notes the lack of impact of the new Kennedy-King College Campus and then asks this question about Englewood's prospects:
Some urban neighborhoods are so deteriorated that it’s impossible to reclaim them without first clearing them. Is Englewood one of them?
I'm sure the people at RAGE want to answer this question so here's their opportunity. BTW, I hope you're following their FB page if you didn't already know this photo was out of Englewood (63rd & Morgan) surely you would've thought this was somewhere on the north side
Surely a lot of people who admit that Englewood sure needs a lot of work but I would loath the idea of a clearing. Clear the buildings out of that neighborhood for what? Whatever has been cleared there has remained vacant as if there was no plan for when they clear the lots. Besides they largely cleared the old Englewood downtown and aside from building Kennedy-King no more progress seems to be made from that.

To go back for a second, it seems Zekas takes a drive in roughly the area Aysha Butler took Marc Sims through sometime last year. Little did I know there were two videos click here for both but I will only embed one of them here [VIDEO: PART 1, PART 2]. Basically the land Butler and Sims toured late last year and what you see in the YoChicago video are land that could one day be cleared for a railroad switching yard. You can also read what Mrs. Butler wrote on her blog.
And here's yet another bleak YoChicago report about Englewood entitled "A West Englewood rehab without a building permit". If you watch the video while the building featured @ 6219 S Marshfield Ave looks very nice on the outside the rest of the neighborhood is bleak. It seems Zekas wants to steer people away from Englewood:
HUD’s rent schedule is the same for all of metropolitan Chicago. It isn’t difficult to find housing at those rents in many environments that are far more attractive than West Englewood.
It's been noted Englewood doesn't have much in assets. The one they that neighborhood does have is public transportation, the Green Line. But if you go to that rehab posting you'll see a report from the Ashland/63 Green Line station. That's not even enough to encourage investment.

The next question, I suppose is what would it take to give Englewood the attention it deserves? Does anyone have an answer?

1 comment:

  1. I've posted a variety of videos from Englewood over the years, not all as skeptical as these.

    I am not trying to steer anyone away from Englewood, and not misguided enough to think that I could.

    Thanks for alerting everyone to the Butler videos. Definitely the same area I was in.

    ReplyDelete

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