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gdulecki's review
4.0
This book was really well done. As a housing organizer on the north side, this book is so important in the work I’m doing. It’s really helpful for me to understand the history, so I can see where it is being repeated in the present. Little of this book shocked me, but it did help me gain a more pointed understanding of why LP is the way it is now.
ajkhn's review
4.0
A really interesting and fairly quick look at some early gentrification in Chicago, and the relationship between social norms and the built environment. I definitely could have used some maps – and I'm pretty familiar with Chicago! – in order to get a better sense of what was where as time changed.
I deeply enjoyed this as a historical work and appreciated how it didn't get bogged in technicalisms. It is deeply Chicago, and may be of limited interest to people not from/in the city, but if you are of Chicago, this is a book for you.
I deeply enjoyed this as a historical work and appreciated how it didn't get bogged in technicalisms. It is deeply Chicago, and may be of limited interest to people not from/in the city, but if you are of Chicago, this is a book for you.
akatsuki_clouds's review
informative
medium-paced
3.0
This was well written but I didn't find the subject very interesting and the beginning was a little hard to follow. This book seems extremely focused on the problems of gentrification but there is no discussion of how it could be fixed or what could have gone better in Lincoln Park.
radioactve_piano's review
5.0
As a non-native Chicagoan, I have been divided between to schools of guilt:
1) being "part of the problem" (I lived in Edgewater for 12 full years, plus portions of the preceding 3; now I live in Bridgeport. I am white.)
2) not being "native" enough for the longer-term people to see me as a Chicagoan vs an interloper.
Reading this book basically justified both feelings I've had, so great!
A lot of history crammed into a short bit of page real estate, but he did a fantastic job of laying out the time periods he looked at. Gentrification repeats itself, and what this book does especially well is showing that it's not black and white, or even black, white, and grey. It varies, and it's complex, and it can't be easily controlled. Lincoln Park's story itself is certainly unique (historical landmark status, being on the forefront of organizing for housing funding), and that made for an interesting read in and of itself. But even if you aren't familiar with Lincoln Park, the story of the neighborhood's evolution over the last decade shares the same bones as so many other areas, all over the world.
1) being "part of the problem" (I lived in Edgewater for 12 full years, plus portions of the preceding 3; now I live in Bridgeport. I am white.)
2) not being "native" enough for the longer-term people to see me as a Chicagoan vs an interloper.
Reading this book basically justified both feelings I've had, so great!
A lot of history crammed into a short bit of page real estate, but he did a fantastic job of laying out the time periods he looked at. Gentrification repeats itself, and what this book does especially well is showing that it's not black and white, or even black, white, and grey. It varies, and it's complex, and it can't be easily controlled. Lincoln Park's story itself is certainly unique (historical landmark status, being on the forefront of organizing for housing funding), and that made for an interesting read in and of itself. But even if you aren't familiar with Lincoln Park, the story of the neighborhood's evolution over the last decade shares the same bones as so many other areas, all over the world.
omattar's review
3.0
"Urban blight" is maybe the most nefarious term of 20th century American discourse. This book is a good companion piece to High Risers which was much more impactful and heartbreaking.
abeanbg's review
5.0
Short, but a great piece of work about how Chicago became the city it is today. As a resident of Lincoln Park and someone with a professional interest in the city's history, I'd long known the broad strokes of the story. Getting the whole sweep, beginning with Edgar Miller's artist colony in the 1930s and following through to the collapse of urban renewal in recriminations and violence (the murder of an inclusive Methodist minister and his wife deeply haunts me) is really well done.