“If history teaches us anything, it should be an area currently inhabited, and eventually abandoned, by the wealthy.”

sure, because those are the neighborhoods with great old buildings to fix up. of course, the fact that Williamsburg is a shithole devoid of any architectural interest didn’t keep the hipsters out of there, but that goes to show just how desperate New Yorkers are.

WP will never quite be Lincoln Park, as they’re morphologically different: the density isn’t nearly as high, the housing stock has none of those tiny lakefront studios, and there’s more nonprofit-owned, permanent subsidized housing on the side streets.

to anyone who says “it’s so fake”: so, what’s real? the suburbs are a fantasy of country-manor life: every man has his castle, etc. Lincoln Park is a fantasy of fraternity life with more booze and money. Hyde Park is an ivory-tower fantasy. okay, maybe North Lawndale or Englewood are keeping it real, but most of their residents would probably trade reality for fantasy if it made their neighborhood safer. etc.

[posted @ Chicagoist]