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Originally Posted by the urban politician
^ Those look similar to other recent housing built in Chinatown just north of Chinatown Square.
I guess it’s a Chinese thing maybe, but they seem to prefer that layout. I’m not particularly fond of it, personally. I like more traditional urbanism where everything fronts the street and you get a proper streetwall.
Anyhow, it’s still good to see all of this investment
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Yeah. I mean it's better than what's there now, but kind of not what I'd call ideal either, personally. The thing is that what people here think China is like or what middle/upper class people from there want I find is kind of different than reality. I mean, my fiancee keeps telling me how Chinese people love Chicago because it has actual greenery around and everything, and from an urban perspective less of them like Manhattan than many Americans think/realize. All the cities I went to were pretty damn green at street level. They have public parks, but it wasn't this BS like "the entire city is concrete, steel, and glass and here's a few parks because we can't give you trees anywhere else. Go spend time there if you want to see a few trees." She found that concept foreign until moving to NYC. Definitely a good balance of nature/greenery in the cities. First time in the South Loop she asked if the Chinese had designed it because it looked just like parts of Shanghai. Her parents loved Chicago for these reasons, and pretty much hate Manhattan for these reasons too. Hong Kong in the city itself in many areas is kind of brutal like that - more of the original, long time ones to Chicago. In the last decade, the Chinese people arriving in Chicago are from mainland which has more of the nature in the city respect.
The difference though is that they might put some green space in between buildings, but they don't have this mentality like "no retail or restaurants!!!!!" My fiancee's parents live in an area where there's nothing at ground level like that, but it's all zen gardens and ponds and stuff, but you walk 5-10 minutes and there's loads of restaurants and bars anyway.
So this type of development is not totally surprising to me after having spent time in China. As long as there are restaurants and stuff around to walk to, they could care less that there's 30 feet between their buildings instead of 2 feet as long as there's some greenery around and stuff like that. As my fiancee puts it, "We will live anywhere as long as it's cheap, there's some food around, and good schools or schools we can make better." When I'd tell her that there's been a big influx in Chinese in Bridgeport, Brighton Park, etc her first question is "houses must be cheap there, right?" LOL.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BonoboZill4
I'm always around the Ashland Orange line stop when I head down to BoTYs and it's really close to being a nice area in my opinion. More developments like that and that area will keep improving. Crazy to see how over the years the Asian(mostly Chinese) expansion south and west has accelerated.
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In 2010, Archer Heights had 0 Asian people. In 2017, the Census estimates they have around 750 I think, probably closing in on 1000 this year at that rate if not more.
Oh yeah, across the street from that development on Archer, for example will be this 34 unit building:
http://www.hmcrty.com/Featured-%E6%9.../3211-S-Archer
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