In the recent decades, Architects and Urban planners have been acknowledging that some of their experiments failed miserably and are still failing on a daily basis. Many of these individuals and companies are finding better ways to design communities and cities and make a huge Architectural and Planning reform. People who were considered Gods of Architecture are being taken a closer look to see if they were from the earth indeed or not.
If we can identify a good city on earth now, we have all the answers we are looking for, to create the perfect city. Unfortunately we can not boldly identify a city like that. It is always in our dreams and wishes and hopes.
Chicago is undeniably a city for a fact, but it is also undeniably not the perfect city. Travelling from the North Lawndale to North Thorndale on the same morning made me realize the different faces the city offers to its users.
North Lawndale has an amazing history of evolving as a residential neighborhood over the decades after the Great Chicago fire. It has also seen generations of an eclectic collection of races. Almost every two decades the community is branded as 'this race' neighborhood since people from the same community/ race settles over and then moves to the suburban in two decades and another categorized group fills in the place.
Due to this the community never developed completely as a self sustaining neighborhood. The idea of the street square for the community is in front of buildings that says' No loitering'. The idea of an apartment building is no taller than a three storey building. The idea of a grocery store is a 100 square feet store that has hot chips in an airbag.
The neighborhood has several underused lots either filled with dilapidated structures or empty lots at a prime location that could potentially serve better purposes for the community members. I want to call it a suburban from the image the neighborhood was presenting, whereas my friend debated its still a part of the city. At the very least North Lawndale has not yet reached the stages of Plato's Atlantis. It still has high potential to improve as a neighborhood that reflects the idea of Chicago as a city. It is high time the neighborhood receives attention towards development before it starts sinking down.
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