Family Dollar

I've been tossing around in my head the idea of dedicating my summer to an extreme awareness of where my money goes, that is - where I buy what I buy, and where those things come from. I haven't yet figured out what my exact motivation is for this. It's not out of environmental concern, necessarily. Maybe it's about being more connected to the place where I live. People move around a lot these days, and close connections to a community - even if it's as abstractly defined as the blocks around your home - aren't what they used to be (at risk of sounding conservative and anachronistic). An example of this would be buying as much of my groceries as I could from either local vendors, or farmers who come to the Logan Square Market every Sunday in the summer.

Last weekend, though, I needed to re-stock on a couple household grocery-type things, things that my regular grocery store either doesn't carry, or doesn't carry in bulk. For a long time my initial reaction was to walk to CVS or Target, both at least a mile away from where I live, to get these things. Or maybe I would hitch a ride in a friend's car. I think the draw to these kinds of "name brand" places is familiarity, and in the case of Target, a sort of class thing as well.

This time I walked to the much closer, and much cheaper, Family Dollar at 2252 N. Milwaukee. Both Target and Family Dollar are corporate run, so there's no argument for giving your money to the little guy rather than the big box store. But Family Dollar is a business on the Milwaukee corridor that I support. I get more for my money, and I want to support somewhere that provides discount stuff for members of the community who cannot afford to shop at places like Target. CVS isn't all that cheap either.

I'd like to do a real item by item comparison to the deals you can get at both Target and Family Dollar, in the future. Meanwhile you can listen to this short Chicago Public Radio piece on Family Dollar stores.

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On Sunday I saw a family playing baseball in the empty lot at Milwaukee and Atrill, probably taking a break from Easter festivities. It was pretty cool - hey what would be cooler is if it was, like, a nice area to hang out in, instead of a dirt farm.

Epilogue: Gentrification

After rambling on in this post about gentrification in Logan Square, I've decided that the term doesn't have a place in this project. The symptoms and problems that make up what people think of as "gentrification" do, but labeling them that way doesn't serve any constructive purpose. The comments on this Time Out article about New Wave Coffee are, in my opinion, an example of how the term gets tossed around and doesn't really accomplish anything.

I haven't gotten a chance to walk the blocks on a good, sunny day yet, but hopefully will in the next week or two. I did notice that one of Mayor Daley's "Neighborhoods Alive" development signs is up on the vacant lot at Milwaukee and Logan - does this mean that they're starting to put this plan for a Market Plaza into action?

Also, for the record: my views on graffiti are probably at odds with my desire to see Logan Square flourishing and restored. I realized this after reading this blog about Chicago's Uptown neighborhood. I would never "challenge" Logan Square residents to phone in complaints to Daley's "graffiti busters," or even business owners for that matter - keeping up your property is simply good business sense, and if an owner doesn't want to do that, then that is their problem. Personally, I appreciate graffiti on Milwaukee. It's part of a complicated push and pull between the city and the taggers: you can't have one without the other.

New art on Milwaukee

Gentrification on the Near Northwest Side

I want to make some kind of statement about gentrification in Logan Square, and it makes sense that I do this early on in my project, as it might come out in my point of view on this neighborhood.

Gentrification means different things in different cities, but in Chicago it generally means that the existing, often poor or not white, population living in a neighborhood gets pushed out by higher rents and cost of living as developers and wealthy "urbanites" move in (though, that existing population probably moved in to the neighborhood earlier in the 20th century when the wealthy "urbanites" originally fled to the suburbs). Businesses like Starbucks, major or high-end grocery chains, expensive boutique stores, and other name-brand stuff, along with the construction or rehab of condominiums, are the typical outward signals of gentrification. Sometimes artists and hipsters are the avant garde of gentrification, buying cheap properties and making them more appealing to young yuppies. The arguments for gentrification are that it raises property value for existing business and home owners, reduces crime, and increases currency circulation, among other things. But this is at the cost of higher property taxes. Affordable housing options and long-time, locally owned businesses disappear. The whole character of the neighborhood can change, and while crime may be reduced in that area, it is usually just shunted off to neighboring communities.

An example of recent gentrification in Chicago is Wicker Park (gentrification that began long before Filter was ousted and a Bank of America grew up in its spot and The Real World taped a season there in 2001). The displacement of immigrant and ethnic communities is a constant feature of the gentrification of Chicago's Near Northwest Side.

When I first moved to Chicago four years ago I lived in the neighborhood of Ukrainian Village which was only at the beginnings of its gentrification cycle. Ukrainian Village is still heavily populated by its original immigrant community, and is a little more than 2 miles south of Logan Square. My decision to move to Logan Square was based on criteria that I needed in a place to live: affordable enough that I could live on my own on a safe street, proximity to public transportation, and on the Near Northwest Side. I had no interest in living in any other area of Chicago, as almost everyone I know lives in one of the surrounding neighborhoods, and I had felt most at home here.

I guess you could call me one of those "gentrifying elements" that move in to neighborhoods - I'm young, female, single, white, college-educated, and employed in the service sector. But I make less than the median family income of Logan Square. While I live directly on the historic Logan Boulevard, a street full of $600,000 condos and young families, I've experienced first hand the crime that goes on around my home. And I'd love to see all the empty storefronts and buildings filled and thriving - but not with chain stores or banks.

In fact, I'd say you could already call Logan square pretty darn gentrified - the rising cost of rent and housing has been noted for years, now.

When the Mega Mall burned last year (this happened right behind my apartment, but I didn't even know it had happened until I saw the charred remains the next morning!) and closed for awhile, there was talk of the city using eminent domain to close it down and put condos or a park or something in its place. We don't need to fill the vacant storefronts of Milwaukee Avenue with Starbucks, sushi restaurants, and condominiums. We need places to buy groceries and take our kids for daycare, or buy a wrench, or get a bike or shoe repaired, or buy a book, or meet as a community - all while preserving the existing character of the neighborhood, and being inclusive of a diverse population across incomes and family size and ethnicity and age and background.

Fullerton/Milwaukee Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District

I talked about the plans Manny Flores and co. presented back in July 2008 for re-developing the Milwaukee Avenue corridor. But where is the money supposed to come from to finance such a major transformation?

If you read the Chicago Reader or follow city council meetings, then you know what a TIF is already. It's a little complicated at first, but really pretty basic. The Logan Square Milwaukee Avenue corridor is covered by the Fullerton/Milwaukee TIF district:

TIFs were designed to fund development within their boundaries. The
Fullerton/Milwaukee TIF district runs roughly from Belmont to Armitage
along Milwaukee, darting several blocks west along Fullerton and
Armitage. The TIF was set up by the City Council to start on February
16, 2000, and won't end until 2023. For 23 years the amount of
property taxes the city gets from the area for schools, parks, police,
and other services is frozen at the amount it was getting on February
15, 2000. Any increase in property taxes from then until 2023 (the
"increment") goes to the TIF. Of course since taxes will rise if the
value of property in the area rises, property owners will see their
taxes go up just as they would have without the TIF. (Source)

So a chunk of money gets skimmed off the property taxes paid by business and home owners along Milwaukee Avenue. That chunk gets dropped into the TIF. The Logan Square Neighborhood Association backed the idea of creating the TIF back in 2000, but

In the five years since the TIF was created...No citizens' advisory board has been created, and it would
be hard to create one because the TIF district now runs through five
different wards, thanks to the 2001 redistricting. According to
planning department documents, none of the money that's poured into
the TIF has gone to local schools and none has been used for
affordable housing. Yet Milwaukee Avenue looks much as it did five
years ago.(Source)

It's now been nine years since the TIF was created, but there's no way to know how that money has been spent within the district. A couple alderman are fighting to get the city to open its TIF books and promote transparency, but that's been put on hold, apparently.

If that TIF money, which is being pulled out of the pockets of schools, public safety, transit, and more, is being spent to redevelop Milwaukee, then great! But I can't find any evidence of that, and the city isn't willing to help people understand where that money is going.

Find out if you live in a TIF district:


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2009 Outlook (on-going)

A couple new ventures might be opening up (finally) in 2009 along the block, the one that's most underway is Revolution Brewing. Josh Deth, the owner of the Handlebar, is currently carving out the basement of 2323 N. Milwaukee to accommodate a fully operating brewhouse (you'll be able to view the brewing action while dining in their restaurant). Follow Josh's progress and cross your fingers that there are no major bumps along the way, this place could be the cool antidote to the Logan Bar and Grill.



Keeping pace with Revolution's construction is the Logan Square Kitchen at 2333 N. Milwaukee. This storefront used to be Pino Viejo Rustic Furniture, but the new owners acquired it in August 2007 with an idea of creating a very "green" kitchen space that can be rented out by the hour..? I'm having a hard time following what they are doing here, but there will be a dining room (not sure if this is a restaurant, or a place you rent out for events), and small-time chefs and bakers and such can rent out galleys in the kitchen.



The Dill Pickle Food Co-op just acquired a storefront space, not on Milwaukee but definitely nearby, at 3039 W. Fullerton. They're hoping to open their grocery store this spring, but membership is already over 300. I don't know if I would join up, but I do know that the history behind their name is so rad.

Milwaukee Avenue Corridor Plan, July 2008

Public Priorities for the North Milwaukee Corridor is the report of a meeting in 2007 that gathered together opinions from Logan Square residents and business owners on what they liked and didn't like about the strip. It will serve as a good checklist going forward to see how things are changing (or aren't changing).

It's a really well put together document, I think, but doesn't give much surprising information. Of course people wants less bums hanging outside liquor stores, they want more trees, they want more art, they want a grocery store, they want a day care, they want more appreciation for bikes, etc. etc.

So eight months later, the city comes up with this:


Alderman Manny Flores and a whole bunch of other groups (Logan Square Chamber of Commerce and Urban Works included) proposed this Milwaukee Ave. Corridor Development Plan (pdf) back in July 2008, aiming for a revitalization of Milwaukee Ave. between the California and Western Blue Line 'El' stations. Their plan comes with a heavy emphasis on maintaining the strips pedestrian, cycling, and public transit locomotion over paving way for more parking. Some of their ideas for turning vacant lots into public green/art/plaza space would be pretty cool (pg. 42-43), but things have changed a lot since July economically. If the city hasn't invested in creating and maintaining spaces like this along Milwaukee, there's not much chance they'll do so now.

Their idea of taking all those vacant buildings and store fronts (and there are even more now, in 2009, than when they drew up these plans) and turning them into showcases for public art is great (pg. 36). It would go a long way towards giving the impression that development and progress are happening in this area, rather than stretches of papered-over plate glass windows and giant FOR LEASE CALL ###-#### signs.

But this plan to develop the underside of the 'El' tracks for pedestrian use, even for cafes and open air markets?? (pg. 44) Who really wants to be hanging out under the tracks, other than hobos? Is there anywhere else in Chicago where they've turned the area beneath the 'El' tracks into a bustling commercial space? The only use of that space I've seen is when streets run below (i.e. Lake Street). I'm just picturing dirt and trash falling from the tracks above into people's lattes. Oh yeah, the plan also suggests lining the underside of the tracks with planters bursting with foliage. Can plants live under there, with all the constant train traffic?

I'd like to come up with some kind of 6-month assessment of this strip, compared against not only the changes they are proposing (I can tell you right now, none have been made or even look like they are going to be made) but also the number of vacant buildings that have popped up since.