Curious Hair wrote:
Honestly, if the Bears wanted to move to Rosemont or something, I wouldn't care. I don't romanticize football venues. Put a huge fuckin' bowl in Rosemont with a ton of parking space for drivers and tailgaters, and honestly, that would be better for everyone than the tiny little spaceship on the lakefront. You only go eight times a year anyway. Baseball, though, not only are the ballparks something special in a way football stadiums aren't (and indoor arenas especially aren't), but I think it's important that you put parks in high-density areas when possible. Sure, there are exceptions like Angel Stadium, or the Rangers' mall-park in Arlington, or Miller Park, which is in some bumfuckingnowhere industrial zone, but you'll generally find that parks are in places where lots of people are already there and lots more can readily get there. And besides, while you laid out what the Cubs could do in terms of creating a facsimile of an urban neighborhood, I'd really prefer an actual urban neighborhood. I really thought we were past The Suburbs Are Our Future as a tenet of urban planning.
In the interest of crosstown fairness, I'd be a little sad if the White Sox moved to Tinley Park or Schererville or something. Baseball is a city game to me.
man i was rooting for the bears to move out to Elk Grove Village (my hometown) when those threats were leveled to make progress towards the aforementioned spaceship (in SF's defense i will say that there isn't a bad seat in the stadium, no matter what it looks like on the outside). that area where they were talking about building it is a giant V shape stretch of land straddled by higgins and landmeier rd with plenty of space for a big ol stadium and little menial industrial park/zoning around that could easily get BTFO for parking/restaurants/entertainment/CTA-blue-line-extension (the nicest part of it all).
but mainly, i wondered what would have happened to the residental zones around the proposed stadium. would the presence of new soldier field have caused the property value to go up as commercial enterprises wanted to set up shop around the stadium, or would it have turned into a little dystopian ghetto with all kinds of parking wars going on (cuz i'm sure the village would have made it EG RESIDENTS ONLY parking there, leading to all kinds of ppl trying to sell driveway space for $10-30/car) and ultimately would the hordes of drinky bears fans have trolled around the neighborhood causing chaos and ruin? higher crime? i wanted to see elk grove get the reacharound from adam smith's invisible hand, if not the drippage from the trickle down effect (which for some reason makes me think of a woman's "i'm trying to please you" puppy eyes face when she's/done blowing you)
but alas, it was all a shamockery as it was just leverage for them to land the spaceship and keep everything on the lakefront, which at least didn't interfere with those oh-so-fun train parties en route to union station at 8-10am, nor did it affect the classic "miserable sleepy hangover" train backs circa 5-6pm. those are an institution in and of itself.
_________________
Curious Hair wrote:
Les Grobstein's huge hog is proof that God has a sense of humor, isn't it?