The Valley and Eminent Domain

There was an old neighborhood called 'The Valley' on the West Side, bounded by Ashland on the East to Ogden on the West and from Roosevelt to about 15th street.

It has been wiped off the face of the earth by the UIC Medical District's ability to use eminent domain for expansion. It was once Chicago's most important Dutch neighborhood. There are only a couple of homes remaining, but here are two links, one to pictures of the area circa 1970s and the other an account of childhood in the neighborhood pre-1920. This is a fascinating account, and particularly interesting to me as it confirms my ideas about what environment is best to raise children in. I want them to be surrounded by things that are fascinating and make them think about the world. To my mind, there are few environments better for that purpose than an old urban neighborhood possessing Jane Jacob's ideals regarding urban cultural and commercial diversity.

Here are these fascinating web pages:

photos of The Valley
The Account of Childhood in The Valley during the Progressive Era

Here is another link detailing the neighborhood's last gasps in the 90s. It is easy to understand the anguish a family feels when forced to move from a home that many generations have grown up in. And it is instructive to note the destructive power of government, fully on display on that section of S Ashland. Drive down toward Pilsen and one will find to his West fields of nothingness supposedly waiting for Medical District development..
only, apparently Costco is going to build a store at 15th and Ashland. Seems the medical district wanted to seize private homes for income properties and corporate welfare.

What an ode to eminent domain this is!!! Corrupt? Chicago way? Naaahh. And neither was Maxwell Street's demise either, right?

Poor, poor obliterated West Side. Note that this shit doesn't happen in wealthy areas. Here's the article about the last families:

House on the Rocks

The standard argument for powerful government is the proclaimed need to help the poor and disenfranchised. Here, shamelessly displayed, is their propensity towards the opposite. Nearly every battered and struggling ghetto or "ghetto" (where the term is given by rich outsider NIMBY folks) can legitimately trace its struggles to large scale government acts.

One can go through the map and point to their destructive influence.

HUD
CHA
FHA
IDOT
Daley's vacant property policies
DEA

More on this later.