The Chicago Tribune reports:
The children who live on West Wilcox Street won't go out at night for fear of 12 vacant graystones that draw criminals to their block. In Rogers Park, a half-empty 39-unit condo building on Farwell Avenue has become a hide-out for squatters and feral cats.I guess not enough people are "moving back" to the city to enjoy the benefits of urban America.The Chicago Tribune explains what's happening in Chicago right now:
Two streets that have little in common—Wilcox on the West Side and Farwell on the North— illustrate the latest chapter of the housing crisis: a surge in vacant homes that is sinking property values and blighting swaths of the city.
As foreclosures soar to historic levels, the infection has spread beyond places of perennial concern, such as West Garfield Park and Englewood.
Condo ghost towns replete with granite and stainless steel have emerged on stretches of the North Side, leaving a pox of hollow buildings dotting the landscape.
When the homes do sell, they can go for half of what neighbors paid, destroying property values.Barack Obama's Chicago.
But property taxes don't fall with property values. Simply put, the tax levy has increased over the last seven years regardless of home prices, according to Cook County records.
