Looks like we Americans might be having our first urban president

[GePap]

Originally posted by Swissy
Not "inner-city". The area he represented in the state senate was made up of the lakefront neighborhoods south of The Loop (downtown). Mostly upper middle class and above, it is far from the real inner city areas. It has more in common with older suburban areas around Chicago; similar population density, income levels and crime levels.

Having lived in Hyde Park, which was covered by Obama's district (and coming from NYC), that area most certainly counts as urban. Gentrified, yes, but urban nonetheless. And just north and South of Hyde Park are areas that you would classify as "inner City" (if by inner city you mean empty lots and burned out buildings) like Kenwood and Woodlawn.

[KrazyHorse]

I'm going to leave this discussion to people who have actually been to Chicago. I was just going by my impression from media reports on the subject.

[Lancer]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


@ Lancer - I said 'if"! "If," dammit!

Just couldn't pass it up.

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by GePap


Having lived in Hyde Park, which was covered by Obama's district (and coming from NYC), that area most certainly counts as urban. Gentrified, yes, but urban nonetheless. And just north and South of Hyde Park are areas that you would classify as "inner City" (if by inner city you mean empty lots and burned out buildings) like Kenwood and Woodlawn.

I'll have to agree with GePap here, since I lived in Hyde Park for a while.. There are areas of Kenwood which are nice, where there are fabulously expensive homes, but then (like so much in Chicago) when you cross, say, Cottage Grove, or 61st Street, it goes to hell.

Sure, it's 30 minutes from downtown by bus/train. But so's Uptown/Andersonville/Boystown; Rogers Park is 40 to an hour; Chicago's a dense city, and Hyde Park is nothing like the suburbs that I've seen, either in Chicago or where I grew up in Atlanta.

[Barnabas]

Thirty minutes by bus or train would be close to downtown or distant from it?

[Patroklos]

2) When he got back to Honlulu he went to a school which (from Google Maps) looks like it's pretty urban (at least compared to the rest of Honolulu; note that it was urban enough for Barry to get into coke...).

This may or may not have been very different 20 years ago.

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by Barnabas
Thirty minutes by bus or train would be close to downtown or distant from it?

Not that far, actually. By car, it's down to 10 minutes or less, traffic permitting--the main reason the train takes so long to get to Hyde Park is that one has to go either: Red Line to 55 Bus (which runs "regularly"), or the Green Line (which isn't 24/hour, and runs less frequently than the Red); the express buses that go downtown from Hyde Park are maybe once every 15 minutes... but take 15 to 20, depending on how many stops have to be made.

Close enough, I think, that if downtown got hit by a Hiroshima-size bomb, Hyde Park would be either in the ensuing firestorm, or right next to it.

[Lancer]

He's a ground zero kinda guy, that's why we love him.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Mrs Snuggles

Close enough, I think, that if downtown got hit by a Hiroshima-size bomb, Hyde Park would be either in the ensuing firestorm, or right next to it.

Actually, Hyde Park is about 5-6 miles from the loop, so a Hiroshima sized bomb would not cause a fireball large enough to reach Hyde Park. That fireball would not even reach Chinatown if it hit in the middle of the loop.

For me, Chicago as a city is very spread out, much more spread out than Boston, or Philly, or San Francisco, and certainly far more spread out than Manhattan or most of New York City. That said, there is nothing suburban about Hyde Park. At the least, if I can walk to the grocery store, the dry cleaners, or a restaurant while always being on a sidewalk and without having to cross roads or highways bereft of pedestrian walkways, that is "urban" for the US.

Eidt: having looked more closely at a map, the distance is closer to 4-5 miles.

[-Jrabbit]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
I'm going to leave this discussion to people who have actually been to Chicago. I was just going by my impression from media reports on the subject.

This is one of the reasons I respect KH. He actually recuses himself from commenting on things he doesn't know.

[Theben]

Originally posted by Mrs Snuggles
Sure, it's 30 minutes from downtown by bus/train. But so's Uptown/Andersonville/Boystown; Rogers Park is 40 to an hour; Chicago's a dense city, and Hyde Park is nothing like the suburbs that I've seen, either in Chicago or where I grew up in Atlanta.

Chicago isn't very dense compared to other major metropolitan areas I've seen. Philly and Miami are definitely a lot denser, and MAnhattan tops them all. I don't think you can see another block from any point in Manhattan where your LoS isn't going straight down the street.

The cities in Europe I've seen are more dense but all the old buildings aren't very high, so they don't seem it.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Darius871
Wasn't he brought up in suburban Honolulu, Indonesia for a few years, and then suburban Honolulu again? He wasn't living a very metropolitan lifestyle until going to Columbia IIUC.

That's not really fair. I moved to Honolulu in 1973, just two years after his return, and I moved into the same neighborhood he was living in*. At that time, about 60% of the state's population lived on Oahu, and 60% of that population lived in Honolulu. There were few residences in the small downtown. Our area was near downtown, and consisted of a lot of two-story apartment buildings, some single family homes and some 10-12 story apartment buildings. It was a straight shot down the hill to the gigantic Ala Moana shopping center. Turn left, and you were in Waikiki; right and you were quickly in downtown. I'd say that was a city.

________________________
* My apartment was between Ward and Punahou. He went to Punahou High.

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by GePap


Actually, Hyde Park is about 5-6 miles from the loop, so a Hiroshima sized bomb would not cause a fireball large enough to reach Hyde Park. That fireball would not even reach Chinatown if it hit in the middle of the loop.

For me, Chicago as a city is very spread out, much more spread out than Boston, or Philly, or San Francisco, and certainly far more spread out than Manhattan or most of New York City. That said, there is nothing suburban about Hyde Park. At the least, if I can walk to the grocery store, the dry cleaners, or a restaurant while always being on a sidewalk and without having to cross roads or highways bereft of pedestrian walkways, that is "urban" for the US.

Eidt: having looked more closely at a map, the distance is closer to 4-5 miles.

No, it wouldn't be in the fireball itself--but the firestorm region's not the same--it's the area around the fireball that catches fire after the explosion.

I suppose by comparison to Philly or Boston or NY, it might feel spread out, but having come from the South, it's more dense than anything I'm used to.

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by Lancer
He's a ground zero kinda guy, that's why we love him.

Ground Zero wasn't in "Real America"!

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


I was under the impression that his district was a deliberate gerrymander of that lakefront area as well as some inner-city areas. This played to his strengths...

I think the worst example of gerrymandering in Illinois is Congressional District 4.

Obama's state senatorial district (13) equate to state representative districts 25 and 26:
District 25 • District 26
As you can see, not horribly gerrymandered, and containing both nice areas and not-so-nice areas of Chicago.