Thirty-some years ago, my family moved into an affordable neighborhood of big old trees and big old tired houses in a racially changing village. We opened a sandwich shop on the edge of the newly malled downtown that had seen better days. We raised a flock of kids. Our small personal visions and dreams felt at home in our new village of broad visions and big dreams.
It's hard now to remember the details of those visions and dreams and, of course, we've chosen to forget a lot of the silly stuff that didn't work. But it appears that a lot of the serious stuff worked out.
The neighborhood lost some old trees but planted even more new ones. Most of the big old tired houses have been spruced up but have become so expensive that our kids have to pack up their own visions and dreams and go elsewhere.
Oak Park has integrated about as well as anyplace. Our strong real estate market promotes both stability and exclusiveness. High real estate prices make it hard to get in; high real estate taxes make it hard to stay in. I hope the Oak Park Dream doesn't dead-end in Dinksville.
Good police department, good fire department, great parks, and a library gem. Generally good village government. Competent village manager and a complement of commissions and committees, yet the trustees tend toward micromanaging. Trustee meetings are too many and too long; trustee elections are too many and too often.
The streets are clean but you can't find a place to park. The alleys are lighted but you can't find a basketball hoop. The garbage gets picked up, but you can't find Mikey.
Our schools do a good job. The elementary schools perform well but unevenly. The middle schools and high school, still ranking above the norm, are beset with achievement gaps and discipline problems. Perceptual problems are still problems.
Not all visions come alive, not all dreams come true, but all bills come due.
How can we stop talking about development when we need development to help fund all these things and make them better? As much as I dislike the term, we need more "stakeholders."
Downtown, which has seen worse days, needs to see much better ones. When downtown Oak Park was at its peak, it was filled with chain stores and not just the quaint small independents that some people are pining for.
The independents prospered off the traffic that the chains generated. We can't accommodate the really big boxes but we can squeeze in some of the smaller boxes. Nothing wrong with the chains, folks. Even grandma shopped them.
We still need New Street. We need modern retail space. We need denser development. We need increased office and residential populations for a 24/7 downtown. We need parking, of course, but in-their-face parking. Continue to ride the Colt, and we'll continue to get bucked.
The Avenue district looks great, and it's getting better all the time.
The Oak Park-Eisenhower district needs denser development with an emphasis on convenience shopping. Perhaps some affordable housing in the mix although I question how sincere and serious Oak Parkers are about affordable housing.
Much of Roosevelt Road needs to be knocked down and replaced with multi-unit housing and some strip convenience centers. North Avenue could use some denser development also. Again, some affordable housing.
The other smaller shopping areas have to be dealt with individually as the needs of the neighborhood and businesses dictate. We can't sustain them all, especially on the east end. The Chicago Avenue and Lake Street gateways need denser development if they want to support shops and services.
Madison Street could easily handle much more density than exists now. Remove the commercial-concealing median strip. Reduce the street width to two driving lanes and two parking lanes. Land grant the resulting open land on both sides of the street to the adjoining private properties for modern development on deeper lots. Again, there's opportunity for affordable housing.
Harrison Street is always lovely but often lonely. How about a new multi-story building with the Children's Museum at lower or ground level along with a small shared theater space for the Village Players, a winter home for Festival Theatre and weekend children's productions? The upper floors would be offices for the Park District, District 97 and possibly the Township. They could then sell their developable real estate and pocket the change.
Harlem Avenue and South Boulevard could use an office/condo/commuter-parking tower. Mohr & Sons would be a nice spot for an auto dealership or a big box retailer.
We could use more multi-unit development along the Green and Blue lines. There are still a lot of underutilized parcels along both lines. Again, some affordable housing. Allow teardowns where zoning permits denser development if the developer provides the neighborhood with a small park or play lot or some other neighborhood amenity.
Full-time bus service circulating up and down all the major Oak Park streets would be nice, as would some designated bike lanes. If we connect up the Prairie Path in Maywood with Augusta Boulevard in Austin, you could cycle from Crystal Lake to the old South Shore Country Club.
How about free village wide wi-fi?
All of the above doesn't constitute much of a vision, certainly not the BIG VISION, the pee-in-your-pants-exciting kind of vision thing that Oak Park is good at.
Oak Park is the legacy of succeeding big visions. Each new vision puts the legacy at risk. But, like that local loquacious gadfly guy says, "Sacred cows make good hamburgers." Oak Park is not just a point on the map; it's an idea, a way of life, a self-expression. Each new vision of Oak Park creates a paradigm of new ideas, new ways of life, new who-you-ares and new who-you-want-to-bes.
Oak Park needs an exciting new vision.
A vision promoting the long-term common interest, not just a coalition of short-lived special interests. Meanwhile, I can't get excited about small dog parks or big women shops.
Well I showed you mine.
Now show me yours.
Dennis Murphy is the owner of Poor Phil's.
