Chicago’s South and West Sides have suffered more than a half century of population outflow and disinvestment. The city’s ambitious community development initiative, “INVEST South/West,” was launched to turn around those long-term trends.
The endeavor’s initial phase aimed at spurring investment in commercial corridors. The next strives to support commercial corridor investments by reinvigorating South and West Side residential enclaves surrounding those byways. To that end, in December, the city along with the Chicago Architecture Center and Chicago Community Trust, announced a multi-stage competition to identify designs addressing “missing middle density” housing. That term refers to middle-scale housing that gently boosts the urban fabric’s density, preserving the character of the neighborhood. U.S. cities long forsook this housing type in favor of single-family homes or larger-scale multifamily structures, but now seek to bring it back.
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