Let's agree to agree. What do you love about this place?
At the end of the day, we are fighting for the same cause, just different paths to get there.
I love my neighbors, my trees (although raking not so much!), my view. How EVERY house on my street is different, how every economic group is represented and enjoying the same beauty. I can go on. Your turn.
Although I am sure to get in trouble for things I will inevitably leave out, here is my 5 minute list.
Found a link to this flickr photo pool on the riverside-illinois community website:
off hand...
National Historic Landmark designed by F Olmsted in the 19th century, inspired by transcendentalist principles that gently curving green space is good for the soul of the 'modern man'.
Gas Lamps in the 21 st century.
'Urban Oasis' smack dab in the middle of a gritty high dense cook county, IL that magically/paradoxically gives one a rural feeling despite being in a densely populated urban area. As I say after I see a magician do a neato trick, How did he do that?
*coming into Riverside from Harlem and Longcommon is a metaphysical treat each time I do it; it is like some kind of slow motion movie that you are in. You are in a loud noisy crazy urban-standard space of Harlem and then the trees, the houses, the street, the space from the curb to the structures, the triangular park you come upon real soon all make for this movie experience.
*the same as above, but for each season, spring and the blossoms, the green of summer, the color of autumn, and the snow of winter.
smallville - smallness. You can walk the whole town, compared to so many other bigger places
safe - can jog the whole town in the street safely. Someone told me recently that Oak Park had some kind ordinance prohibiting jogging in the street, presumably because of the car accidents?
mike
You are all so right. Notice how most of the items mentioned above have the common theme of peace and tranquility? This is Olmsted's subtle message in his design at work. Downtown planning and zoning should build on this theme, enhancing Olmsted's planning rather that contradicting it for the sake of "vibrancy" or a few extra tax dollars. TIF at work here will in fact have us pay for the destruction of our village as we know it. Riverside does not need major changes, it needs more citizens wishing to keep it special. This does not mean "do nothing". It means don't do wrong things [Village Center] for wrong reasons [density is your friend], as we handsomely paid Camiros consultants to tell us.
In sum,
Let's not destroy our village to save it.
Mike
-'small town'
-everyone knows each other
-lots of green spaces and parks
-quieter than most suburbs; fewer cars than most suburbs
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sharon
SharonK, thank you and welcome to the forum.
My husband and I were just obliged to go up Harlem Avenue into Oak Park/River Forest. One thing that is special is that we are not them.
President Wiaduck in yesterday's Jan 22 meeting said that he knows that Riverside is 'special' and wants to keep Riverside special - in response to some people's concerns about the TIF comprising this. So that linked to this thread that was already created. Here is some more expansion of this notion of the specialness of Riverside.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT RESPONSIVE
Another thing that makes Riverside special is the responsiveness that the admin has shown at the citizen's input.
In another post, I talked about how the good faith pause in the current TIF process, along with the workshops, showed the good Riverside revealing itself.
http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic.php?id=93&replies=21#post-1736
This responsiveness is one of the things that makes Riverside special and not 'just another town along the train line'. This responsiveness would be one of those elements of the intangible that I call 'charm'.
We all cannot always agree on everything. So there WILL inevitably be disagreements and conflicts. We just have to agree on the core essentials - that which gives Riverside its identity. I believe it is schools and charm, charm and schools. both anchor riverside, I believe.
So, whatever we do, we should not harm either schools or charm.
DON'T HARM THE CHARM!
DON'T FOOL WITH THE SCHOOLS!
I humbly submit that if someone has a major problem with this double helix of charm/schools, go to someplace that has a different DNA, identity or cachet, instead of trying to transform Riverside into something that it is not.
Am I saying Riverside, love it or leave it? yeah. I guess what I am saying is if you want a big soft comfortable ride, you don't buy a cooper mini. Please pick your own brand choices. I am sure you get the point. When doing the petition I talked to someone who thought the downtown was 'boring' and 'nothing' and so they were going to the south loop. sounds right. I'll call it the 'glorious nothing'. [BTW, this was an exception in my mini-sample, but how widespread in Riverside is it that people do not consider the 'charm'/school helix primary is another thread.]
Here's the visceral link - Johnny Cash singing 'Sunday Morning Coming Down'.
Note - glorious nothing does not mean nothing. Parallel 42, chewchew, grumpys, blue parrot is a part of that charm or that glorious nothing.
DON'T TAKE NOTHING FOR GRANTED!
"You don't know what you got til it's gone"
But, coincidently, I just talked to someone who knows of some people who want to leave the south loop to settle down and start a family and are very interested in Riverside.
I think it is a school/charm helix, but analytically, there ARE many towns in the west near west and suburban chicago w/ good school districts (LaGR, OP, Hinsdale, Clar Hills, Glen Ellyn, Wheaton etc), but none come close to Riverside's unique charm.
'charm' can be unpacked with such terms as ...
small, nice, friendly, scale, walkable, pastoral, rural, space, quiet, tranquil, quaint, responsive, interactive, green, slow, easy pace, open, clear, 'can get your arms around it', bikable, like a moebius strip, points w/in Riverside seem interconnected and somehow closer than the feeling of space in other towns ...
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charm (chärm)
n.
1. The power or quality of pleasing or delighting; attractiveness: a breezy tropical setting of great charm.
2. A particular quality that attracts; a delightful characteristic: A mischievous grin was among the child's many charms.
3. A small ornament, such as one worn on a bracelet.
4. An item worn for its supposed magical benefit, as in warding off evil; an amulet.
5. An action or formula thought to have magical power.
6. The chanting of a magic word or verse; incantation.
7. Physics A quantum property of the charm quark whose conservation explains the absence of certain strange-particle decay modes and that accounts for the longevity of the J particle.
NOT RIVERSIDE--
congestion
1. To excessively crowd or become excessively crowded.
Thesaurus: overcrowded, full, crammed, packed, jammed, overflo
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