Building A New Downtown Riverdale

Riverdale, once a thriving community, has lost its industrial businesses, leaving unemployment and brownfield sites behind them.

1 minute read

October 9, 2003, 1:00 PM PDT

By Chris Steins @planetizen


"When landlords are absent, housing complexes can decline from a variety of problems: maintenance failure, unsuspecting residents taken advantage of through overcharging for basic services or not providing them at all, or unresponsiveness to village efforts to enforce building, health and fire codes. In the Village of Riverdale, this is happening in a subdivision called Pacesetter, and this is the problem that local leaders presented to a recent Technical Assistance Panel co-sponsored by the Campaign for Sensible Growth and the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Chicago. After a two-day, intensive analysis of the problem, the panel presented the Village with a bold plan for turning Pacesetter around by encouraging home ownership for the 300-plus units, adding social services for the community and opening up the community physically by removing some units to make way for street extensions." [Editor's Note: The link below is to a 500K PDF document.]

Thanks to Campaign for Sensible Growth listserv

Sunday, October 5, 2003 in Campaign For Sensible Growth

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

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