Chicago is fastfastfast becoming a vast wasteland of millions of brand-new, poorly-constructed condos. They pop up like pimples--old building one day, new condo the next! Wow, where did that come from? I could swear there was a green grassy lawn here yesterday, and now there's a "Unique Luxury Condominium"! How odd. The fact that each and every one of these cookie cutter crapaterias has a sign on it that reads something like, "Gabardine Estates...Six Unique Luxury Condominiums" would make me laugh if it didn't make me very, very sad.

Our neighborhood is in the throes of some major gentrification. When C. and I moved here 2/3 years ago, it was still kind of a dingy-but-lovable sort of place. Plenty of punk rock and artist type folks lived here. Now, people like us (renters, people who don't drive SUVs, people who care about the community and its individuality) are being pushed out to make room for the corporate up-and-comers who feel the need to live in a "quirky and quaint and bohemian" little area like ours. Thing is, when they move in, suddenly it's not so "bohemian" anymore. There's now a Gap, a Starbucks, two foo-foo sushi restaurants and plenty of $7.00 valet parking. When it first started happening, I thought it was just our neighborhood it was happening to. I thought we could just move to another little low-rent area with the punks and artists, old buildings and old hispanic families, but I don't think any places like that exist in this city anymore. The developers are crawling all over the place. God, I hope, hope, hope we won't be forced into the suburbs! I won't go! I will convince C. to move to another city before I'll live in a suburb.

I have to stop talking about this. It just upsets me.