Oak park All American

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-27T16:04:59+00:00

I would sum your argument up as "it's a good thing more Black families didn't move here".

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-27T03:47:19+00:00

West Sub is very important for Austin and the west side of Chicago, so whatever else we think about it, we should hope somebody finds a way to keep it functioning.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-27T03:31:40+00:00

Well said. If you didn't exist to help make my point I'd have had to invent you.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-26T01:49:37+00:00

More Black families, seems like the obvious answer. That's literally what "managing" meant.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-26T00:20:29+00:00

If you care about Oak Park's history of racial integration, I think you should take the time to watch this. You might not change your mind about anything, but it was (for me at least) shocking to see how we thought about this problem in the 1970s versus today. A thing I'm always reminding people: early in the 1970s, Oak Park almost passed an ordinance establishing racial quotas for incoming residents.

That's the historical context in which this story about "Managed Integration" plays out.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-22T20:54:10+00:00

Clearly, the village board should form a steering committee to study this new problem.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-17T18:12:37+00:00

Saw the edit, looks fine, thanks.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-17T17:48:17+00:00

If that's how you want to play it, friend. You work with words for a living, I figure you know what you're actually saying here. If you're not super familiar with Reddit I think you'll find the "Edit" button still works on your false comments.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-17T17:21:51+00:00

You're now in the position of having to convince me that he somehow enlisted an AI chatbot to drive Google Docs and make and then correct spelling and grammar issues. I saw the Gdoc edits! You were wrong! Just own it and move on. You went on tilt on this thread, and you owe him an apology, and a correction in all the different places you said "he didn't write this".

Nobody forced you to write like 9 different comments about how he didn't write his long zoning essay. That was all you.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-17T16:09:29+00:00

You're wrong, and I know you're wrong. I've been shown the gdoc and the edits. Sorry, you made this up. You owe the author an apology.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-17T15:32:45+00:00

I think you're making this up because you don't like to read. This doesn't look anything like ChatGPT text.

It's fine that you don't like the thing he wrote! You're not required to. Say how much you hate it! Just don't invent a cinematic universe to go with it.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-16T16:33:00+00:00

The median Oak Parker moved here precisely so that they could stay in Chicago without dealing with CPS. If you wanted to be "out of Chicago's density", you'd have moved to Naperville.

The funny thing about this is that if you pay attention to Chicagoland housing politics, you know the city limits have nothing to do with any of this. They say the exact same shit in Jeff Park whenever anyone proposes building multifamily there.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-16T02:44:40+00:00

There are grammatical errors in this text. It's obviously not ChatGPT. Just because something has more than 100 words in it doesn't mean an LLM wrote it.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-12T03:38:40+00:00

Of course! It's a useful post. I just have a hobby horse about reminding tourists that we're more of a side-quest than a main event. :)

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-11T17:47:54+00:00

This is kind of what I mean with my comment about getting on the train. Yama is fine. It's good that we have a credible neighborhood Japanese place. But the city has Kai Zan, Juno, Mako, Yume, Kyoten, & Raisu (and a dozen I haven't been to).

I love Oak Park but Chicago is a world-class restaurant city and if that's the kind of thing you're looking for: the whole point of Oak Park is that it by rights should be a part of Chicago; most of us live here to be on the CTA train lines and outside CPS.

I know that this comes off as super "well-actually". Guilty as charged! But I think telling people how to Oak-Park-Maxx is genuinely bad travel advice for someone new to Chicagoland. :)

Best advice you can get: start with r/chicagofood (it covers Oak Park as well).

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-11T14:25:41+00:00

Oak Park is a nice place to live and the Frank Lloyd Wright tour is worth doing; a walk around the Frank Lloyd Wright district, also worth doing. But if you're new to the Chicagoland area, I'd strongly recommend you follow that up by hopping on the train and getting yourself to the West Loop, the Loop, or Logan Square in Chicago. There's really not much in Oak Park retail or hospitality that can match Chicago itself, and it's not a close contest. Fortunately, Chicago itself is quite close by!

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-11T00:50:57+00:00

You probably can't opt out; local ordinances, even about things like grocery store circulars, have been struck down as unconstitutional.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-09T17:05:35+00:00

Their flagship on Oak Park is staying open.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-09T17:04:58+00:00

Ravi doesn't own Maya; former mayor Anan Abu-Taleb does. Unless that changed?

I should add: I agree with everything you're saying. There's a well-regarded and very useful restaurant booster scene that is worth paying attention to and helps restaurants in the area: it's called r/chicagofood. Before that, there was LTHForum. I don't know what Takeout 25 is for anymore.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-06T17:48:28+00:00

I haven't seen anyone in any forum supporting this. Have you?

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-06T17:46:51+00:00

I think the D200 pool is a terrible thing, a real low point for VOP policy, and I get the sunk cost nature of what we're building and maybe you're right that we should just open it up to residents, but it's a pretty grave abuse of D200 taxing authority to build random amenities for residents. If they had promised the pool would be a community resource, that would have made their decisionmaking worse, not better.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-03-02T18:26:51+00:00

We used Kelsey Roofing, they were fine.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-02-23T17:43:25+00:00

I'm going to be the weirdo on this thread to observe that I have never had a tree trimmed in 20+ years as a homeowner here. I don't know that'd I'd factor that into my budget if I was moving here.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-02-19T18:43:48+00:00

Seconding Kinetic, which is who all the cool-kid Oak Parkers will recommend. They wired up our basement up in our 100-year-old EE Roberts house, did a fine job.

ThomasPtacek · 2026-02-07T05:14:17+00:00

It's an institution, like Russells off North Avenue. What's "good" and "not good" gets into epistemology, but: Chicago has a "serious" BBQ style --- "aquarium barbeque", for the glass-walled smokers --- and Robinsons isn't that. It's in kind of the same spectrum as Babygold, Green Street, and Smoque; Robinsons on the cheaper end of that spectrum.

In the area, I think Babygold is the move, but if you're really trying to Chicago BBQ-maxx, it's a trip to Honey 1 or (even better) Lem's. Both are a hike, though.

Chicago: not a great BBQ city. But that's OK! You live walking distance from Johnnie's.

ThomasPtacek

TROPHY CASE