The 3 P’s of parking (P-2)

Continuing with the 3 P’s of marketing/parking (product, price, and promotion) as they relate to the Emmett Street parking lot (see The 3 P’s of parking [P-1] ):

Price

Price should be determined by supply and demand. 

Supply

Supply of public parking is largely fixed unless the city renegotiates the terms of its lease to LAZ Parking/Chicago Parking Meters, LLC.  Let’s put it this way, it is highly unlikely that the number of public parking spots will be reduced due to the high cost of compensating LAZ Parking/Chicago Parking Meters, LLC for the potential lost revenue.  And I don’t see the city feeling generous or desiring to further antagonize Chicago drivers by creating even more metered parking spaces.

From the premise of fixed supply of public parking, price then needs to be determined by demand. 

CTA land for sale, but not in Logan Square

Last week at the ICSC Illinois Alliance Program and Midwest Idea Exchange, I briefly met a man charged with selling CTA real estate, but none of it was located in Logan Square.  Mostly it was along the Brown Line, and I recall a Wilson Yards property.

Oddly, the man charged with promoting the CTA real estate for sale at this conference was from Boston (I don’t recall his name or firm) and not quite familiar with our neighborhoods and the many train stops throughout the CTA system. Today’s Chicago Tribune reports in “CTA puts out ‘for sale’ sign” that the CTA has outsourced management of this real estate portfolio to Chicago’s Jones Lang LaSalle, so the Boston front is even more odd.

A map of some of the land and buildings for sale shows these first efforts don’t include any CTA owned property in Logan Square.

Sensory perception:

Because I’ve had a rabbit wintering in my yard, this sign on the door of Prada & Associates at 2653 N. Milwaukee Avenue made me smile.

Messy urban vitality (Part II)

Visual order

Reader Christopher advocates for a “messy urban vitality” (see previous posts: Overwhelming messiness, Sign of confusion and Sign, sign, everywhere a sign), and recalls a passage from Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities, an urban planning classic, to reinforce his point. While I am unable to find the passage that Christopher recalls, Jacobs devotes a chapter to “Visual order: its limitations and possibilities.” In it she notes that we are bombarded with a variety of impressions on city streets (signs, buildings, storefronts, etc.), and we are able to sort through those and weed out those that are irrelevant to give order to our surroundings, “…unless those impressions are too strong to ignore (emphasis added).” Unfortunately, that is what we face on Milwaukee Avenue in Logan Square.

Relative perspective

City streets can be viewed in relative perspectives: aesthetics vs. usability, the long view vs. the close-up, and a punctuated impression vs. a sustained consciousness, for example.