Chicago Taps Brakes on Gentrification With a Tax on Teardowns

Right next to the California stop on Chicago’s Blue Line, one-bedroom apartments in a new luxury building start north of $2,000 a month. Recently built single-family homes on adjacent streets frequently go for $1 million or more. Coffee shops and craft breweries have become neighborhood staples.

Scattered throughout: taquerias marked with a single dollar sign on Google Maps, and traditional duplexes and triplexes. These multi-unit dwellings have housed members of Logan Square’s Latino population since a wave of immigration in the 1960s, but lately the flow has gone in the opposite direction. The Latino population in the neighborhood has diminished to 36% from ...