MidTown District

So back in August we moved into the MidTown District. This is the part of the city that's almost downtown. With SwedishAmerican Hospital on the north and Broadway on the south, this neighborhood is a huge hodgepodge of people. Lots of families like ours, well, families kind of like ours...there aren't really too many families like ours anywhere. Our block has Asians, Hispanics, Blacks and Whites. Folks who have lived here for over 40 years and folks who have just moved in. I guess it's a lot like our old neighborhood, but more racial diversity (add the Hispanics and Asians for that!).

The reputation of the neighborhood is that of, um, businesswomen...that work the night shift. While there is far too much of that, the neighborhood actually offers far more than that, and it's a lot of good stuff, too. Jill and I are able to walk to work (both her office and mine), walk to the bank, walk to good restaurants, and walk to the world's best hardware store. We're a block from a major hospital and two blocks from one of the city's junior high schools. When I need a saw blade sharpened, its three blocks. Needless to say, just about everything we need is right here. Outside of church and visiting family, we just don't leave the neighborhood for very much.

All that is to say this, the City of Rockford is trying to improve the neighborhood. I think they feel like they owe it to the neighborhood since they spent six million dollars rerouting a street that the hospital should have paid for. Now the City and the hospital are trying to make up for the shaft by building homes for low income families. I'm not opposed to that at all, its what we do. My issue is that these are the same people who want my company to do market rate housing. Ummm, yeah, that's hypocrisy.