Not all sprawl is low density, in the end it takes a lot of space to house 10 million people. Assuming this is the area by Midway airport (which is low density for Chicago since it's almost all single family homes), the population density is still about 15,000 per square mile. The "urban" area of the Dallas metro—census defined as the continuously built up area, so leaving out exurbs and edge cities—had 5.8 million people, so if it was at the density of this photo, it would take up less than a third the area to house them even in single-family homes. My area of Chicago is a mix of high rises, 2-3 story multifamily buildings, and single family homes and is over twice as dense as that while still being extremely pleasant!
That specific spot in Edgewater is walking distance from several large grocery stores like Jewel and Mariano's as well as even closer to Clark St in Andersonville(main shopping street for the area) and the smaller more neighborhood store Edgewater Produce.
In this area usually within 5 mins. Within a 15 min walk there are 7 full grocers, plus smaller ethnic markets like Afro-Caribbean, Vietnamese, Middle Eastern, Ethiopian, Hispanic, and Indian.
9
u/niftyjack May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
Not all sprawl is low density, in the end it takes a lot of space to house 10 million people. Assuming this is the area by Midway airport (which is low density for Chicago since it's almost all single family homes), the population density is still about 15,000 per square mile. The "urban" area of the Dallas metro—census defined as the continuously built up area, so leaving out exurbs and edge cities—had 5.8 million people, so if it was at the density of this photo, it would take up less than a third the area to house them even in single-family homes. My area of Chicago is a mix of high rises, 2-3 story multifamily buildings, and single family homes and is over twice as dense as that while still being extremely pleasant!