A little real estate here...

Sometime I like to talk a little real estate especially if it affects black communities in the city. I just so happened to run across this article in Crain's Chicago Business about those neighborhood that are about to hit the $1 Million mark. One of those neighborhoods is South Shore. This was what was said...

Mr. Zaransky has his eye on South Shore, where he predicts a million-dollar home sale within the year. The Jackson Park Highlands landmark district, at 67th Street just west of Jeffrey Boulevard, is filled with gorgeous old homes a short walk from Lake Michigan. The South Shore train line gives commuters an easy trip downtown.

"If you closed your eyes and someone put you down in the middle of that neighborhood, you'd think you were standing in Winnetka," Mr. Zaransky says. "The homes are that ornate, that large and have that kind of style."

He's watching a home listed at $800,000; nothing, he says, has yet sold here at such a high figure. But just as the Near North/Lincoln Park boom spread to Lakeview, Wrigleyville, Lincoln Square and Buena Park, the Near South renaissance is spreading, too. Housing prices first started escalating in the Loop, then the South Loop and Hyde Park. South Shore may be next.

"You need existing older homes that people can rehab," Mr. Zaransky says. "You need homes with high ceilings, fireplaces, hardwood floors. That is the kind of property that can be turned into a million-dollar home."

South Shore is said to be the home of Jesse Jackson and Jesse Jackson, Jr. It is a mostly black middle class community that was once upon a time a white neighborhood that had a sizeable Jewish population. That change in and after the 1960s when the neighborhood turned black thanks to white flight. The neighborhood was run down but thanks to a bank ShoreBank, it is said to be a much better neighborhood now. It is also home to a Chicago Landmark district, the Jackson Park Highlands.