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Christian Diaz hates a boxy, six-story brick building with blue and gray paneling in Logan Square, a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood on the northwest side of Chicago.
“It looks boring and uninspired,” said Diaz, the housing director at Palenque LSNA, formerly known as the Logan Square Neighborhood Association. “When people think gentrification, this is the building that comes to mind.”
The building is an example of what urban planners call Transit-Oriented Development, or TOD. The idea is that developing near transit leads to interconnected communities and fewer cars emitting carbon dioxide. Developers get incentives and neighbors get a walkable…