I met someone recently at a party who told me she moved to Wicker Park from Lincoln Park because it was "cheaper," not because it seemed artistic. The quaint image of Wicker Park as cheap artist refuge in the city died when the Busy Bee closed, the legendary Polish restaurant under the Damen El tracks which was the only real place to eat at that time; otherwise, this neighborhood was a real dump. The real story of Wicker Park was that it was concentrated by homeowners with paid mortgages on Victorian, greystone, or brick cottages and frame houses, sometimes on double-wide lots, who were ready to retire to warmer, sunnier climates; plus, manufacturing companies left behind vacant warehouses and office buildings for suburban industrial campuses, never to return to the city. The enormous returns of buying and re-developing undervalued properties was what turned Wicker Park into a hot capitalist dream, not the presence of young artistic types without money to invest in order to stay, which is neither a new nor special phenomenon. The artists' community was not a bellweather of the neighborhood's long-term revitalization and its affect has disapeared like clouds passing over the lake.

Yes, yes, yes. One of the best pieces on gentrification and its discontents that I have read in a long time. It's so hard to avoid fetishizing the authenticity of these "undiscovered" or quasi-undiscovered neighborhoods. And it's strange to think that while I'd roll my eyes at some Manhattan socialite explaining whether the Hamptons are in or out this season, I'm eager to know that all the cool people in Chicago live in Pilsen these days. Cultural capital is still cultural capital when it wears a glossy proleterian sheen.

My great-grandmother, who grew up in a fairly affluent San Francisco family often frequented The Mission, because 60 years ago SF's Mission more closely resembled what we would now consider a 'yuppie' enclave. It had movie theaters, nightclubs and small shops. This is immediately clear if you walk down Mission Blvd. and notice that not only does the sidewalk have tiles in it -- do they really tile the sidewalk of a slum? -- but the older buildings have a lot of the types of architectural details that are usually reserved for higher income neighborhoods.

What happened is that there was a mass exodus of upper income families to the suburbs in the 1950's -- ie my great-grandmother moved to Burlingame -- turning thriving neighborhoods like The Mission into slums.

When affluent neo-bohemians started moving back in during the 80's they were most likely just moving back to a place their great-grandparents had lived in.

Obviously other neighborhoods have different stories -- Lower East Side was always a slum, for example -- but it irks me how often people like O'Heir fail to realize that in the case of The Misssion, the years when it was neglected were more the anomaly than the current state of affairs.

O'Hehir scoffs at the idea that engineers can be considered part of a "creative class," yet engineers actually make a living creating things, as opposed to O'Hehir's bohemian artist buddies who make their living as waiters and don't create much more than unread poems and mediocre paintings in local coffee shops.

By the way, in my own neighborhood (a middle-class suburb, if you can stand the thought), we can thank engineers (and their children and parents) for moving here from Europe and Asia and bringing with them a diversity of culture. So, "creative," American-born, middle-class kids are moving into working-class urban districts and starting a process of gentrification, while immigrant non-creative types are moving into suburbs and doing the opposite. That's funny.

Reading this story made me feel like Andrew O'Hehir must have been eavesdropping on many of my bar conversations with women over the last few years. It's one of those topics that you bring up on a date because it can go anywhere without offending anybody. It works to impress women in bars in major media markets such as Brooklyn and Chicago, as well as smaller places like Minneapolis. You are a sensitive man with a keen eye if you know what this or that street corner looked like before Starbucks moved in. If you happen to be going out with a Punk rocker, she'll love talking all about how Sonic Youth, the Pixies and Nirvana were cool before they got famous and started playing Arena shows too. If you happen to be dating an Urban Planning major, she'll love telling you about how the development of the interstate highway system destroyed vital innner city neighborhoods in the 1960's and 70's. If you are out with a graphic designer she will probably offer to give you a graffiti tour of the neighborhood. If you are trying to chat up a small business owner, she will fall all over herself telling you about how hard it was to get a lease renewed for her boutique in Wicker Park after all the yuppies moved in and started opening dog grooming businesses.

And speaking of dog grooming: I just happen to live pretty much on North Ave in Chicago not very far from the blue line Damen stop, i.e. ground zero for what Andrew O'Hehir is talking about. On my daily walk to the El I pass at least 30 dog grooming/pet daycare businesses almost everyday. I often wonder how on earth so many people can afford to have their pets professionally groomed in such places and also who on earth would pay more than most parents can afford for preschool to have somebody play with their dog while they are at work. Especially since nobody within miles of the neighborhood has any kind of normal job. Everybody is writer or a comic book artist or a film school student or an aspiring rock star. It's weird. It's not just gentrification, it's weird. When I was a kid, everybody's parents had normal jobs. We also had pets when I was a kid and so far as I remember we never once paid anybody to bathe our pets nor did we spend any money paying people to entertain our pets during the daytime. I don't think we were negligent pet owners either.

The thing about Wicker Park is that it's no mystery at all why such a neighborhood would be discovered by everybody. Not only is it minutes from downtown but it is served by several train stops and you can catch a bus on practically every street corner. In other words, it's probably one of the most accessible neighborhoods in all of Chicago. So acting like you somehow discovered it when hitherto a bunch nobodies lived there is a crock. It just makes sense that if you are going to move somewhere, you are going to move somewhere that's easy to get to.

Everybody cool in Chicago lives in Pilsen now by the way (18th st. blue line el stop).

But as with everything in this world, I think the overall issue that Andrew O'Hehir is talking about is directly related to women and especially the competition for women among men in such Bohemian places as Wicker Park and Brooklyn. It is one thing to spend all day everyday at the Rainbo Club drinking two dollar Pabst Blue Ribbons, living a rock and roll lifestyle, and talking about the new tattoo you got while the bartender plays your new favorite Arcade Fire song and your friends play pinball but then you sober up slightly one day in your late twenties and watch as your girlfriend walks out the door with a 20-something Investment Banker who is rehabbing a house he just bought in your neighborhood. You know? The women all defect. They defect to have babies. It's just not cool to go to alt-country shows three nights a week and smoke two packs of cigarettes while drinking Schlitz when you have a bun in the oven.

The driver of the gentrification Andrew O'Hehir talks about, therefore, is women. Women like stability. Women like health insurance. Women like men who have a dangerous rock 'n roll past but who finally pull it together and buy a house. Women defect from the Bohemian lifestyle in their late 20's and then men follow suit quickly thereafter along with the real estate. It has been that way since the time of nomadic hunter-gatherer societies, I imagine, and all through history. I mean seriously, who doesn't think Mesopotamia is so finished now that the Americans have started moving in. It used to be so cool to live in Babylon but now you can't find parking anywhere.

Speaking of parking... I was talking to a 20-something guy in a bar in Wicker Park in the middle of the afternoon the other day while playing pinball and the main thing on his mind was that he was trying to sell his parking space -- HIS PARKING SPACE AT HIS CONDO -- for 28,000 dollars. So, yes, I think the neighborhood is finished. In a way. At least you can find Pabst Blue Ribbon, Miller, or Schlitz on special pretty much any day of the week within easy walking distance of your apartment, which is not only nice but also a requirement for any decent neighborhood to be considered inhabitable.