I was also a young transient resident of the Mission District in the late 80's, early 90's, and enjoyed this article and the references to the places I frequented and the boho lifestyle I emulated for a couple of years. Yes, there are times when I think back on it with a degree of nostalgia, despite how bleak it was, how poor I was, how desperate I was to find myself and some relevant, creative role to play in life. Sounds hellish, and in many ways it was, but I wouldn't trade those years for anything.

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.