According to new data, Chicago along has over 18,000 vacant single family homes and apartment buildings. And of the 18,000 vacant properties, half of them have been empty since 2011. Angela Caputo of The Chicago Reporter has been digging through the data and has discovered that of all the vacant buildings in Chicago, 1 in 5 have been empty since the crash of 2008. That means that there are over 3,000 properties that have been left to rot for five years. Many of the vacant buildings fall into the zombie properties category, which are essentially homes that left in an uncertain limbo of ownership between banks and previous homeowners. And interestingly enough, half of the vacant properties are tied to just six banks. The Chicago Reporter has pieced together an interactive map that shows where these properties are, and how long they have been vacant.
·Watch the vacancy epidemic spread [Chicago Reporter]
·Reclaiming the avenue [Chicago Reporter]
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