Rents are climbing fast in Avondale and Irving Park, and a new study says the pattern looks a lot like what happened just a few years ago in Logan Square and Humboldt Park — longtime, mostly working-class residents getting priced out as newer construction and building rehabs pull in wealthier newcomers. Roughly 30 percent of Avondale's rents sit below $1,250 a month, but the neighborhood's overall housing stock — more than half of it made up of two- and four-flat buildings — is becoming harder for lower-income renters to hold onto as costs rise across the area.
The findings come from an updated displacement-pressure map released by DePaul University's Institute for Housing Studies, which analyzed census data, housing sales, and property records from 2019 through 2025, according to Block Club Chicago. The outlet reports that parts of Avondale, Irving Park, Lincoln Square, the Near North Side, and the South Lakefront are becoming less affordable at faster rates than other Chicago neighborhoods. Properties in the city's high-cost neighborhoods have sold for $571,061 and up since 2019, while moderate-to-high-cost areas saw prices ranging from $298,021 to $571,060 over the same stretch, per the same report.
A Familiar Pattern Moves North
Geoff Smith, executive director of the DePaul Institute for Housing Studies, said Avondale is experiencing significant affordability pressures driven by a mix of low-income renters and rising costs, according to the Block Club report. Smith pointed to Logan Square as a preview of where Avondale could be headed, saying the neighborhood is now more similar to Bucktown, Lincoln Park, or Lakeview than it is to its former self — a shift the article ties back to The 606, the elevated Bloomingdale Trail that served as one starting point for demographic changes and housing price increases in the area.
That transformation already reshaped Lakeview, Old Town, and other parts of the Near North Side, where a higher-income population has become the norm and the Latino population has decreased, the report notes. Those neighborhoods now have fewer people at risk of displacement simply because the demographics have already changed — and they carry less affordable rents than Avondale and Irving Park do today, per the study.
Development Along The Blue Line Corridor
New construction and rehabbed older buildings near Belmont Avenue and the Blue Line stop have pushed rents higher, the study found, and newer developments across the Northwest Side are pushing more people toward cheaper areas farther out. High-cost neighborhoods now have few apartments priced at $1,250 or less, according to the report, and affordable apartments are disappearing faster on the North and Northwest Sides than in other parts of Chicago. Avondale, where 60 percent of residents are non-white, is described in the study as a vulnerable area for lower-income residents.
The Northwest Side has continued to see a wave of new developments and rehabs of older buildings, gaining a more affluent population even as parts of the North Side have lost affordable housing options since 2012. Avondale and Logan Square have experienced high rates of gentrification and displacement over almost the last decade, per the Block Club report, and the growing housing displacement pressures are making it more difficult for lower-income residents to remain in place.
City Response Already Underway
Chicago has already moved to address the pattern the DePaul data describes. In September 2024, the Chicago City Council passed the Northwest Side Housing Preservation Ordinance, increasing demolition permit surcharges in Avondale and other covered Chicago neighborhoods from $15,000 to $60,000 for detached houses, townhouses, and two-flats, and from $5,000 to $20,000 per dwelling unit for coach houses and multifamily buildings, according to the Chicago Association of REALTORS. The ordinance also expanded the 606 Predominance of the Block District from 1.7 to 6 square miles, permitting two-flats as-of-right on RS-3 residential parcels while prohibiting multi-family conversions into single-family homes on majority multi-unit blocks, as detailed by Chicago Cityscape's Blog.
Effective March 1, 2025, the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase pilot program tied to the ordinance requires rental property owners in Avondale, Hermosa, Humboldt Park, Logan Square, and West Town to give tenants a right of first refusal before selling to third-party buyers, per the City of Chicago. Owners must provide at least 60 days of advance notice before listing properties with five or more rental units and at least 30 days for properties with one to four units. The following December, the City Council approved amendments setting a sunset date of December 31, 2029 for both the tenant purchase program and the heightened demolition surcharges, according to Loop North News, following negotiations between aldermanic sponsors and real estate industry organizations.
The Research Behind The Policy
Past housing-group studies were referenced in the creation of the Northwest Side Housing Preservation Ordinance, and Smith said he hopes the updated displacement-pressure resource will help fill data gaps, spur discussions, and inform strategies for addressing emerging challenges, according to the Block Club article. The analysis fits into a broader body of housing research, while Hoodline covered last year a look at research on vanishing two- to four-flats citywide.
That research base helps explain why the pilot policies target those building types specifically, and why displacement pressure analysis is now seen as a tool that can inform housing policy changes and future pilot programs, per the same report. The city has already extended a version of the model through the Jackson Park Tenant Opportunity to Purchase program, which took effect April 6, 2026, according to the City of Chicago.
