"...it's easier to say what Lakeview isn't..."

At the Chicago Reader, Jerome Ludwig has been running wonderful excerpts from Sweet Home Chicago 2, a 1977 city guidebook which offers very frank opinions on various neighborhoods. Here's Tem Horwitz's take on Lakeview, where my dad grew up (forty years earlier):

Lakeview is...well, it's easier to say what Lakeview isn't. It isn't as upper-crusty as its southern neighbor, Lincoln Park (though parts of it come close), or as shabby as its northern neighbor, Uptown (though parts of it come close). Its residents will tell you indignantly that it isn't "New Town," although most of what is commonly known by that name lies within its borders. What is it, then? It's everything that isn't something else, an area that's continually changing, transforming itself, in the process becoming...becoming what?

A playground for aging frat boys, that's what.