Valuable land; no gentrification/limited reuse

What do you do with what should be prime real estate, but conditons on the ground fight mighty hard against redevelopment? The following locations offer naturally stellar waterfront locations that have been crippled by human usage for over 100 years: Calumet region shoreline (Lake Co, IN): short of some disasterous areas in NJ, it would be hard to think of a landscape more brutalized by the hands of man than this steel making area. Shoreline casinos is basically all that has been done to readpt the waterfront to recreational/pleasure usage. The real question here: how many years and decades would it truly take to turn around the Hammond, E Chgo, Gary waterfronts, horribly scarred by industry, but possessing unparralleled prime shoreline so close to Chgo? South Chicago/South Works: similiar to above. the plans have been in place for a long time. Not much has happened. Can upscale housing and quality redevelopment go in here, separated as it is by South Chicago and South Shore to the nearest comparable community, Hyde Park? Waukegan/North Chicago: industrial, blue collar cities, with Waukegan having a port. The industry's dead and redevelopment is needed (and hopefully occur without the poor being squeezed out). The amount of infastructure work is daunting, but could the North Shore extend not only from Evanston to Lake Bluff, but to No. Chgo and Waukegan, as well? Lakes in Lake County: Fox Lake is not Lake Geneva, but it's pretty damned attractive. What once was "summer cottages" dot the shoreline of Fox Lake, Lake Zurich, and others. One would have thought that tear-downs would have discovered this prime waterfront real estate years ago, but it hasn't happened (even in relatively close-in Lk Zurich). It's not that I want to see trophy homes dot the shore of Fox Lake; it's just I'm surprised it hasn't happened. Rogers Park: nothing at all like any of the above (and industry has never been an issue), but why is this neighborhood so resistent to gentrificaton and redevelopment? All the lakefront neighborhoods to the south clearly are. Other inland neighborhoods on the city's northern fringe (W. Rogers Park, Peterson Pk, Hollywood Pk, Sauganash, Edgebrook) are doing quite well (with admittedly a larger stock of suburban like homes than Rogers Park can offer). Meanwhile, Evanston is damned beautiful across city limits. How can Rogers Park, with its lakefront, prime North Side location, an major university campus (Loyola) be so resistent to change. Do you agree or disagree with the observations on the above and are there other such communities that you can identify?>