Among Chicago streets, W. Deming Pl. seems to be a two-block runt. Or five very short blocks, if you count every minor cross street. Deming’s west end is at N. Orchard St. and its east end is at Lakeview Ave., which is the edge of Lincoln Park at that point — the actual park, not the neighborhood of that name.

Fairly early on Saturday, we took a short stroll down Deming, from N. Orchard to N. Clark St., a major commercial artery. Temps were below freezing, but not by much, so a brisk walk wasn’t bad.

No doubt about it, Deming’s a nice street in the mostly posh Lincoln Park neighborhood.

One thing about being a posh neighborhood in a dense urban setting: legal parking is hard to find.
We’d avoided that particular problem by driving most of the way to Lincoln Park, parking the car in a less posh but still pleasant enough Chicago neighborhood — one with much more street parking — and taking the El on a short ride to where we wanted to be.

Do urban planners take car-mass transit combinations seriously? From our vantage in the suburbs, it’s often the best choice for arriving at a particular point in the city. I’m no authority on urban planning, but somehow I get the impression that it’s either/or: massive transit vs. private cars.