I think partially it was because it was so cheap. In the late 90s I had an apartment a block from the lake in the Lakeview neighborhood in the Chicago north side and it cost $400 a month. Before that I lived out in the Chicago suburbs and my apartment was $800 a month.
That was a steal. I lived in Lakeview from 1995 to 2000 (with a brief detour in San Francisco) and every place we rented was north of $1500, nowhere near the lake.
