| When people talk about segregation in Chicago, they are mostly referring to the black south and near west side, and to a lesser extent the hispanic near-southwest and Little Village areas. Look closely at the map on this thread, and match it up to a Chicago neighborhood map. Look at the border between Beverly (where I grew up) and Gresham and Brainerd. Look at the borders around Hyde Park. Look at the border between Austin and Oak Park (where I live now). For that matter, look at Lawndale vs Little Village. The borders are sharp, they follow regular lines, and generally involve a 90+% majority black neighborhood on one side. There are a bunch of reasons this happened: * The Great Migration, during which Chicago was a giant magnet for rural black southerners * Redlining, the overtly racist/segregationist practice of refusing home loans to black families in "non-black" neighborhoods * The construction of the Ryan, which displaced black families who ended up moving to places like Englewood * The construction of the CHA high rise housing projects, which were concentrated in areas that would eventually become majority-black * The subsequent flight of white families from places like Englewood, which went from 10% black immediately after WW2 to 98+%(!) black in 1980 It's important to note that with the possible exception of Beverly, which really is a white Irish enclave, the non-black non-hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago aren't intolerant, and have black representation roughly in line with their representation in the population as a whole. If you live in Avondale or Rogers Park or Lakeview, it probably doesn't look at all segregated. Also, Chicago isn't the most segregated city in the US. |