Chicago, Neighborhood by Neighborhood: Introduction

Not long ago remarks in a comments thread reminded me of how vague or even cartoonish a view people who don’t actually live here have of Chicago. In hopes of remedying that a bit I decided to produce a series of posts that reveal a more ground-level view of Chicago. This is the introductory post in that series which I’m going to call “Chicago—Neighborhood by Neighborhood”.

It’s been said that Chicago is a city of neighborhoods. I haven’t been able to discover who first said that and I strongly suspect that most people don’t understand what it means. Chicago is actually comprised of 9 “sides”, each side is composed of multiple “community areas”, 77 community areas, illustrated above, and each community area consists of one or more neighborhoods for a total of more than 200 neighborhoods in all. In the late 1920s the Social Science Research Committee at University of Chicago identified 75 community areas within Chicago, defined by geography, sociology, and economics. In the 1950s the city annexed land to construct O’Hare Airport, adding a 76th community area. In 1980 the Edgewater community area was separated from the Uptown community area for a 77th and it’s remained that way ever since.

The boundaries of the community areas haven’t changed since they were drawn originally and I have little doubt that they’d be a bit different if they were drawn today.

As I wrote above, each community area consists of one or more neighborhoods and, in general, the community areas take their names from one of the neighborhoods in them. The community area I live in is the Forest Glen community but if I said “I live in Forest Glen” to one of my neighbors, he or she would look at me funny. We live in the Sauganash neighborhood, along with Edgebrook and Forest Glen, the three neighborhoods that constitute the Forest Glen community which is located in the Far North Side of Chicago.

Chicago’s community areas by number are:

01	Rogers Park	21	Avondale	41	Hyde Park	61	New City
02	West Ridge	22	Logan Square	42	Woodlawn	62	West Elsdon
03	Uptown	23	Humboldt Park	43	South Shore	63	Gage Park
04	Lincoln Square	24	West Town	44	Chatham	64	Clearing
05	North Center	25	Austin	45	Avalon Park	65	West Lawn
06	Lake View	26	West Garfield Park	46	South Chicago	66	Chicago Lawn
07	Lincoln Park	27	East Garfield Park	47	Burnside	67	West Englewood
08	Near North Side	28	Near West Side	48	Calumet Heights	68	Englewood
09	Edison Park	29	North Lawndale	49	Roseland	69	Greater Grand Crossing
10	Norwood Park	30	South Lawndale	50	Pullman	70	Ashburn
11	Jefferson Park	31	Lower West Side	51	South Deering	71	Auburn Gresham
12	Forest Glen	32	Loop	52	East Side	72	Beverly
13	North Park	33	Near South Side	53	West Pullman	73	Washington Heights
14	Albany Park	34	Armour Square	54	Riverdale	74	Mount Greenwood
15	Portage Park	35	Douglas	55	Hegewisch	75	Morgan Park
16	Irving Park	36	Oakland	56	Garfield Ridge	76	O’Hare
17	Dunning	37	Fuller Park	57	Archer Heights	77	Edgewater
18	Montclare	38	Grand Boulevard	58	Brighton Park
19	Belmont Cragin	39	Kenwood	59	McKinley Park
20	Hermosa	40	Washington Park	60	Bridgeport

My community area is #12.

First stop: Forest Glen