An Immersive Week in Chicago
Choosing my Discover Chicago course proved to be an overwhelming decision. With classes on almost every subject matter, I was drowning in choices. When I saw there was a class for walking, I hesitated. What could I learn from footsteps? Despite this, my mom pushed me to take the class. Having gone to college in New York City, she insisted walking was the best way to learn a city.
Our class began our series of walks in DePaul’s home neighborhood of Lincoln Park. The streets were lined with endless stores, a mix of familiar chains and independent shops. The money flowing through the community was easy to sense in the polished brick exterior of many homes. People wore expensive clothes and used the newest phones. I enjoyed being near the lake the most, away from some of the noise and crowdedness. The neighborhood was nice, and I felt more familiar with the environment after walking.
Being in Humboldt Park showed me a different side to Chicago. The shops and apartments were smaller, and there were fewer chains. But what this neighborhood had that Lincoln Park did not was a powerful sense of community. Murals covered the walls, bright and bold. They told stories of painful truths, as well as joy. I learned that Lincoln Park had once been heavily Puerto Rican as well, though it no longer is. The tour guide talked to us about gentrification, a concept I was familiar with yet had never encountered in my own life.
Once it was brought to my attention, it was hard to unsee the effects of gentrification throughout the other neighborhoods of Chicago. There was no place in the city I did not enjoy. However, in places such as Uptown, I noticed areas that had undoubtedly been gentrified. There were expensive apartments in places that had once been affordable. While they were pleasing to look at, I was reminded of the murals in Humboldt Park and had to wonder who had been left behind.
In Pilsen, a neighborhood with Mexican ties, the murals told a similar story to those in Humboldt Park. There was a fight for affordable housing and to keep families in their community. It was disheartening to see much of the costly housing being portrayed as a universally good thing and as improvements to the old structures. The insidious nature behind these renovations is those who are discarded. Those in places like Humboldt Park or Pilsen are not asked what they want. They are not asked if they like their businesses or their homes. Investors invest in the land and forget about the people. They plan on attracting whoever will pay and letting those who can’t be pushed into shrinking margins. That is how community is lost.
From only a week of walking in Chicago, I have begun to form a more complete picture of what the city is like. Far from a monolith, every area is different. Chicago is not just affluent neighborhoods like Lincoln Park, nor is it the fear-mongered places people are told not to visit. It is all of those places and none of them. It is a city of people fighting to have their place in it.
