Walking Chicago a Retrospective: Perception, Identity, and Residency
When I first moved to Chicago it was nearing the end of August. The weather was routinely over 80 degrees for the first few weeks after I moved in. I was excited but unsure of what the city had to offer me. Even then, I could never have predicted how the city would change me. Now, despite only being here for a few months, I can already recognize the impact living here has had on me. My experience walking in Chicago has taught me so much both subliminally and consciously about myself and the city.
Through this course, I have had the opportunity to familiarize myself with Chicago faster than I could have predicted. With familiarity comes comfort. When I first arrived on campus, I would never have referred to my dorm as “home,” but I have recognized myself doing that increasingly. My weekly walks served so many purposes. I can walk Lincoln Park without directions now, I had excuses to shut my laptop and go outside (while still being productive,) I thought critically about my surroundings in a way I have never done before, and so much more. A concept we discussed a lot in class was the idea that there are as many Chicago’s as there are people in Chicago. The first time I heard this, it did not make much sense to me but as I experienced the city, its vastness, and its inhabitants the phrase began to take on meaning.
As I walked, I recognize the common habits of Chicagoan walkers. Fellow walkers used the stop lights to gauge when it was safe to cross the street. They began walking when the light hit yellow rather than waiting for the crossing sign to indicate to walk. While this only practically saved me several seconds, I adopted it along the way. I find the city to be fast paced, especially in comparison to my New England routes. This crosswalk practice, however small, helped me feel like I was a part of the city. I felt that when I do that, I am signaling to others that I too know the city and I too have places to be. Much like what Rebecca Solnit discusses in The Solitary Stroller in the City, walking in a metropolis provides privacy. As she puts it: “Cities have always offered anonymity, variety, and conjunction, qualities best basked in by walking: one does not have to go into the bakery or the fortune-teller’s, only to know that one might. A city always contains more than any inhabitant can know, and a great city always makes the unknown and the possible spurs to the imagination.” Meaning that as an inhabitant of a city, you need not worry about what strangers think of you. There is far too much going on around you for a passerby to pay much attention to what you are doing. The constant stimulation does not allow you to ponder too hard on any menial topic. So, I really should not be too hung up on how I present myself to other walkers; reality has it that they are not paying any attention to me, as I am not to them.
One faction of Chicago I witness frequently is the fast paced, city that never sleeps, always on the run Chicago. This Chicago seems to mostly consist of younger corporate folks who make up a significant percentage of the population in downtown areas of Chicago.
My field notes for our week four assignment included an anecdote about becoming so familiar with your surroundings that you become blind to them. I wrote: “To be aware of your surroundings is to keep life interesting, to not is to be comfortable. I want to remain out of my comfort zone.” This is a reoccurring thought that often came to me on my walks. While I claimed that I did not think I would fall victim to that, I can already witness myself becoming more complacent. My walks stayed in Lincoln Park for the most part even though I wanted to experience other neighborhoods. Lincoln Park is familiar and comfortable and therefore safe. However, this class has shown me that a feeling of danger or unease associated with areas of the city can be completely misconstrued. These are often concepts coupled with racism, gentrification, and class divides. Finding a balance of not giving into fearmongering while still advocating for my personal safety has been a huge learning curve that is ongoing.
The inclination to stick to what is “safe,” demonstrates another side of Chicago. The lack of “risk-taking” limits the experience of living in Chicago. It is not a secret that Chicago has its violence issues but not confronting that these issues stem from racism and class divides is ignorant. The article “Rising Crime in Cities Like Chicago Should Not Lead to More Policing” is written by Takenya Nixon Brail. Brail is an attorney, homeowner, and resident of Chicago for 16 years. She recounts a story of hearing of a young black girl’s death in her neighborhood. The news was upsetting but for more than one reason. Brail said “my outrage was not directed at the person who pulled the trigger. I know he or she was most likely a survivor of violence he or she could not control; of a daily, traumatic oppression by hyper-policing and surveillance; of being trapped with literally no way out. Of shame. Of isolation.” It is not the fault of Chicago residents that violence continues, it is the response to the very violence that perpetuates it. This is an idea also explored in the article “Privilege, Policing and Living While Black in Chicago’s White North Side.” The activist William Calloway is quoted in the article saying: “When you remove resources, economic opportunities, don’t invest in education, create a difficult route to obtain quality housing, remove black leadership by mass incarceration, it creates a formula for disaster,”
Exploring how identity impacts perception was the most formative experience I had in this class. While I was already familiar with the concepts of stereotypes, alarmism, intersectionality, and their implications on the human psyche I had never zoomed in on a topic as specific as walking in relation to them. Examining how my experience walking the streets of Chicago is different from my peers and vice versa because of which identity groups we may or may not belong to raises larger questions about society. Why do my male counterparts feel more comfortable walking at night or alone than I do? How does my whiteness impact how, where, and when I walk? Do the identity groups to which I belong have anything to do with my inclination not to stray too far from Lincoln Park?
“Why Do Gay Men Walk So Fast?” By Louis Staples humorously tackles the stereotype of gay men walking at an abnormally fast pace. Staples acknowledges that there is no reputable scientific study on the walking speed of gay versus straight men. However, there are still many factors that play into this convention. The article cites a confidence coach, Lisa Phillips. Phillips says that a fear of homophobia directed from a stranger could play into why gay men walk fast. They fear attack and therefore walk quicker to escape a perceived threat. It is known that gay men gravitate towards urban areas where the main means of transportation is walking. That coupled with the fact that, statistically, the fastest walkers are younger men who live in cities may help answer the question: why do gay men walk so fast? Because of societal factors like this, everyone has a unique experience walking. I do not walk the same as my peers, I do not walk the same when I walk alone versus when I walk in a group, I do not walk the same way downtown that I do in Lincoln Park.
Identity may play the largest role in proving the idea that there are as many Chicago’s as there are people. No two individuals have the exact same identity, life experience, knowledge, and so on. Therefore, no two people can experience Chicago, or any city for that matter, the same.
I have come to learn Chicago as a multifaceted city. I will never truly understand this city, I do not think anyone can. It is expansive beyond comprehension but making an effort to become more familiar with each distinct community and neighborhood makes the city more tangible. Right before I flew to Chicago I wrote in my journal: “I am scared but I am going to it anyway. This is a good thing. This is what I have dreamed about forever.” This still resonates with me. Being somewhere so vast and unfamiliar is daunting but this is exactly what I wanted. I love the unfamiliarity and the possibility to go somewhere new and meet someone new every day while never leaving the confines of the city. More than anything this course has proved to me that there is truly no one way to understand, experience, or live in Chicago. Perception, identity, and residency (or lack thereof) allows everyone to live in their own Chicago; it is what you make of it.
Work Cited
Brail, Takenya Nixon. “The Fearmongering about Rising Crime Has Got to Stop.” Teen Vogue, 1 July 2021, https://www.teenvogue.com/story/rising-crime-chicago-more-police-not-answer.
“Privilege, Policing and Living While Black in Chicago’s White North Side.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 17 Sept. 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/17/privilege-policing-black-chicago-white-north-side.
Solnit, Rebecca. “Chapter 11: The Solitary Stroller and the City.” Wanderlust a History of Walking, Granta, London, 2014, pp. 176–204.
Staples, Louis. “Why Do Gay Men Walk so Fast?” GQ, 19 June 2019, https://www.gq.com/story/move-im-gay.
