We find comfort in the familiar, in what we know and what we’ve always known. But our city of neighborhoods often isolates, creating a series of “Chicagos,” but not one that can represent the city as a whole.
My father’s family often regarded my mother and my sisters with suspicion. He was from the South Side; my mother was from the West. They were both born in the South, in Alabama and Mississippi, but Chicago neighborhoods have a way of changing you.
On Wednesday's Afternoon Shift we're taking a long, hard, non-creepy look at our neighbors. As many communities move online, we want to know what’s happened to our relationships with the people and places on our streets.
Chicago is a city of neighborhoods. But as important as they are to the city’s economy, politics and culture, Chicagoans do not always see them as distinct places. Take Auburn Gresham, a South Side neighborhood centered around 79th Street.
