A guide to fifteen tours through Chicago neighborhoods emphasizing historic landmarks and pointing out institutions and buildings which had important roles in each neighborhoods growth.

""Which neighborhood?" It's one of the first questions you're asked when you move to Chicago. And the answer you give - be it Bucktown, Bronzeville, or Bridgeport - can give your inquisitor a good idea of who you are, especially in a metropolis with so many different neighborhoods and suburbs to choose from." "Many of us know little of the neighborhoods beyond those where we work, play, and live. This is particularly true in Chicagoland, a region that spans over 4,400 square miles and is home to more than 9.5 million residents. Now, historian Ann Durkin Keating's compact guide, drawn largely from the bestselling Encyclopedia of Chicago, brings the history of Chicago neighborhoods to life."--BOOK JACKET.

Great American City demonstrates the powerfully enduring impact of place. Based on one of the most ambitious studies in the history of social science, Robert J. Sampson’s Great American City presents the fruits of over a decade’s research to support an argument that we all feel and experience every day: life is decisively shaped by your neighborhood. Engaging with the streets and neighborhoods of Chicago, Sampson, in this new edition, reflects on local and national changes that have transpired since his book’s initial publication, including a surge in gun violence and novel forms of segregation despite an increase in diversity. New research, much of it a continuation of the influential discoveries in Great American City, has followed, and here, Sampson reflects on its meaning and future directions. Sampson invites readers to see the status of the research initiative that serves as the foundation of the first edition—the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN)—and outlines the various ways other scholars have continued his work. Both accessible and incisively thorough, Great American City is a must-read for anyone interested in cutting-edge urban sociology and the study of crime.

Part of Belt's Neighborhood Guidebook Series, The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook is an intimate exploration of the Windy City's history and identity. "Required reading"-- The Chicago Tribune Officially,

A guide to fifteen tours through Chicago neighborhoods emphasizing historic landmarks and pointing out institutions and buildings which had important roles in each neighborhoods growth.

An ex-convict returns to his Chicago community a changed man—but maybe not for the better—in this “vivid, suspenseful, funny, and compassionate novel” (Booklist). One of Booklist’s Top 10 First Novels of the Year One of Roxane Gay’s Top 10 Books of the Year After fourteen years in prison, Gerald “Stew Pot” Reeves, age thirty-one, returns home to live with his mom in Parkland, a black middle-class neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. The residents are in a tailspin, dreading the arrival of the man they remember as a frightening delinquent. The anxiety only grows when Stew Pot announces that he experienced a religious awakening in prison. Most folks are skeptical, with one notable exception: Mrs. Motley, a widowed retired librarian and the Reeves’ next-door neighbor, who loans Stew Pot a Bible, which is seen by him and many in the community as a friendly gesture. With uncompromising fervor (and with a new pit bull named John the Baptist), Stew Pot soon appoints himself the moral judge of Parkland—and starts wreaking havoc on people’s lives. Before long, tension and suspicion reign, and this close-knit community must reckon with questions of faith, fear, and forgiveness . . . “[A] novel of epiphanies, tragedies, and transformations . . . perfect for book clubs.” —Booklist, starred review “May slowly builds suspense as he persuasively unfolds the narrative in this work that reads like an Agatha Christie mystery.” —Library Journal “A wonderful urban novel full of vitality and pathos and grit.” —Dennis Lehane

In the decades following World War II, cities across the United States saw an influx of African American families into otherwise homogeneously white areas. This racial transformation of urban neighborhoods led many whites to migrate to the suburbs, producing the phenomenon commonly known as white flight. In Block by Block, Amanda I. Seligman draws on the surprisingly understudied West Side communities of Chicago to shed new light on this story of postwar urban America. Seligman's study reveals that the responses of white West Siders to racial changes occurring in their neighborhoods were both multifaceted and extensive. She shows that, despite rehabilitation efforts, deterioration in these areas began long before the color of their inhabitants changed from white to black. And ultimately, the riots that erupted on Chicago's West Side and across the country in the mid-1960s stemmed not only from the tribulations specific to blacks in urban centers but also from the legacy of accumulated neglect after decades of white occupancy. Seligman's careful and evenhanded account will be essential to understanding that the "flight" of whites to the suburbs was the eventual result of a series of responses to transformations in Chicago's physical and social landscape, occurring one block at a time.

"A brief, cogent analysis of gentrification in Chicago ... an incisive and useful narrative on the puzzle of urban development."-- Kirkus Reviews In the years after World War II, a movement began to bring the m

For decades, North American cities racked by deindustrialization and population loss have followed one primary path in their attempts at revitalization: a focus on economic growth in downtown and business areas. Neighborhoods, meanwhile, have often been left severely underserved. There are, however, signs of change. This collection of studies by a distinguished group of political scientists and urban planning scholars offers a rich analysis of the scope, potential, and ramifications of a shift still in progress. Focusing on neighborhoods in six cities—Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Toronto—the authors show how key players, including politicians and philanthropic organizations, are beginning to see economic growth and neighborhood improvement as complementary goals. The heads of universities and hospitals in central locations also find themselves facing newly defined realities, adding to the fluidity of a new political landscape even as structural inequalities exert a continuing influence. While not denying the hurdles that community revitalization still faces, the contributors ultimately put forth a strong case that a more hospitable local milieu can be created for making neighborhood policy. In examining the course of experiences from an earlier period of redevelopment to the present postindustrial city, this book opens a window on a complex process of political change and possibility for reform.

An exploration of how and why American city governments delegated the responsibility for solving urban inequality to the nonprofit sector. American cities are rife with nonprofit organizations that provide services ranging from arts to parks, and health to housing. These organizations have become so ubiquitous, it can be difficult to envision a time when they were fewer, smaller, and more limited in their roles. Turning back the clock, however, uncovers both an eye-opening story of how the nonprofit sector became such a dominant force in American society, as well as a troubling one of why this growth occurred alongside persistent poverty and widening inequality. Claire Dunning's book connects these two stories in histories of race, democracy, and capitalism, revealing an underexplored transformation in urban governance: how the federal government funded and deputized nonprofits to help individuals in need, and in so doing avoided addressing the structural inequities that necessitated such action in the first place. ​Nonprofit Neighborhoods begins in the decades after World War II, when a mix of suburbanization, segregation, and deindustrialization spelled disaster for urban areas and inaugurated a new era of policymaking that aimed to solve public problems with private solutions. From deep archival research, Dunning introduces readers to the activists, corporate executives, and politicians who advocated addressing poverty and racial exclusion through local organizations, while also raising provocative questions about the politics and possibilities of social change. The lessons of Nonprofit Neighborhoods exceed the municipal bounds of Boston, where much of the story unfolds, providing a timely history of the shift from urban crisis to urban renaissance for anyone concerned about American inequality--past, present, or future.