Segregation And Segregation In Chicago

It’s Thanksgiving. There’s a traffic jam of dishes being passed, “moooom” being called, and fresh stains on the table cloth. As the chaos calms down, you glance down the table to your younger cousin’s plate. They’ve always been a picky child. Their plate is perfectly separated into compartments of food. No foods are overlapping, let alone mixing. That younger cousin’s perfectly separated plate of food is Chicago. Chicago where neighborhoods have been separated since the city’s formation. Chicago where people are compartmentalized to areas they’re “allowed” to go to. Chicago where people don’t mix. To truly understand Chicago, one must grasp the concept of the Chicago neighborhood and the separation and segregation that it breeds. Because of

Although these neighborhoods do not have drawn-out lines, they are distinctly segregated by race and ethnicity. This segregation of neighborhoods began during the Great Migration, when millions of African Americans fled from the Jim Crow laws of the south to the swept-under-the-rug racism of the North. In Chicago, African Americans were only allowed to live in a certain area that was deemed “the Black Belt”. The Black Belt was not ready to account for the influx of African American people due to the great migration, which caused there to be overcrowded living situations and a lack of resources available. When African Americans tried to leave the Black Belt and live in different neighborhoods, they were met with white violence. This increased racial tensions in Chicago, and eventually was part of the cause of a race riot that would forever change how different races interacted and lived in the city. The cause of the riot was based on these imaginary lines that people had drawn to exclude certain groups. Specifically the riot happened because an African American boy accidentally floated into “white territory” while playing in Lake Michigan(Pcgya). Although it is difficult to fathom, the imaginary lines that outlined neighborhoods became even more strict and defined after the Race Riot of

This is evident in how the city government treats environmental issues. Because of the Chicago neighborhood system the city can easily disregard a community on purpose, like how many minority neighborhoods on the South and West sides are subject to higher levels of pollution in order to keep the Northside neighborhoods clean. These neighborhoods are ignored in the city’s green plans and during citywide clean ups, yet these are the neighborhoods that need it the most. Many of these neighborhoods reside near old power plants or landfills making them more susceptible to the pollutants these sites exude (Ruppenthal). The city continuously overlooks these neighborhoods because of the racial prejudice that is present in Chicago and preserved because of the segregation brought on by the split-up