(train clacking)
(bouncy music)
- [Narrator] Chicago's L system winds its way
through what is often called a city of neighborhoods.
But wait, breaking news!
There actually are no official neighborhoods in Chicago.
There are a number of ways the city draws boundaries,
but let's focus on three big ones,
wards and community areas and neighborhoods, oh my.
The city uses wards to define the voting districts
for its 50 city council seats.
Ward boundaries sometimes change after each census
to better reflect changes in the population,
and as a result, political gerrymandering,
to protect political clout.
Okay, pretty simple, even if the map isn't.
Next up, we have community areas.
In the 1920s a group of demographers
from University of Chicago mapped out 77 community areas
defined by statistics like demographics, income and crime.
These boundaries haven't changed in a century,
so they're pretty outdated.
All right, still following?
And that brings us to neighborhoods,
which is how most Chicagoans refer to
where in the city they live,
even though they are, (gasps), entirely unofficial.
For instance, Wrigleyville was actually designated
by real estate promoters.
Neighborhood boundaries tend to shift over time,
as factors like demographics and real estate change.
Even neighborhood names can change over time.
Plus, different people might have different ideas
about what constitutes a certain neighborhood anyway.
The only way the city really recognizes neighborhoods
is for informal or ceremonial purposes,
like those rainbow pylons and crosswalks in Boystown,
the Puerto Rican flag gateways in Humboldt Park
or those banners you see on lampposts.
Neighborhoods don't have anything to do
with how the city governs or tracks data.
Although the community areas are sometimes considered
the closest thing we have to official designations,
the intuitive neighborhoods have much more name recognition.
Let's take a deep dive into Wicker Park as an example.
You won't find Wicker Park listed as a community area.
It's a neighborhood that's part of
the West Town community area.
Now to make things a little more confusing,
Wicker Park isn't the only neighborhood in West Town.
There's also Ukrainian Village, East Village,
Noble Square and, wait for it, the West Town neighborhood.
And you know how people
often lump Wicker Park and Bucktown together?
Wrong, Bucktown is part of the Logan Square community area.
Oh, and don't even get me started
on the wards in Wicker Park.
And the madness doesn't stop there.
Chinatown is part of Armor Square.
Old Town straddles two community areas,
Lincoln Park and the Near North Side.
And Bronzeville, one of the city's
most iconic neighborhoods,
that also overlaps two community areas
called Grand Boulevard and Douglas.
Yes, Chicago is a city of neighborhoods,
but the next time someone says Chicago has 77 neighborhoods,
nope, we have 77 community areas.
So when you're riding home on a packed L car,
look around you, it's you and your neighbors
who define the neighborhoods,
and that's about as straightforward
as no ketchup on a hotdog.
(train clacking)