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The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook
Chicago is famously a city of neighborhoods. Seventy-seven of them, formally; more than 200 in subjective, ever-changing fact. But what does that actually mean? The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook, the latest in Belt's series of idiosyncratic city guides (after Cleveland and Detroit), aims to explore community history and identity in a global city through essays, poems, photo essays, and art articulating the lived experience of its residents. Edited by Martha Bayne with help from the Read/Write Library, the book builds on 2017's critically acclaimed Rust Belt Chicago: An Anthology. What did one pizzeria mean to a boy growing up in Ashburn? How can South Shore encompass so much beauty and so much pain? Where's the best borscht in Ukranian Village? Who's got a handle on the ever-shifting identity of Rogers Park? All this and more in this lyrical, subjective, completely non-comprehensive guide to Chicago. Featuring work by Megan Stielstra, Audrey Petty, Alex Hernandez, Sebastián Hidalgo, Dmitry Samarov, Ed Marszewski, Lily Be, Jonathan Foiles, and many more.
285 pages, Paperback
Published September 10, 2019
24 people are currently reading
297 people want to read
About the author
Martha Bayne
7 books10 followersMartha Bayne is a writer and editor based in Chicago. Founder of the Soup & Bread series of hunger-relief fundraisers, she is the author of Soup & Bread Cookbook: Building Community One Pot at a Time (Agate/Surrey, 2011), and her features and essays have appeared in Time Out Chicago, Bookforum, the Baffler, the Christian Century, and the Chicago Reader, where she was on staff for ten years.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
August 31, 2019
This is an easy read, and the essays are a nice length, so you can read a few each morning, or tackle the whole thing in a couple long bus rides. There's a lot of thoughtful work in here- the biggest highlight is the poetry, Kevin Coval's bowling ball of a piece is worth the price of admission alone. Props for finding thoughtful essays about parts of the city often ignored: East Side, Hegewisch, West Ridge, and several really excellent pieces by young women: Rebel Girl by Sara Nasser, and the Lakeview essay by Emily Mack to name a few. Well worth reading.
There's a few absolute duds: the real estate blues of a River West yuppie, and Ed Marszewski advertising his own businesses and oft-handily dismissing Bridgeport's racist history. There's some flotsam, too many essays that end with easy answers, and a few glaring omissions (I would have traded a few essays for something about queer life and boystown, Puerto Rican Humboldt Park, Jewish culture, or more recent African and Central American migrants).
There's a few absolute duds: the real estate blues of a River West yuppie, and Ed Marszewski advertising his own businesses and oft-handily dismissing Bridgeport's racist history. There's some flotsam, too many essays that end with easy answers, and a few glaring omissions (I would have traded a few essays for something about queer life and boystown, Puerto Rican Humboldt Park, Jewish culture, or more recent African and Central American migrants).
October 4, 2025
I picked this up thinking it would give some cool tips on under the radar things to check out in different neighborhoods. The preface immediately set me right by stating that is not the purpose of the book. Fair enough.
Instead, this is a collection of essays and occasionally poems each describing aspects or experiences of a particular neighborhood. I appreciated that while many highlight positive aspects of the neighborhoods, they are also forthcoming in concerns about many neighborhoods having lost their unique charms to gentrification and uniformity. One particular essay was lamenting the buildup of the River West neighborhood after the writer bought a condo to flip and got stuck between clubs blaring music throughout the night next door and neighbors with screaming children for years when the housing market collapsed.
Taken together, this really is a prime example of how large and varied different areas of Chicago are. I learned a lot and did admittedly add some places mentioned to the list of cool places to check out. These are singular perspectives on the different neighborhoods, but still interesting tastes of different places.
Instead, this is a collection of essays and occasionally poems each describing aspects or experiences of a particular neighborhood. I appreciated that while many highlight positive aspects of the neighborhoods, they are also forthcoming in concerns about many neighborhoods having lost their unique charms to gentrification and uniformity. One particular essay was lamenting the buildup of the River West neighborhood after the writer bought a condo to flip and got stuck between clubs blaring music throughout the night next door and neighbors with screaming children for years when the housing market collapsed.
Taken together, this really is a prime example of how large and varied different areas of Chicago are. I learned a lot and did admittedly add some places mentioned to the list of cool places to check out. These are singular perspectives on the different neighborhoods, but still interesting tastes of different places.
October 20, 2024
This is not a traditional guidebook, but rather a collection of essays, memoirs, anecdotes, poems, and phot essays that tell many different things about 34 of Chicago's 77 neighborhoods. I was quite interested in the contributors' takes on areas like Andersonville, Wicker Park, and Logan Suare, which are a little familiar to me. However, I was absolutely fascinated by some of the information about areas totally unfamiliar to me, like Edgewater Glen and Rezkoville.
October 22, 2025
So many great short stories and bits from different neighborhoods in Chicago - also got many restaurant recommendations to visit now
January 26, 2021
I love the essay format of this book and hearing people’s personal connections to Chicago’s neighborhoods. Also very informative on the continued issue of segregation in the city
January 2, 2020
I ordered this book because a Facebook friend and poet, Raymond Berry, who lives in Chicago was promoting it. One of his poems is published in the book. I've been to Chicago three times, so I know the city mostly through books and hearsay. I read Barrie Jean Borich's excellent memoir My Body Geographic, in which Chicago plays a potent role. So I have an undercurrent of interest in Chicago as a city I'd like to know better. And this book provides a wide girth of information from many authors.
It is divided into the wider sections of the city: West, Southwest Side, Far Southwest Side, Southeast Side, South Side, Near West Side, Central, North Side, Far North Side, Northwest Side. Within each section are short essays on different neighborhoods within the broader district. So the book is about place, history, and the changes witnessed through time. There is much about the process of gentrification that is more than a simple blaming. With the diverse authorship, this book goes deep into ethnic composition; the influence of time and the movements of people and money; the undercurrents of change and the pain it elicits.
Here are a smattering of quotes:
West
Austin: Austin and Division by Shaina Warfield
"My usual distraction from perpetual cabin fever was this wooden puzzle that formed a map of the United States. The pieces, loose impressions of the states they represented, were painted in primary colors, the outer edges in thick black."
"Summertime on Chicago's West Side was uniquely limited."
"Being eight years old meant she could now go as far as the fire hydrant. At that rate, she could've hoped to see the main street sometime in her early thirties."
"The terms "redlining," "blockbusting," "profiteering," and "white flight" would not enter my vocabulary until the later years of elementary school, and when they did I had to grab them quickly, catch them at random before the teacher read on. The moment I saw them in print I knew I had found the missing pieces to an outrage that I had thought was misplaced, but that never failed to ignite any time it seemed that I had only to cross the street to enter another world."
Southwest Side
Marquette Park: Members Only by Gint Aras
"Membership was coded in exactly the way small American towns code down-home identity, though perhaps with more pathos. When the bartender survived a bombing raid with your grandfather, or he knew your father had been dragged across Poland by your grandmother—the rest of the family shot in some field or deported to Siberia—he'd pour you a damn beer. The American idiocy of "underage drinking" did not beat the bonds created by collective survival, those that determined neighborhood code and custom."
"A curious note in the mentality of the victim is a sense of authority over a conflict, even a feeling that one is entirely good while others are entirely bad. Suffering can become its own drug, its own kind of indulgence, because feeling entirely good is far more pleasant than wondering what you've contributed to the madness before you. Even the question—what role have you played in this?—sets off snapping answers."
"Perhaps it's time to have fewer small clubs on opposite sides of streets, but extend invitations to those who've suffered from history's monster. If we count up the members of that club, we'll find it very large."
Far Southwest Side
Beverly: How To Integrate a Chicago Neighborhood in Three (No So) Easy Steps by Scott Smith
"Frank (a real estate agent who sold houses to black families) doesn't have much good to say about the neighborhood associations of the time, suggesting they weren't much concerned with anything other than "the niceties' of a community until black people started to move in. "They would do things such as integration management, integration maintenance."
He describes the practice this way. "The strategy was that no more than two or three so-called minorities on a block [was] acceptable. Once you get to that fourth person, that was the tipping point. That creates flight, that creates the exodus from the community.""
"Natalie Moore... in her 2016 book "The South Side." In writing about Bronzeville she says, "no infusion of capital and amenities followed when new black middle-class homeowners bought into the neighborhood, therefore confirming the theory that green (as in money) doesn't trump black (as in race)." She goes on to city a 2014 Harvard University study that found economic opportunities halted once a neighborhood became 40 percent black."
Southeast Side
Roseland: They Killed Him and His Little Girlfriend by Raymond Berry
This seven part poem tells the story of a couple who were shot and killed on the 500 block of West 109th Street in the Roseland neighborhood. William Drake, 20, and Briona White, 22. She was a senior studying orthodontics at Kansas State the year she was killed.
South Side
Woodlawn: Memories of Obama by Jonathan Foiles
"Residents of Woodlawn have formed a coalition calling for a community benefits agreement with the Obama Foundation. These residents want a guarantee that the new attention brought to their neighborhood will result in jobs for the community as well as safeguards to prevent them from being priced out of their neighborhood."
"...many residents still agree with James Baldwin's 1963 observation that "urban renewal means Negro removal.""
Near West Side
Pilsen: The Quietest Form of Displacement in a Changing Barrio by Sebastian Hidalgo
There are a few great photo essays in this book and this one shows "Pilsen—the largest Mexican American community in the Midwest"
And includes this quote from a local resident:
"There's a lot more new places opening up down Eighteenth Street—lots of gentrification that's happening," Pantoja says. "I remember this one time somebody that recently moved into the building we live in once asked me for directions. I told him to go down here, here, and make a left here. He was like 'but isn't it faster to just go down this block?' I told him he could do that but it's getting abit late and it's gonna get dark soon so you're going to put yourself in danger. I didn't want to explain it to him, I told him to trust me, it's the best way to go—that's what I think I envy about the changes. The diversity and different backgrounds that don't share the same story."
Central
Gold Coast: The Alleys of the Gold Coast by Leopold Froehlich
This excellent essay, by the senior editor of Lapham's Quarterly, has an epigraph quote:
"Chicago has plutocrats and paupers in the ratio of more than sixteen to one—boulevards for the exhibition of the rich and alleys for the convenience of the poor." —Eugene V. Debs
"This inversion of order—front for back, back for front—exemplifies Chicago's true hidden hierarchy: pragmatism trumps appearance, function prevails over form, praxis over theory. An alley in the Gold Coast, as elsewhere, represents the city as it really works, not as we wish it would work.
Everywhere in this Chicago is spoken the real lingua franca: bribery, kickback, payoff, quid pro quo, nod and wink, one hand washing the other. Inhabitants barely bother with the so-called real world, being for the most part unconcerned with the need to appear legitimate or honorable."
He goes on to how the brick layers inflated the cost of bricks.
"It is not as if any of this is secret or hidden. It is always apparent to anyone who cares to see. Schoolchildren know who drives the black Escalades. Immigrants three days removed from Sarajevo or Katowice or Querta know enough to see that in Chicago reality is not durable, and truth is contingent. There has always been little use in Chicago for the chimerical world of civitas or law, which fools only Episcopalian priests and dimwitted residents of the Gold Coast."
North Side
Ravenswood Gardens: Chicago River Life by Rob Miller
"Not so very long ago, you'd be branded a maniac or a fool for canoeing the river, the canal, the unremarkable ditch—whatever you thought of it, if you thought of it at all—that skulks through the North Side of Chicago."
"It would be a delusional romantic's errand to conjure adventure and Hiawatha-level serenity out of a river that one cannot read about without repeated references to "flushing," "run-off," "sewage," and "drainage." After a heavy storm, when the water turned from wan green to an end-of-shift dishwater gray, the septic tang and noisome, mucky high-water marks were stark reminders of the waterway's original purpose and the respect it was thus accorded."
This author took frequent solidary forays onto the river.
"And then there are the rats. Yeah, I know. But, seeing a functioning multilevel rat complex just above the waterline, like a busy condo rendered in mud, is much more fascinating than seeing a lone rat scurrying behind the dumpster with a scrap of Italian beef. I developed a grudging respect for the pestilential vermin in this environment."
"Now the river is a much different place. It's safer, cleaner, and feels less remote, which is good and bad. Where there once was isolation are now rowing teams and kayaking pods."
"But it is what we do in the wake (pun intended) of these developments that determines what the river becomes. An improvement in the water quality is objectively good, but will the river now be "better," or will it be the gateway to another form of intrusion? With all the increased access to the riverbank, will I ever see a fox den or a family of beavers again?..."
Far North Side
Albany Park: Edge Zone Chicago by Benjamin Van Loon
It opens with the paragraph,
"I once heard a man call Albany Park the United Nations. He meant it in a bad way, but he was from the suburbs, so as all Chicagoans know, his opinion couldn't be trusted."
"But the North Branch itself is an atavism from an earlier Chicago. In planning lingo, it's an Edge Zone; one of the few places where the city and nature still meet and blend, and where you're able to see, up close, how the river shaped—and continues to shape—Chicago."
Northwest Side
In this section a poem, Wicker Park: milwaukee avenue, by Kevin Coval gives tribute to the poet Nelson Algren who was not born in Chicago but grew up there:
"Algren, who wrote the city constant
love letters but it never wrote him back."
ends with this stanza:
"Algren is buried elsewhere, in new york
of course. he died in exile and never wanted
to come back to the city/neighborhood/country
Avenue that broke his heart and all its promises."
If you have any curiosity about Chicago this book will wet your appetite further. If you are interested in place and home and how this country works with immigrants there is much to absorb in this book.
It is divided into the wider sections of the city: West, Southwest Side, Far Southwest Side, Southeast Side, South Side, Near West Side, Central, North Side, Far North Side, Northwest Side. Within each section are short essays on different neighborhoods within the broader district. So the book is about place, history, and the changes witnessed through time. There is much about the process of gentrification that is more than a simple blaming. With the diverse authorship, this book goes deep into ethnic composition; the influence of time and the movements of people and money; the undercurrents of change and the pain it elicits.
Here are a smattering of quotes:
West
Austin: Austin and Division by Shaina Warfield
"My usual distraction from perpetual cabin fever was this wooden puzzle that formed a map of the United States. The pieces, loose impressions of the states they represented, were painted in primary colors, the outer edges in thick black."
"Summertime on Chicago's West Side was uniquely limited."
"Being eight years old meant she could now go as far as the fire hydrant. At that rate, she could've hoped to see the main street sometime in her early thirties."
"The terms "redlining," "blockbusting," "profiteering," and "white flight" would not enter my vocabulary until the later years of elementary school, and when they did I had to grab them quickly, catch them at random before the teacher read on. The moment I saw them in print I knew I had found the missing pieces to an outrage that I had thought was misplaced, but that never failed to ignite any time it seemed that I had only to cross the street to enter another world."
Southwest Side
Marquette Park: Members Only by Gint Aras
"Membership was coded in exactly the way small American towns code down-home identity, though perhaps with more pathos. When the bartender survived a bombing raid with your grandfather, or he knew your father had been dragged across Poland by your grandmother—the rest of the family shot in some field or deported to Siberia—he'd pour you a damn beer. The American idiocy of "underage drinking" did not beat the bonds created by collective survival, those that determined neighborhood code and custom."
"A curious note in the mentality of the victim is a sense of authority over a conflict, even a feeling that one is entirely good while others are entirely bad. Suffering can become its own drug, its own kind of indulgence, because feeling entirely good is far more pleasant than wondering what you've contributed to the madness before you. Even the question—what role have you played in this?—sets off snapping answers."
"Perhaps it's time to have fewer small clubs on opposite sides of streets, but extend invitations to those who've suffered from history's monster. If we count up the members of that club, we'll find it very large."
Far Southwest Side
Beverly: How To Integrate a Chicago Neighborhood in Three (No So) Easy Steps by Scott Smith
"Frank (a real estate agent who sold houses to black families) doesn't have much good to say about the neighborhood associations of the time, suggesting they weren't much concerned with anything other than "the niceties' of a community until black people started to move in. "They would do things such as integration management, integration maintenance."
He describes the practice this way. "The strategy was that no more than two or three so-called minorities on a block [was] acceptable. Once you get to that fourth person, that was the tipping point. That creates flight, that creates the exodus from the community.""
"Natalie Moore... in her 2016 book "The South Side." In writing about Bronzeville she says, "no infusion of capital and amenities followed when new black middle-class homeowners bought into the neighborhood, therefore confirming the theory that green (as in money) doesn't trump black (as in race)." She goes on to city a 2014 Harvard University study that found economic opportunities halted once a neighborhood became 40 percent black."
Southeast Side
Roseland: They Killed Him and His Little Girlfriend by Raymond Berry
This seven part poem tells the story of a couple who were shot and killed on the 500 block of West 109th Street in the Roseland neighborhood. William Drake, 20, and Briona White, 22. She was a senior studying orthodontics at Kansas State the year she was killed.
South Side
Woodlawn: Memories of Obama by Jonathan Foiles
"Residents of Woodlawn have formed a coalition calling for a community benefits agreement with the Obama Foundation. These residents want a guarantee that the new attention brought to their neighborhood will result in jobs for the community as well as safeguards to prevent them from being priced out of their neighborhood."
"...many residents still agree with James Baldwin's 1963 observation that "urban renewal means Negro removal.""
Near West Side
Pilsen: The Quietest Form of Displacement in a Changing Barrio by Sebastian Hidalgo
There are a few great photo essays in this book and this one shows "Pilsen—the largest Mexican American community in the Midwest"
And includes this quote from a local resident:
"There's a lot more new places opening up down Eighteenth Street—lots of gentrification that's happening," Pantoja says. "I remember this one time somebody that recently moved into the building we live in once asked me for directions. I told him to go down here, here, and make a left here. He was like 'but isn't it faster to just go down this block?' I told him he could do that but it's getting abit late and it's gonna get dark soon so you're going to put yourself in danger. I didn't want to explain it to him, I told him to trust me, it's the best way to go—that's what I think I envy about the changes. The diversity and different backgrounds that don't share the same story."
Central
Gold Coast: The Alleys of the Gold Coast by Leopold Froehlich
This excellent essay, by the senior editor of Lapham's Quarterly, has an epigraph quote:
"Chicago has plutocrats and paupers in the ratio of more than sixteen to one—boulevards for the exhibition of the rich and alleys for the convenience of the poor." —Eugene V. Debs
"This inversion of order—front for back, back for front—exemplifies Chicago's true hidden hierarchy: pragmatism trumps appearance, function prevails over form, praxis over theory. An alley in the Gold Coast, as elsewhere, represents the city as it really works, not as we wish it would work.
Everywhere in this Chicago is spoken the real lingua franca: bribery, kickback, payoff, quid pro quo, nod and wink, one hand washing the other. Inhabitants barely bother with the so-called real world, being for the most part unconcerned with the need to appear legitimate or honorable."
He goes on to how the brick layers inflated the cost of bricks.
"It is not as if any of this is secret or hidden. It is always apparent to anyone who cares to see. Schoolchildren know who drives the black Escalades. Immigrants three days removed from Sarajevo or Katowice or Querta know enough to see that in Chicago reality is not durable, and truth is contingent. There has always been little use in Chicago for the chimerical world of civitas or law, which fools only Episcopalian priests and dimwitted residents of the Gold Coast."
North Side
Ravenswood Gardens: Chicago River Life by Rob Miller
"Not so very long ago, you'd be branded a maniac or a fool for canoeing the river, the canal, the unremarkable ditch—whatever you thought of it, if you thought of it at all—that skulks through the North Side of Chicago."
"It would be a delusional romantic's errand to conjure adventure and Hiawatha-level serenity out of a river that one cannot read about without repeated references to "flushing," "run-off," "sewage," and "drainage." After a heavy storm, when the water turned from wan green to an end-of-shift dishwater gray, the septic tang and noisome, mucky high-water marks were stark reminders of the waterway's original purpose and the respect it was thus accorded."
This author took frequent solidary forays onto the river.
"And then there are the rats. Yeah, I know. But, seeing a functioning multilevel rat complex just above the waterline, like a busy condo rendered in mud, is much more fascinating than seeing a lone rat scurrying behind the dumpster with a scrap of Italian beef. I developed a grudging respect for the pestilential vermin in this environment."
"Now the river is a much different place. It's safer, cleaner, and feels less remote, which is good and bad. Where there once was isolation are now rowing teams and kayaking pods."
"But it is what we do in the wake (pun intended) of these developments that determines what the river becomes. An improvement in the water quality is objectively good, but will the river now be "better," or will it be the gateway to another form of intrusion? With all the increased access to the riverbank, will I ever see a fox den or a family of beavers again?..."
Far North Side
Albany Park: Edge Zone Chicago by Benjamin Van Loon
It opens with the paragraph,
"I once heard a man call Albany Park the United Nations. He meant it in a bad way, but he was from the suburbs, so as all Chicagoans know, his opinion couldn't be trusted."
"But the North Branch itself is an atavism from an earlier Chicago. In planning lingo, it's an Edge Zone; one of the few places where the city and nature still meet and blend, and where you're able to see, up close, how the river shaped—and continues to shape—Chicago."
Northwest Side
In this section a poem, Wicker Park: milwaukee avenue, by Kevin Coval gives tribute to the poet Nelson Algren who was not born in Chicago but grew up there:
"Algren, who wrote the city constant
love letters but it never wrote him back."
ends with this stanza:
"Algren is buried elsewhere, in new york
of course. he died in exile and never wanted
to come back to the city/neighborhood/country
Avenue that broke his heart and all its promises."
If you have any curiosity about Chicago this book will wet your appetite further. If you are interested in place and home and how this country works with immigrants there is much to absorb in this book.
February 18, 2020
I read about Chicago a lot. You name a book that has something to do with my city and I probably own it or have read it in the past. There are themes that are often being discussed by generations of writers and activists from Chicago . Politics, gentrification , social justice and racism are among them. Without any doubt, daily life in the city provides endless opportunities to explore these issues.
Unfortunately , it often feels like many writers fulfill some kind of obligation by writing about these subjects when they are asked to write about their city. As if they write about what they have heard or read , not what they lived through or truly care about. Some of the pieces featured in this collection felt exactly like that.
But , of course, there were plenty of well written, informative, fresh and sincere essays in the book too. I especially appreciated stories by those authors who wrote about some less famous Chicago neighborhoods and made me actually google street intersections , names of the bars and make notes to myself to visit those parts of Chicago when this damn winter is finally over.
Unfortunately , it often feels like many writers fulfill some kind of obligation by writing about these subjects when they are asked to write about their city. As if they write about what they have heard or read , not what they lived through or truly care about. Some of the pieces featured in this collection felt exactly like that.
But , of course, there were plenty of well written, informative, fresh and sincere essays in the book too. I especially appreciated stories by those authors who wrote about some less famous Chicago neighborhoods and made me actually google street intersections , names of the bars and make notes to myself to visit those parts of Chicago when this damn winter is finally over.
October 22, 2025
Thinking about pouring myself a glass of water with a little salt so I can pretend to drink the tears of the River West NIMBY who was sobbing about being nearly vaporized by those dastardly cyclists
September 13, 2019
Holding off on a review for a few weeks, but this was very good.
Read
April 23, 2020This is a collection of essays about Chicago neighborhoods; about 45 of the city's seventy-plus neighborhoods are covered. Unlike a typical guidebook, the essays are either by or about residents of the neighborhood being profiled.
Most of the essays are well written and interesting, though a few are boring. The essays discuss a wide variety of neighborhoods, though it seems to me that the Far Northwest Side's middle-middle class areas are underrepresented. (On the other hand, there are lots of essays on Far South/Southweste Side areas like Hegewisch and Mount Greenwood; because I've had little exposure to these areas, I appreciated those essays the most). Race tends to be discussed in quite a few essays. Some of the essays are from a leftish perspective, while others are apolitical. (Conservative writers tend not to live in Chicago, I guess).
Most of the essays are well written and interesting, though a few are boring. The essays discuss a wide variety of neighborhoods, though it seems to me that the Far Northwest Side's middle-middle class areas are underrepresented. (On the other hand, there are lots of essays on Far South/Southweste Side areas like Hegewisch and Mount Greenwood; because I've had little exposure to these areas, I appreciated those essays the most). Race tends to be discussed in quite a few essays. Some of the essays are from a leftish perspective, while others are apolitical. (Conservative writers tend not to live in Chicago, I guess).
July 3, 2021
I really enjoyed this book! It's a collection of different short essays, poems, and photographs from people who have lived in various neighborhoods throughout Chicago. As someone new to the city, I felt this was a great way to get to learn more about the history of the different neighborhoods and regions of the city, and how so much of the city has interesting stories to tell. Highly recommend for a newcomer to the city!
September 13, 2020
Take me to your story of how you see and live in each of your neighborhoods. The spirit of community, the spirit of belonging, the spirit of identifying with your home! The Spirit of Chicago! A wonderful read to let you taste Chicago by different authors’ interpretations! A wonderful city and a wonderful read! Go out and explore Chicago’s bountiful diversity!
July 11, 2021
I only got a third of the way through this (embarassing) but wanted to pop in and say it's a really ambitious project, doing a piece for every neighborhood, but I loved the different perspectives and wide array of everything from poems to interview transcripts to personal histories. I'm ashamed I'm reading it so slowly, but have to return to the library now. A lot to learn!
January 3, 2022
I was not expecting to love this as much as I did. It's an amazing collection of stories, poems, and photographs about Chicago, including the neighborhoods you probably never heard of. It teaches you a lot about Chicago's history and tells the stories of families impacted by gentrification. It also got me excited to explore more of the city.
April 27, 2025
Not so much a guidebook but rather essays about many, but not all, of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods from people who have lived or are living in these spots . I read them all out loud as we traveled through the neighborhoods and they gave a much more human side to each specific place. Props to Kevin Coval’s take on Wicker Park.
March 26, 2025
Tricked me into thinking it was a guidebook on all the neighborhoods. A collection of short stories from the people who live/lived in them was a pleasant surprise. It was not a bad read, and connecting with the areas mentioned was cool.
December 12, 2025
A different author for each chapter and neighborhood yields widely divergent results. Some chapters are complete bombs, while others are delights.
The south side neighborhoods I know the least about I found also to be the best reads. Dumb luck?
The south side neighborhoods I know the least about I found also to be the best reads. Dumb luck?
June 24, 2020
Unique approach, enjoyable essays. Would love to see similar travel guides for other cities.
Read
December 29, 2022completely not what i was expecting but still good and informative
April 17, 2023
a good book full of short stories and poems highlighting the different neighborhoods of Chicago
October 1, 2023
Lovely to read about my city from a variety of perspectives.
August 21, 2020
I finished this book last month, and I have been wanting to rave about it to my local friends ever since.
It has always boggled my mind how people can live in such a big city like Chicago, full of opportunities and experiences, and they never explore anything beyond their backyard. I once talked to a North-Side friend who told me he had never been anywhere south of the Loop, after YEARS of living here. That meant he had never been to Chinatown, Hyde Park, Bridgeport, Pilsen, Back of the Yards, Beverly, or a plethora of other historic and fascinating neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago.
This book is perfect for the short-attention-span folks; it is a collection of short stories, poems, and photograph compilations. Each piece can be read in a few minutes or less. People write about the city's natural beauties--parks and forests--but they don't pull any punches either, describing the challenges of living in Chicago's more troubled areas. There are stories about successful business owners and stories about the victims of gentrification.
This book does not highlight every neighborhood in Chicago, but it does shine a light on many overlooked 'hoods, including a few you've probably never heard of. And don't worry, there are many recognizable areas too, like Lakeview, Andersonville, Humboldt Park, Little Italy, and Gold Coast.
Even though I have been all over my home city (sometimes by accident), this book left me wanting to explore more.
It has always boggled my mind how people can live in such a big city like Chicago, full of opportunities and experiences, and they never explore anything beyond their backyard. I once talked to a North-Side friend who told me he had never been anywhere south of the Loop, after YEARS of living here. That meant he had never been to Chinatown, Hyde Park, Bridgeport, Pilsen, Back of the Yards, Beverly, or a plethora of other historic and fascinating neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago.
This book is perfect for the short-attention-span folks; it is a collection of short stories, poems, and photograph compilations. Each piece can be read in a few minutes or less. People write about the city's natural beauties--parks and forests--but they don't pull any punches either, describing the challenges of living in Chicago's more troubled areas. There are stories about successful business owners and stories about the victims of gentrification.
This book does not highlight every neighborhood in Chicago, but it does shine a light on many overlooked 'hoods, including a few you've probably never heard of. And don't worry, there are many recognizable areas too, like Lakeview, Andersonville, Humboldt Park, Little Italy, and Gold Coast.
Even though I have been all over my home city (sometimes by accident), this book left me wanting to explore more.
January 14, 2020
"these are my people & I find
then on the street & shadow
through any wild all wild
my people my people"
Excerpt from "If They Come for Us" by Fatimah Asghar
then on the street & shadow
through any wild all wild
my people my people"
Excerpt from "If They Come for Us" by Fatimah Asghar
November 24, 2019
I picked up this book at the recommendation of the Chicago Public Library HomePage and I’m so glad I noticed it! I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I’m glad This isn’t a typical touristy guidebook (tho I am sure that would have been fine). This book is more of a love letter to the city’s neighborhoods. Chicago prides itself on being a “city of neighborhoods” and you can tell the writers are passionate about the neighborhood they are writing about.
I kind of wish all 77 were covered, but I do appreciate that a lot of ones that tend to be overlooked are included.
I kind of wish all 77 were covered, but I do appreciate that a lot of ones that tend to be overlooked are included.
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November 14, 2019Read my Third Coast Review here: https://thirdcoastreview.com/2019/11/...
December 24, 2019
So many great stories of and about the neighborhoods. Some make you say, "I remember that" and some make you wish you had been there.
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