South Side, Chicago
The South Side is one of the three major geographical "sides" of the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Geographically, it is the largest of the three sides of the city, with the other two being the North and West Sides. It radiates from and lies south of the city's downtown area, the Chicago Loop.
Much of the South Side came from the city's annexation of townships such as Hyde Park. The city's Sides have historically been divided by the Chicago River and its branches. The South Side of Chicago was originally defined as all of the city south of the main branch of the Chicago River, but it now excludes the Loop. The South Side has a varied ethnic composition and a great variety of income levels and other demographic measures. It has a reputation for crime, although most crime is contained within certain neighborhoods, not throughout the South Side itself, and residents range from affluent to middle class to poor.
South Side neighborhoods such as Armour Square, Back of the Yards, Bridgeport, and Pullman host more blue collar and middle-class residents, while Hyde Park, the Jackson Park Highlands District, Kenwood, Beverly, Mount Greenwood, and west Morgan Park range from middle class to more affluent residents.
The South Side features professional sports teams, landmark buildings, museums, educational institutions, medical institutions, beaches, and major parts of Chicago's parks system. The South Side has numerous bus routes and 'L' train lines via the Chicago Transit Authority, it hosts Midway International Airport, and includes several Metra rail commuter lines. There are portions of the U.S. Interstate Highway System and also national highways such as Lake Shore Drive.
Boundaries
There is some debate as to the South Side's boundaries. Originally the sides were taken from the banks of the Chicago River. The city's address numbering system uses a grid demarcating Madison Street as the east–west axis and State Street as the north–south axis. Madison is in the middle of the Loop. As a result, much of the downtown "Loop" district is south of Madison Street, and the river, but the Loop is usually excluded from any of the Sides.One definition has the South Side beginning at Roosevelt Road, at the Loop's southern boundary, with the community area known as the Near South Side immediately adjacent. Another definition, taking into account that much of the Near South Side is in effect part of the commercial district extending in an unbroken line from the South Loop, locates the boundary immediately south of 18th Street or Cermak Road, where Chinatown in the Armour Square community area begins.
Lake Michigan and the Indiana state line provide eastern boundaries. The southern border changed over time because of Chicago's evolving city limits. The city limits are now at 138th Street, in Riverdale and Hegewisch. The South Side is larger in area than the North and West Sides combined.
Neighborhoods
Out of 77 community areas in the city, the South Side of Chicago comprises a total of 42 neighborhoods, with some divided into different regions of the area or consolidated into Chicago as part of the annexation of various townships within Cook County.South Side
Southwest Side
Far Southwest Side
Far Southeast Side
Subdivisions
The exact boundaries dividing the Southwest, South, and Southeast Sides vary by source. If primarily racial lines are followed, the South Side can generally be divided into a White and Hispanic Southwest Side, a largely Black South Side and a smaller, more racially diverse Southeast Side centered on the East Side community area and including the adjacent community areas of South Chicago, South Deering and Hegewisch.The differing interpretations of the boundary between the South and Southwest Sides are due to a lack of a definite natural or artificial boundary. One source states that the boundary is Western Avenue or the railroad tracks adjacent to Western Avenue. This border extends further south to a former railroad right of way paralleling Beverly Avenue and then Interstate 57.
The Southwest Side of Chicago is a subsection of the South Side comprising mainly white, black, and Hispanic neighborhoods, usually dominated by one of these races. On the Southwest Side exclusively, the northern portion has a high concentration of Hispanics, the western portion has a high concentration of whites, and the eastern portion has a high concentration of blacks. Architecturally, the Southwest Side is distinguished by the tract of Chicago's Bungalow Belt, which runs through it.
Archer Heights, a Polish enclave along Archer Avenue, which leads toward Midway Airport, is located on the Southwest Side of the city, as are Beverly and Morgan Park, home to a large concentration of Irish Americans.
History
With its factories, steel mills and meat-packing plants, the South Side saw a sustained period of immigration which began around the 1840s and continued through World War II. Irish, Italian, Polish, Lithuanian and Yugoslav immigrants, in particular, settled in neighborhoods adjacent to industrial zones.The Illinois Constitution gave rise to townships that provided municipal services in 1850. Several settlements surrounding Chicago incorporated as townships to better serve their residents. Growth and prosperity overburdened many local government systems. In 1889, most of these townships determined that they would be better off as part of a larger city of Chicago. Lake View, Jefferson, Lake, Hyde Park Townships and the Austin portion of Cicero voted to be annexed by the city in the June 29, 1889, elections.
After the Civil War freed millions of slaves, during Reconstruction black southerners migrated to Chicago and caused the black population to nearly quadruple from 4,000 to 15,000 between 1870 and 1890.
In the 20th century, the numbers expanded with the Great Migration, as blacks left the agrarian South seeking a better future in the industrial North, including the South Side. By 1910, the black population in Chicago reached 40,000, with 78% residing in the Black Belt. Extending 30 blocks, mostly between 31st and 55th Streets, along State Street, but only a few blocks wide, it developed into a vibrant community dominated by black businesses, music, food and culture.
As more blacks moved into the South Side, descendants of earlier immigrants, such as ethnic Irish, began to move out. Later housing pressures and civic unrest caused more whites to leave the area and the city. Older residents of means moved to newer suburban housing as new migrants entered the city, driving further demographic changes.
The South Side was racially segregated for many decades. During the 1920s and 1930s, housing cases on the South Side such as Hansberry v. Lee,, went to the U. S. Supreme Court. The case, which reset the limitations of res judicata, successfully challenged racial restrictions in the Washington Park Subdivision by reopening them for legal argument. Blacks resided in Bronzeville in an area called "the Black Belt". After World War II, blacks spread across the South Side; its center, east, and western portions. The Black Belt arose from discriminatory real estate practices by whites against blacks and other racial groups.
In the early 1960s, during the tenure of then Mayor Richard J. Daley, the construction of the Dan Ryan Expressway created controversy. Many perceived the highway's location as an intentional physical barrier between white and black neighborhoods, particularly as the Dan Ryan divided Daley's own neighborhood, the traditionally Irish Bridgeport, from Bronzeville.
The economic conditions that led to migration into the South Side were not sustained. Mid-century industrial restructuring in meat packing and the steel industry cost many jobs. Blacks who became educated and achieved middle-class jobs also left after the Civil Rights Movement to other parts of the city.
Street gangs have been prominent in some South Side neighborhoods for over a century, beginning with those of Irish immigrants, who established the first territories in a struggle against other European and black migrants. Some other neighborhoods stayed relatively safe for a big city. By the 1960s, gangs such as the Vice Lords began to improve their public image, shifting from criminal ventures to operating social programs funded by government and private grants. However, in the 1970s gangs returned to violence and the drug trade. By 2000, traditionally all-male gangs crossed gender lines to include about 20% females.
Housing
By the 1930s, the city of Chicago boasted that over 25% of its residential structures were less than 10 years old, many of which were bungalows. These continued to be built in the working-class South Side into the 1960s. Studio apartments, with Murphy beds and kitchenettes or Pullman kitchens, comprised a large part of the housing supply during and after the Great Depression, especially in the "Black Belt". The South Side had a history of philanthropic subsidized housing dating back to 1919.The United States Congress passed the Housing Act of 1949 to fund and improve public housing. CHA produced a plan of citywide projects, which was rejected by the Chicago City Council's white aldermen who opposed public housing in their wards. This led to a CHA policy of construction of family housing only in black residential areas, concentrated on the South and West Sides. Historian Arnold R. Hirsch said the CHA was "a bulwark of segregation that helped sustain Chicago's 'second ghetto'".
Gentrification
Gentrification of parts of the Douglas community area has bolstered the Black Metropolis-Bronzeville District. Gentrification in various parts of the South Side has displaced many black citizens. The South Side offers numerous housing cooperatives. Hyde Park has several middle-income co-ops and other South Side regions have limited equity co-ops. These regions experienced condominium construction and conversion in the 1970s and 1980s.In the late 20th century, the South Side had some of the poorest housing conditions in the U.S., but the Chicago Housing Authority began replacing the old high-rise public housing with mixed-income, lower-density developments, part of the city's Plan for Transformation. Many of the CHA's massive public housing projects, which lined several miles of South State Street, have been demolished. Among the largest were the Robert Taylor Homes.