Author: Zetian Yu

Program of Study: Quantum Engineering track, Molecular Engineering, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering

-South Aisan shops and restaurants settled in traditionally Jewish community

Description

This podcast focuses on ethnic migration in Chicago’s neighborhoods, trying to dicover the underlying factors of the racial population flow while at the same time explore its relationship between urban development.

Listen Here:

Transcript: (provided by the author)

Welcome to the ELI’s Finding Chicago Global Perspectives Podcast Series for AEPP 2025. I’m your host, Zetian Yu, and I’m currently enrolled in the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.

When I first arrived in Chicago, it was a bitterly cold morning in the late August, I was guided to a luxurious resident building in the South Shore community to pick up keys for my apartment. However, when I got there, I found no signal of key picking-up. As I walked around the building, I started to notice that most residents coming in and out the building are African American. I was so confused that why I was directed to pick up my keys in a neighborhood where the ethnical structure had great difference from Hyde Park, which was basically the only community I knew as I just arrived then. This experience left me feeling confused and out of place as a newcomer. But after walking along the beach, I was delighted by the gorgeous South Shore lakefront.

Later, after I finally figured out that I was misguided and got my keys just from the front desk of my apartment, I googled about the community and its historical development. I figured out that the South Shore is currently a community constituted mainly by black people, occupying an approximately 96% population of the community, and its trending ethnics include African America and immigrants from Africa. But when I tried to trace back in time, it turned out that in the 1950s, the situation was surprisingly in reverse. At that time, it was a 94% white place, exclusively for middle-class families to live inside. This made me to become curious: where are the people leaving for? Where are the people moving in from? And what forces pushed the change?

More recently, for AEPP’s neighborhood visiting project, our group went to West Ridge in the far north of Chicago city, which is a Jewish neighborhood and just seemed like ordinary communities in architecture and residential buildings. But as we walked along the main street, only a few blocks away, the atmosphere completely changed. Shops became busier, the streets more crowded, and we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by Pakistani and Indian businesses and people. I was fascinated by this sharp contrast. After all, Israel and South Asia are not close to each other on the world map, and their cultures seem quite different. So why do these ethnic communities live side by side in the same neighborhood? And how did this special pattern of settlement come to how it is today?

For me, this ethnic distribution showed one of the most fascinating ways to observe Chicago’s neighborhoods: they are like a living canvas, slowly colored and re-colored by waves of migration. By looking at the city through both a temporal and a spatial lens, we can begin to consider about how history, movement, and culture shape the identity of this city.

When I think about the changes I observed in Chicago’s neighborhoods, I realize they are not random. They are part of a bigger pattern that has shaped not only Chicago, but many cities across the United States. One key factor is probably something called “white flight.” This term refers to the fact that during some period, when many white families moved out of city neighborhoods into the suburbs. I would presume that this phenomenon happened because people were seeking bigger houses or quieter streets, or partially being the consequence of gentrification in certain areas. With the implementation of some local “racial integration” policies, African Americans started to migrate into some traditionally-white-occupied communities, which I assume might have escalated the conflict instead of mitigating it.

However, after further consideration, I would prefer to treat the term “white flight” more carefully. The term itself sounds like when minor migrants came, white people just fled away from the neighborhood. From one perspective, I checked the process more closely, and there definitely had been some white families who tried to stay in the area, attempting to fight against the massive migration and “protect” their properties through legal methods or sometimes even violence. Another perspective I had was to further consider the inflow: when we are attributing the driving force of the undeniable black-substituting-white trend, are there any factors that forced black migrants to leave their original neighborhoods? Racial discrimination and economic recession in certain areas might be a reasonable overall explanation, while I believe factors including change in social institute, increased population in some ethnic neighborhoods and deterioration of environment due to that surge in population also contributed to “white flight”.

Last but not least, the discriminative policies and business practices in certain historic periods might also underly the ethnic migrations and thus shaping the city into how it is today. I think in the periods when redlining was in practice, families from specified ethnic groups were limited in financial activities, making it much harder for them to get loans and mortgages. At the same time, discriminatory housing covenants legally prevented Black families from buying homes in certain areas. These policies created a cycle: white families had access to resources and suburban growth, while minority families were restricted to certain urban neighborhoods, with limited chances to build wealth through property, or at least left far behind. I think this kind of pattern can be fitted quite reasonably with the trajectories of many ethnic groups in Chicago.

By looking at the history of racial migration, I also tried to draw direct connections to Chicago’s urban development. For example, the gentrification of some suburban areas can be understood as a long-term outcome of white flight from certain neighborhoods. In other cases, periods of economic recession limited the survival opportunities for African America families in their original communities, pushing them to relocate into new neighborhoods. Seen from this perspective, migration is not just a demographic shift—it is also a map of how economic forces, social structures, and urban landscapes evolved over time. This lens offers us a unique trajectory for studying city growth and economic change, and it shows us that the story of Chicago’s neighborhoods is also the story of America’s development.

Thank you for listening to my podcast. When I first arrived in Chicago, I was struck by how different neighborhoods could feel within just a few blocks. As I learned more, I realized that these differences are not accidents, but the result of migration, policy, and history all layered together. Looking at Chicago through this lens helped me see the city not only as a collection of communities, but also as a living record of social and economic change. I hope this podcast encourages you to notice the stories behind the neighborhoods you walk through every day, and to think about how history continues to shape the spaces we live in.