The Huffington Post Chicago | Christopher Devine
September 23, 2008
Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood is garnished with lavish nineteenth-century houses–a medley of ornate wood cornices, bay windows, and rough-hewn stone facades. In the summer, the trees form a lush canopy over the streets, protecting the manicured gardens from the hot sun. And if you stand beneath this canopy, on a quiet residential street, surrounded by sunflowers and marigolds, it is easy to forget that you’re in the middle of the third largest city in the country.
With a population of nearly 2.9 million, Chicago has more than 200 neighborhoods. Collectively, these neighborhoods constitute one of America’s most diverse metropolises. Individually, however, they are remarkably homogeneous–each distinguished by race, class, or ethnicity–and the divisions between them are rarely ambiguous. (The term “redlining“ was actually coined in Chicago.) Despite a series of ongoing efforts to combat segregation–all part of the Chicago Housing Authority’s multi-billion-dollar Plan for Transformation–Chicago’s lower classes remain at the mercy of these thick red lines, effectively barred from large swaths of the city.
The homeless are a unique exception to these constraints. Not bound by property taxes or rent hikes, a surprising number of homeless people flock to the more affluent areas of the city in search of better shelters, lucrative panhandling markets, and overall safety. So on the busy streets that frame Lincoln Park’s expressions of grandeur, you will find some of America’s poorest citizens. Panhandlers stand outside Walgreens, junk-filled shopping carts parade through the alleys, and it’s not that uncommon to see someone sprawled out across the sidewalk, clutching a half pint of vodka with his bare ass hanging out of his pants.
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