Where do I live?

[MannheimMadman]

Originally Posted by Drover

And the Irving/Albany Park turf war rages on. 2 killed, 2 wounded in 2 separate shootings in the last 2 days: 3100 block of W. Montrose and 4000 block of N Bernard.

Chi-town Native, since you asked about them before, area residents have said the Royals are involved in a number of these incidents.

Man, this is getting crazy. The two winters I lived in Albany Park were, for the most part, quiet. Usually the crazies and gang-bangers don't really emerge in full until May.

It's the late onset of snow, I tell you!

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by MannheimMadman

Man, this is getting crazy. The two winters I lived in Albany Park were, for the most part, quiet. Usually the crazies and gang-bangers don't really emerge in full until May.

It's the late onset of snow, I tell you!

Could also be something as simple as a feud over a girl. These aren't the most forward of deep thinkers on the planet.

[paytonc]

You could easily say "East Wicker Park" and almost everyone would understand. It's more important to be understood than to be completely correct according to assorted pedants on the internet (not pointing any fingers).

Originally Posted by RingWalk

Whoops. Wrong about U of C. Not sure where I picked that little bit of misinformation up.

The original community area map from the 1920s was done by sociology graduate students. The map is a useful reference because those boundaries were fixed then and have remained the same. Note that you are correct in the general methodology; the community area names are artifacts of the oral history of that time, not handed down from the heavens on stone tablets. Indeed, some of the more generic names in the central city are as such because the largely immigrant, non-Anglophone population gave too many conflicting answers for a consensus to emerge.

That said, the community area map is not the definitive map of neighborhood names. Usage of names, like the rest of language, shifts over time, as do social boundaries -- sometimes because new boundaries arise. The community area map largely divides along railroads and the river, since those were the big barriers in the 1920s. Then, a generation later:

Originally Posted by Chi-town Native

Avondale definitely got an identity crisis after the highway cut it on the long diagonal.

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by paytonc

The original community area map from the 1920s was done by sociology graduate students. The map is a useful reference because those boundaries were fixed then and have remained the same. Note that you are correct in the general methodology; the community area names are artifacts of the oral history of that time, not handed down from the heavens on stone tablets. Indeed, some of the more generic names in the central city are as such because the largely immigrant, non-Anglophone population gave too many conflicting answers for a consensus to emerge.

I would love to see a book which had a chapter dedicated to each community area and how UC devised the boundaries and decided on the name. I wonder if this material exists at UC anywhere...

[Drover]

Originally Posted by paytonc

The original community area map from the 1920s was done by sociology graduate students. The map is a useful reference because those boundaries were fixed then and have remained the same. Note that you are correct in the general methodology; the community area names are artifacts of the oral history of that time, not handed down from the heavens on stone tablets. Indeed, some of the more generic names in the central city are as such because the largely immigrant, non-Anglophone population gave too many conflicting answers for a consensus to emerge.

I will note there has been at least one change from the original community map, namely Edgewater separating from Uptown. That's why you have this odd Community Area #77 amongst all the low-numbered community areas on the north shore. Also, annexation continued beyond the 1920s so I would imagine the map had to change to accommodate the new borders.

Many of the community areas have the names they have because that's what they were called when they were their own municipalities before they got annexed by the city.