- The document examines evidence of urban development and demographic changes in Pilsen, a neighborhood in Chicago with a historically large Mexican population. It finds increases in median income, property values, and the Hispanic population in the southern part of Pilsen, but decreases in the Hispanic population north of Cermak Road, suggesting gentrification is occurring. The timeline provided shows Pilsen became a center for Mexican immigrants in Chicago from the 1950s-1980s and grassroots organizations fought for community rights, though poverty and neglect became issues.

1. Urban Development &
the Landscape of
the Lower West Side
By Miles Van Denburg and Lilah Wally
GEO 241

2. Research Questions
• Is there evidence of urban development in Pilsen?
• If there is evidence of the urban development of Pilsen, what is the
evidence of demographic change?
• Are these demographic changes affecting the public identity of the
neighborhood?

3. Gentrification & Chicago
• Gentrification: the transformation of a
working-class or vacant area of the central
city into a middle-class residential or
commercial use area
• Urbanization: a process marked by
increasing size, increasing density, and
increasing heterogeneity of immigrant
population clusters
• Gentrification and urbanization contribute
to increasing property values, displacement
of original inhabitants and a general loss of
culture

4. Gentrification & Chicago
• Gentrification waves in Lincoln Park, Logan Square and Wicker Park
• Beginning in the 1950s, funds flagged for urban renewal and
redevelopment began to flow into neighborhoods on the North Side
with traditionally immigrant populations such as Lincoln Park
• Following WWII with the incremental loss of industrial jobs, neighborhoods
began to lose the traditional populations and become subjected to blight,
poverty and crime.
• By the late 1970s, demographic changes became noticeable in Lincoln Park,
leading to the diaspora of the traditional populations and the incremental
spread of gentrification

5. Pilsen & Lower West Side
• Pilsen is well recognized within the city as a hub for the Mexican
community of Chicago. It holds the Mexican Museum of Art,
Plaza Tenochtitlan, and restaurants and food vendors of equally
various Mexican regions.
• Mobilization and organization of residents in Pilsen since the
1950s has resulted in a vibrant environment that has drawn
developers
• Developers attracted to its proximity to the Loop and the new
young college/post college residents
• Development in Pilsen has propagated a communal sense of fear
and loathing, directed towards those who are seen to be
stripping the community of their heritage and house

6. Pilsen & Lower West Side
TIMELINE FOR DEVELOPMENT
•1950s:
• Beginnings of mass movement into the neighborhood of Pilsen following a forced
removal from the Near West Side due to the construction of the University of
Illinois at Chicago. Initial Mexican population of .5% reached 14% by the year 1960.
By 1970, Pilsen had become 55% Mexican population, of whom 22% had been
foreign born.

7. •1950-1960:
• Population of Pilsen became locus of political organization and
mobilization, devoted to the interest of the community in activism
and the collective wellbeing of its residents.
• Grass roots organizations formed, embracing a popular D.I.Y
attitude, fighting on behalf of the community for basic rights and
access to “better public services, education, and housing.” (Genova
and Rayas).
• Sentiment of Mexican Identity in neighborhood “a sentiment,
which would for the foreseeable future become insistently more
‘ethnic’ rather than less” (Genova and Rayas, 39).
• New immigrants found roots to their homes, with over 368,981
Mexicans being located in Chicago (Caruso and Camacho).

8. • Late 1970s-1980s:
• Populations affected by poverty and neglect, resulted in high drop
out rates, crime, and illness due to factors such as industrial
workplace relocation
• “Pilsen was the only Chicago neighborhood where Latinos
constituted an absolute majority. Not only the largest, it was
also the poorest neighborhood in the city and ranked in the
bottom fifth among the city’s impoverished areas.” (Genova
and Zayas, 39)

9. Data Acquisition & Methodology
• Data Acquisition
• Chicago Data Portal
• Census Bureau: Tiger/Line Shapefiles: Block Group
• American Fact Finder
• Methodology
• Join attribute tables
• Clip block group data to boundary of Chicago
• Select individual variables for display

13. Findings
• Noticeable increase in median income per household within the
neighborhood
• Substantial increase in property values per household
• Increase in Hispanic population in southern quadrant, but a decrease
in Hispanic population above West Cermak Road

14. Limitations
• The Illinois Geodatabase had a number of null values for areas in
Cook County that previously held numeric value
• Areas are listed as Void Areas on our maps
• Even with this data, we cannot prove causation only correlation.
• Regression analysis would be required to determine greater correlations
between property development, changing education levels, etc.
• Gentrification itself is a broad and ambiguous term

15. References
• Casuso, Jorge, and Eduardo Camacho. Hispanics in Chicago. Chicago,
IL: Reporter and the Center for Community Research and Assistance
of the Community Renewal Society, 1985. Print.
• Genova, Nicholas De, and Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas. Latino Crossings:
Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and the Politics of Race and Citizenship.
New York: Routledge, 2003. Print.
• Lees, Loretta, Tom Slater, and Elvin K. Wyly. The Gentrification Reader.
London: Routledge, 2010. Print.