Chicago, perhaps more than any other city in the United States, is a “city of neighborhoods.” This month we continue our series investigating the sites and activities of Chicago by stepping into those neighborhoods, and specifically into some of the most ethnically rich in the city.

The Windy City is divided into a set of 77 “Community Areas,” which city and state officials use in determining census data and urban planning initiatives; some Areas constitute only one neighborhood, while others contain several smaller communities whose boundaries are rough and overlapping. Among the latter of these is the Near West Side, Community Area 28, which lies just southwest of the Magnificent Mile (site of the 2009 ICA Conference). The Near West Side consists of seven different neighborhoods, some of them ethnic enclaves, others marked by ethnic diversity. The neighborhoods include (among others) the West Loop, Greektown, Little Italy, and University Village.

West Loop
The West Loop neighborhood is also (and more accurately) called West Loop Gate - it's the western entry to the Loop, Chicago's downtown business district. For a century and a half, the area was an industrial zone, occupied for the most part by warehouses and factories. Since the 1980s, however, development has come to West Loop; its proximity to downtown has made it prime real estate, with warehouses converted to loft apartments and restaurants, art galleries, and retail arriving in the neighborhood.

Today West Loop is among the most bustling and trendy areas of the city, and home to an ethnically diverse, if fairly well-to-do, population. It is home to the United Center - the home arena of the Chicago Bulls basketball team and Blackhawks hockey team, as well as the site of performances by A-list musicians and other entertainers. Harpo Studios, the production company operated by Oprah Winfrey, is also located in West Loop. Thus the neighborhood has its share of tourist attractions, and easy access to them: It also includes Chicago Union Station, the city's primary railroad terminal.

Greektown
Chicago's Greek immigrant community dates to the 1840s, and settled in the district now known as Greektown. But their cultural identity didn't become prominent in the city until the '60s - when Greek restaurants in Chicago created the first gyro sandwiches in America.

Since then, Greektown has become a prominent and colorful locale in the Windy City. It is particularly known for its frequent parades and ethnic festivals, including the popular Taste of Greece culinary celebration. It's no surprise, then, that Greektown is also renowned for its food. The neighborhood is crammed with Greek restaurants of all sizes and specialties - cafes, lounges, pizzerias, fast food, family style, and bars. It also contains a number of Greek food markets and retailers, including jewelry, art, and knick-knacks.

Yet despite its rich suffusion in Greek culture, Greektown is no longer the city's only enclave of Greek Americans; its original families largely dispersed through the city and into the suburbs, leaving behind a neighborhood in which Greeks and non-Greeks of all varieties have converged. Still, Greektown's original businesses still survive and even thrive in the area, and the neighborhood's residents of all backgrounds celebrate its cultural heritage.

Little Italy
It's a small neighborhood, just 12 blocks around Taylor Street, but Little Italy is one of the strongest and most durable in Chicago. It is not the only Italian settlement in town, but it was and remains the community's heart.

Today, Little Italy maintains a firm connection to its historically Italian heritage, with a significant ethnic population remaining in the neighborhood. However, it is also substantially populated with students, faculty, and staff at the University of Illinois - Chicago, which is in nearby University Village. (According to some definitions, Little Italy is part of University Village.) Like Greektown, however, Little Italy's flavor is still defined by the Italian restaurants, shopping, and cultural landmarks such as the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame and Our Lady of Pompeii Church.

Little Italy is also the historical site of Hull House, the settlement house opened in 1889 by U.S. social activist Jane Addams. In the early 20th century, the nation's social reform movement had grown to a tremendous degree, with Hull House as its flagship project; Addams renamed the district the "Hull House neighborhood," because the institution primarily served the Italian and Eastern European immigrants who lived nearby. Under her tutelage, Hull House undertook many groundbreaking social reforms that spread throughout the United States: public playgrounds and bathhouses, child labor, women's suffrage, immigration and healthcare reform, and housing and workplace regulation. Much of the original facility has been demolished and replaced by university buildings, but the orignal Italianate house in which Addams started the institute has survived and is a museum operated by UIC.

University Village
Once known as the "Maxwell Street" neighborhood, after its chief corridor, University Village is in the middle of a radical transformation. First an enclave of Jewish refugees (in which the Chicago style hot dog originated), then an African American stronghold (in which the urban Chicago style of blues music originated), today it is rapidly gentrifying as it fills with the students and employees of the University of Illinois-Chicago. However, remnants of the Jewish and African American populations have stayed in University Village, and Mexican and hispanic immigrants have built a presence there too; in addition, Americans of Greek and Italian descent abide there since the neighborhood abuts Little Italy and Greektown. All of these various cultural and economic elements have an influence over the neighborhood's character, with culinary and retail outposts there.

Two of the most prominent landmarks in the old Maxwell Street neighborhood were markets. The Maxwell Street market, the place where the Chicago hot dog was first served, survives as a Mexican street market. The other, the old South Water Market, was a six-building, five-block long indoor market near the Chicago River and was the primary point of entry for fruits, vegetables, and other agricultural imports. It was redeveloped in 2003, however, and converted into an enormous loft condominium project known as University Commons. The Commons contain a whopping 824 apartments, but are housed inside of the 85-year-old terra cotta buildings that were originally built in the 1920s for the market.

A mosaic of cultural, economic, and social varieties, the Near West Side community area is very much a microcosm of the larger city of Chicago, with diverse and very different neighborhoods abutting and overlapping each other like patchwork. If attendees of the ICA conference are unable to explore the area, they will find many more with similar compositions all across Chicago.