Overview
Defined as the area between the Chicago River and the streets Montrose, Ravenswood, and Diversey, the North Center community area’s 2020 population is 35,114. This is quite large for one neighborhood, which is reflected in the fact that the community area can be broken down into several smaller and more distinct neighborhoods. What I define as the core Northcenter neighborhood has a population of closer to 19,000 (a rough estimate using census tracts). This is still large, equivalent to a well-attended hockey game in the NHL, but still a cohesive neighborhood which will be discussed below.
Geographically, the North Center community area is 2.07 square miles, while the core Northcenter neighborhood makes up about 1.1 square miles.
North Center certainly has a distinct identity as a neighborhood. Banners, flower pots, boundary posts, and more display the neighborhood name and can be seen all around the area. The local identity goes against the semi-official community area’s spelling and doesn’t include a space between North and Center. As a lifelong local of the area myself, I feel as though the community area designation of North Center is relatively well-delineated, especially considering other community areas in Chicago, but it’s still not entirely perfect. One minor shortcoming is a very small northeast section near Ravenswood Avenue and the Metra tracks, which is sometimes considered part of the Ravenswood neighborhood. A more pertinent culprit is the southern third of the community area, south of Belmont Avenue and centered around Hamlin Park, which is also less connected to the core Northcenter neighborhood and often thought of more as West Lakeview. This can be seen in the naming of some businesses in the area, like the New Life Community Church Lakeview. Conversely, Northcenter’s boundaries at the scale of locals also transcend the community area designation - for example, the Northcenter banners can be seen along Irving Park Road west of the Chicago River next to Horner Park. This is the largest green space near the neighborhood and while not officially part of the community area, is seen by locals like myself as an extension of the neighborhood. The Northcenter Chamber of Commerce is a prominent local institution for the neighborhood, and their area of influence stretches west to include Horner Park and California Park, but also includes some areas east of Ravenswood. Calling anything east of Ravenswood here anything but Lakeview feels wrong to me, especially seeing as Lakeview High School is there, but it is worth noting this area’s inclusion by the Chamber of Commerce.
The north half of the community area, bounded by the river, Addison, Ravenswood, and Montrose, is what I would consider to be the “core” Northcenter neighborhood. This section contains Northcenter’s most distinct intersection of Irving Park, Lincoln, and Damen. A block north of said intersection, a short section of Belle Plaine Avenue between Lincoln and Damen was fairly recently closed to vehicle traffic and converted into a pedestrian plaza called the Northcenter Town Square, complete with play areas, seating, and murals. The intersection and town center work in tandem as the focal points of the neighborhood. The identity of this area is also closely tied to St. Benedict Catholic Church, an iconic landmark on Irving Park Road. It operates a popular private school and many nearby residents might think of their neighborhood as being called St. Ben’s. Although my house is a block away from the church, I wouldn’t refer to my neighborhood as being called that, but some people around here definitely do.
The middle section, bounded by the streets Addison, Belmont, and Ravenswood and by the Chicago River to the west, has a very distinct identity called Roscoe Village. It has its own banners flying from lampposts, community flier posts along Roscoe Street, and a welcome sign painted on the Metra bridge at Roscoe and Ravenswood which advertises it as “The Village Within The City”. The focal point of this sub-community is the Roscoe Street corridor, full of shops, restaurants, and other local businesses. The area of Roscoe Village west of Western Avenue contains some relatively new shopping centers as well as Lane Tech High School, the largest in Chicago and where I went for high school. Roscoe Village is typically thought of as its own neighborhood separate from North Center, but I personally see it as an extension of the larger area. In this way, the “greater” North Center neighborhood as I define it would be everything in the community area north of Belmont, including Horner Park, and this leaves the southern third of the community area definition as having its own “West Lakeview” identity.
Beyond the community area and local neighborhood conceptions, there are many other conflicting and overlapping boundaries that slice North Center up in different ways. All of the “core” Northcenter neighborhood is located within the 47th Aldermanic Ward. The 47th Ward is larger than just this neighborhood though, and reaches into Roscoe Village and parts of the Uptown/Edgewater areas, for example. The core of Roscoe Village as well as most of West Lakeview (the two other areas making up the North Center community area) are in the 32nd Ward. However, two small slices of this area are in the 33rd and 1st Wards. If anything, this goes to demonstrate the absurdity of Chicago’s gerrymandered ward system.
Northcenter’s origins go back to the 1860s and 1870s, at which time the “Ravenswood Land Company” was selling lots for $200 to $2,500 each. Interestingly, this land subdivision took place exactly within the boundaries of the modern-day community area - between Montrose, Diversey, Ravenswood, and the Chicago River. Much of the neighborhood remained undeveloped, and the land being partitioned was used for agriculture originally. As for the neighborhood’s name? It came about exactly like you’d expect. Local resident Henry Moberg chose the name because of its location at roughly the center of Chicago’s North Side. The name was officially adopted by local organizations in 1921.
The neighborhood really began to emerge in the 1880s as the result of industrial processes, at least in the beginning. Along the Chicago River, many clay quarries were opened to support brick production, driven by the rise in demand for brick in Chicago in the rebuilding period following the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. The area quickly earned the nickname of Bricktown, and other industrial sites were set up in the area too. As waves of European immigrants arrived to live closer to their factory workplaces, largely coming from Germany and other central/southern European nations, they brought the neighborhood a stronger residential feel and this encouraged the eventual development of the Ravenswood “L” line (now the Brown Line). This also led to Ravenswood Avenue becoming a light industrial corridor, a permanent mark on the area visible today with its spacious warehouses and brick construction.
Residents gradually became frustrated with pollution from the quarries and other industries along the river, and as a result of complaints, these factories soon ceased their North Center operations and moved farther north. Because of the industrial contamination and use of the former sites as dumping grounds, no housing developers wanted to build on the land, leaving the area open for larger public properties such as the shopping centers, Lane Tech High School, and Clark Park that exist today. One iconic piece of North Center history is the Riverview Amusement Park that operated on this open land near Belmont and Western for several decades until 1967. It was then redeveloped into the shopping centers and other buildings in its place today.
North Center’s more recent history is characterized by quickly changing demographics - in the latter half of the 20th Century, experiencing significant white flight like many other parts of Chicago, the neighborhood became increasingly Hispanic and Asian in its makeup. By the 21st Century though, gentrification began to take hold and spill over from nearby areas like Lakeview, resulting in the North Center of today which is home to many young families and an increasingly urban professional atmosphere. This is especially true of areas farther south in North Center, like Roscoe Village which has only recently developed such a strong identity. The North Center community area is mostly White today but still has a significant presence of Hispanic residents.
https://www.northcenterchamber.com/history
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/899.html
https://www.cmap.illinois.gov/documents/10180/126764/North+Center.pdf
https://www.socialexplorer.com
Social Mix
Considering the Simpson Diversity Indices calculated above, North Center is overall not a very diverse neighborhood. By racial makeup, the area is about three-fourths White. In comparison to the North Region of Chicago, it falls a little bit behind in racial diversity due to areas such as West Ridge and Rogers Park containing a much greater range of diversity compared to other North region areas like Lincoln Park and, of course, North Center. A similar pattern can be observed in educational attainment - North Center has a highly educated population, with almost all 25+ year olds at least having their high school diploma, and a vast majority having completed a bachelor’s or professional degree. This again places it a bit behind the similarly-well educated overall North Region, which scores a bit higher on the index again due to neighborhoods like Rogers Park with greater diversity across these categories.
Interestingly, North Center is very diverse in age cohorts, and has the highest index compared to the North Region, all of Chicago, and Cook County. When looking at the percentages of each age cohort, we see that North Center has a good mix of children and various ages of adults, reflective of its significant population of families. The North Region of Chicago’s age diversity seems to be dragged down by young professional-dominated neighborhoods like Lakeview, which have very large populations of 20 and 30 somethings compared to other age cohorts.