While some might argue that Chicago's 77 neighborhoods reflect a victory of segregation over integration, there is no doubt that this world tour is one of the great attractions of the city. Not only that, but every neighborhood has a festival. Any weekend in the summer there will be at least one taking place.
Chicago is a great walking city, but you will need a car and a few days if you are going to undertake this trip round the neighborhoods. Enjoy the food and take home a souvenir of any one of a hundred nationalities.
Starting with the city's northern border along California and Devon you will find the synagogues, Kosher butchers and bakeries of the old Jewish population. A recent influx of Asians in this area can be seen in the growing number of Indian restaurants and foreign-language video stores.
A few blocks south on California is Lincoln Square, the center of the German community. Travel east on Lawrence just past Western and you'll find New Greektown.
Still further east is Albany Park, a former Jewish area, now filled with Korean-run import shops, restaurants and churches. Just east of here is Andersonville, home of Chicago's Swedish-American community.
Carrying on east along Lake Shore Drive is Lincoln Park, probably the most enjoyable neighborhood to visit. The Chicago of the 1880s has been preserved and moved upscale. Eclectic shops, restaurants, jazz joints, blues bars and dance clubs thrive here. It is also home to the Lincoln Park Zoo, the Chicago Historical Society, the Chicago Academy of Sciences, Louis Sullivan-designed row houses on Lincoln Park West and many of Chicago's best sculptures.
South along Wells Street through Old Town is River North, current nightlife center of the city. Galleries dot River North and the Streeterville area just to the east. Many are ideal places to pick up a bargain work of art by an emerging artist.
On Chicago Avenue west of the Kennedy Expressway is the Ukrainian Village and the original center of the Polish community. A few blocks south on Halsted, between Jackson and Van Buren, is the traditional Greektown with its boisterous restaurants. Further south, at Taylor, is an old Italian neighborhood now populated by university students and staff. The Italians may have left, but their restaurants remain.
Take Halsted further south to the Pilsen neighborhood, home to a burgeoning Hispanic community, with more outdoor murals than anywhere else in the city and plenty of Mexican restaurants.
Take 22nd Street further east to Wentworth and into Chinatown, four blocks of the Orient. From there take the Stevenson Expressway east to Lake Shore Drive to 55th Street and Hyde Park, home to the University of Chicago and the intellectual center of the city with its bookstores, theatres, concert halls and museums.
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