Despite being born and raised in Wrigleyville, home of the Chicago Cubs, my perspective of the urban environment has not been limited to the confines of Chicago. I have spent most of my childhood in the Chicago public school system, littered with controversy, union strikes, budget cuts, etc. This all changed when I made the jump to private education at Loyola Academy, located in the north side suburb of Wilmette. The stark contrast between walks of life in the north side of Chicago and the north side suburbs expanded my perspective on how urban environments operate.
Chicago is a busy mid-west city located right off of Lake Michigan. However, the city boundaries are more expansive and divided than the downtown area. The city can be split into three distinct sections: west, north, and south. The city sections can also be classified by their wealth due to the long history of redlining pushing minorities towards the south and west side of the city and wealth and opportunities to the business districts of the north side. This diversity of wealth and culture can be sectioned off, but the culture lines can be blurred throughout the city. The mixing pot of different cultures has allowed me and many others like myself to experience and embrace differences.
On the other hand, Loyola Academy has stripped away the diversity that I have become accustomed to in the schooling system. The northside suburbs are littered with wealthy white families that escaped the city for the quiet cold snacks of suburban life. The lack of diversity displayed in these neighborhoods illustrates the wealth disparity amongst different races and different city sections. Loyola Academy was predominantly white, with a vast array of students lacking the multitude of perspectives gained through living in a diverse city. The lack of perspective creates a lack of empathy or desire to change the unfortunate outcomes minorities face due to the crude history of exploitation by the rich.
The diversity I was afforded as a child was thanks to the mixing pot that cities can create due to the migration of all walks of life in hopes of finding a better life in the city. However, this mixing pot can not exist due to the sharp difference in living conditions amongst different races. The South side's opportunities and funding need to increase to push those communities out of poverty and into posterity. The crime on the west side needs to be managed not through policing but through education of the youth about what the world holds for them outside of their community. Diversity is an essential tool to gain perspective, but diversity can not exist for the sole purpose of exploiting minority groups for capital gains. Implementing policies through a lens of equality over a lens of exploitation is the future of creating a fairer and safer Chicago.
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