It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region, and investigate, report, explore, from WBEZ.

Hi, I'm a reporter Adesina Emmanuel with City Bureau.

Albany Park resident Linda Dauch is a librarian at the Harold Washington Library and the topic on her mind,

segregation in Chicago. You see, she grew up in a mostly white suburb of Boston. She went to college

and grad school in mostly white cities. But then she moved to Chicago in 1993, and obviously,

it wasn't all white.

Lately, she's been thinking about where people of different races do and don't live.

Is Chicago more or less racially segregated now than it has been in the past?

It's a lot more diverse than any of the places I've ever lived. But at the same time, it seems pretty

segregated. Yeah, it is. Though, things have been changing since she arrived in the city in the 90s.

According to census data, the city is slightly less segregated than it was in the 1990s. But here's the thing.

Since its numbers show some neighborhoods in Chicago have more racial diversity than they used to,

but if you look at the neighborhoods they were mostly black in the 1990s, on the South and West sides, they still are.

The same with some of the predominantly white neighborhoods on the north side. So, again,

Chicago is only slightly less segregated, and many neighborhoods are about the same, but some

neighborhoods are more diverse. And those are the ones Linda's most curious about.

Where is integration happening in the city and how successful is it?

That's not a simple question.

There are different ways to look at integration.

I could give you a whole lot of data about specific neighborhoods across the city,

but sometimes data doesn't always tell the whole story.

So I'll give you and and Linda, two examples.

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