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

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From WBEZ.

This is Stephen Jackson.

In 2015, Elizabeth Brigham and her family were looking for a house in the Chicago area.

They wanted to live in a suburb, with good schools, an active community, and it had to be diverse.

So they scouted in a place known for diversity, the suburb of Oak Park, just west of Chicago.

And as we were driving around, I didn't pay too much attention to it, but noticed that it was a bit

curious or interesting that there weren't any real estate signs to it, but noticed that it was a bit curious or interesting

that there weren't any real estate signs in front of the homes that we were looking at.

No for sale, for rent, or sold signs.

They just weren't there.

And Brigham thought that was weird.

And it is pretty weird.

You'd think real estate agents and homeowners would want to advertise in every

way possible. So what's the deal? Well, there's a story behind this question. It's a story

that tells us a lot about Oak Park and how it became the diverse community that Brigham was

attracted to in the first place. Let's begin in the 60s and 70s. African Americans had been leaving their segregated Chicago neighborhoods and moving to other parts of the city.

It was an era of rampant blockbusting.

If you don't know this nasty little gerund, blockbusting just means that real estate agents scared white people into selling their homes. They'd knock on doors

and suggest that African Americans were moving in and property values would plummet. They'd hire

black actors to walk down the street or push baby strollers on the sidewalk. And they'd post

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