Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook

Contributors from all corners of the city share space, each individual neighborhood weaving together into an evocative tapestry.

The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook offers an intimate, idiosyncratic look at the third-largest city in the country, exploring community history and identity in a global city through essays, poems, photo essays, and art articulating the lived experience of its residents.

What did one pizzeria mean to a boy growing up in Ashburn? How can South Shore encompass so much beauty and so much pain? Where's the best borscht in Ukrainian Village? Who's got a handle on the ever-shifting identity of Rogers Park? All this and more is explored in this lyrical, subjective, completely non-comprehensive guide to Chicago.

With contributions from more than forty writers, including Megan Stielstra, Audrey Petty, Dmitry Samarov, Lily Be, and many others, covering forty-three of Chicago's diverse neighborhoods, it is a snapshot of a city at an inflection point, representing grassroots history at its finest—and a must for anyone keen to understand what makes Chicago tick.

Required reading.

—Chicago Tribune

Stirring, entertaining and informative.

—Chicago Detours