Advice on where to live as a (fill in the blank) (Chicago: neighborhood, living)

[Master Jay]

hendersj31, thank you for sharing.

THANK YOU to anyone who has been contributing, as I am seeking your honest opinions, and I appreciate the conversation.

hendersj31, YES, the power of choice is a wonderful thing. Choice. Freedom. All of that.

Have a great day!

[Master Jay]

So FOR FUN, where would be MY best community neighborhood or suburb????

Mexican and Croatian

Speaks English, Spanish, and some Korean

Roman Catholic

Very Handsome

[EllieKay56]

Originally Posted by Master Jay

So FOR FUN, where would be MY best community neighborhood or suburb????

Mexican and Croatian

Speaks English, Spanish, and some Korean

Roman Catholic

Very Handsome

I think Portage or Jefferson Park might work well. Northcenter because you like to bike so much?

[Master Jay]

EllieKay56, thank you... I do enjoy all the areas you listed, for different reasons.

And yes, I do enjoy bicycling...

And hopefully for the 4th criteria, thst of me being Very Handsome, would make me a good fit in any of the three areas you recommended!!!!

[Kmanshouse]

Originally Posted by Master Jay

Kmanshouse, good day!

You said "their own kind" and that makes me a sad, because I wish people could just live in peace with the "Human Kind" where it doesn't matter the skin color, religion, etc.

For example, I do not know the religion of ANY of my neighbors, except the man next door who flies the flag of Israel. But as a Catholic, if I found out all my neighbors were Jewish and Methodist (or whatever), I guess I wouldn't feel the need to move.

If I look at the faces of my neighbors, I could GUESS that there is a blend of very light color faces, very dark colored faces, and tan colored faces. The neighbors to the south and directly across from me are Puerto Rican.

Well, hopefully we can all do our best to get along....

Yep. This is just human nature - something I've observed in my many years....and as we get more mixed and more diverse, it's faded a little but the general nature is still there in a lot of people.

[Master Jay]

Kmanshouse, hoping all is well.

There is some diversity to the Lincoln Square neighborhood, which I believe you are familiar!

I do enjoy that area, and people from different backgrounds SEEM to be neighborly?

[citylove101]

Master Jay

I think you really underestimate the discomfort and sometimes the outright hostility people can encounter when they move into a neighborhood where few share the same ethnicity, which is why they come onto these boards and mention their ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.

Black Americans, obviously, have faced this problem forever. In some parts of the West the prejudice against Native Americans is very high. We have recently seen a rise in bias against Asian-Americans in many cities, including my own--especially as neighborhood demographics change. There are still plenty of places in the U.S. where gay people would get the cold shoulder, or worse, as well as neighborhoods where Jews, even more secular Jews, would feel pretty much left out of things. Lastly, there are also strong, stable "minority" neighborhoods where white people would feel uncomfortable, even if their neighbors are of the same economic class. And in the last ten years or so, plenty of people have expressed desires to specifically live in a left- or right-leaning neighborhood because they would feel discomfort living with people of different political beliefs.

So sometimes one's neighborhood choice is driven by ignorance, pure prejudice and stereotyping, for sure. But sometimes it is driven by the desire for safety, acceptance (not mere toleration), or a specific desire to live in a neighborhood that is different or diverse. When I see these queries on CD asking about neighborhood ethnicity/sexual orientation/politics, I try to discern whether it is someone looking out for the former or the latter.

Personally I like mixed neighborhoods. As prices have gone up, there are fewer black people than there were a decade ago where I live now, but it is still a reasonably diverse part of the Upper West Side. When I am in Chicago, most of my relatives are in Hyde Park, which I think is a wonderful neighborhood. Don't know the city well enough to recommend a neighborhood for you, but you sound like the type of guy who would do well almost anywhere!

[Master Jay]

citylove10, a well thought out response.

Thank you for sharing.

Wishing you well.

[BRU67]

I just saw this. Great question Master Jay! My opinion on this is that Chicago is too segregated, especially today when the City votes so progressively and recently protested so violently over social injustice. Segregation was always bad, but back in the old days when the City was still largely ethnic working class and not as highly educated, I guess I could somewhat understand it, though not condone it. But for it to still exist like it does now goes well beyond that into a realm that is at best mind bogglingly hypocritical, if not outright insidous and evil.

So I'm going to join dtyfygiu's "live where you like" approach, and I am never going to make recommendations that perpetuate segregation. That won't stop it, but I'll sleep better at night by not helping perpetuate the BS.

[Hiruko]

I honestly believe that a lot of those posts are generated by bots, Master Jay. For a while, you'd have thought that there were a million plus gay men moving to Chicago based on the volume of threads.