A Colorized View Of The Racial Divide In Chicago

By John Dodge

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Examining Chicago by its racial divide, the city of neighborhoods is reduced to seven very distinct areas.

The map shown above is an American snapshot of racial diversity and population density. It was created by demographer Dustin Cable last summer.

Each color dot represents an individual U.S. resident, all 308,745,538 people counted in the 2010 U.S. Census. Users can zoom into the map any place in the United States. Orange=Hispanic; Red=Asian; Blue=White; Green=American American; Brown=Other races.

In Chicago, Hispanics populate three of those neighborhoods--two large areas on the Northwest Side and the Southwest Side and a smaller pocket on the far Southeast Side, near the Indiana border.

One African-American neighborhood splits the Hispanic areas on the West Side; the second neighborhood--the biggest in the city--fills most of the South and Southeast parts of the city.

Whites fill areas downtown and the Near North Side,

Asians hold a densely populated area around Chinatown.

There is a notable diverse area on the South Side, a small square surrounding the University Of Chicago in Hyde Park

Western Avenue, which runs the entire length of the city from north to south, appears as an obvious East-West racial boundary.

On the North Side, the area is mostly white to the east of Western, and turns nearly all Hispanic a few blocks to the west.

Farther to the south, around Western and 55th Street, Hispanics predominate the area to the west of Western; African-Americans populate to the east.

Chicago has been a segregated city for decades, but having the ability to zoom into smaller areas makes this map more useful--if not simply fascinating.