page_title: West Side, Chicago
section_title: Boundaries
hierarchical_section_title: West Side, Chicago / Boundaries
caption_attribution_description: English: Looking east on the Chicago River from Wabash. Image appears to be taken from within the Langham Chicago
context_page_description: The West Side is one of the three major sections of the city of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, along with the North Side and the South Side. The West Side consists of communities that are of historical, cultural, and ideological importance to the history and development of Chicago. On the flag of Chicago, the West Side is represented by the central white stripe.
  The West Side has gone through many transitions in its ethnic and socioeconomic makeup due to its historic role as a gateway for immigrants and migrants as well as its role for funneling poorer residents away from the wealthier lakeside neighborhoods and central business district. Today, the West Side consists of large communities of widely middle class, working class, low-income, and poverty-stricken African American, Puerto Rican, and Mexican residents; some small communities of blue-collar, lower middle class and middle class white residents of historically Polish, Italian, Czech, and Greek, descent; and newer communities of middle-class and upper-middle class white residents created by gentrification.
context_section_description: As with the other sides of the city, there is no consensus as to the exact boundaries of the West Side. The city's annexation of land beyond the original western border at Wood Street gave way to the development of the West Side. The city legislature added more land in 1869 through the annexation of West Town area, and the rest of the area was absorbed in 1899 through the annexation of the Austin area. Before the 1909 re-numbering of Chicago's street addresses, all addresses west of the Chicago River were designated as "west," but this changed with the establishment of the address numbering system Chicago uses today. Madison Street is designated as the north-south axis and State Street as the east-west axis, but State Street is not included in and geographically very distant from the West Side.
  The most commonly referenced borders by officials that are assigned to the West Side are North Avenue to the north and 31st Street to the south. The western border is where the edge of the city meets the western suburbs of Oak Park and Cicero. These two suburbs border the communities of Austin, Lawndale, and Little Village. The eastern border is often the most disputed border by residents, real estate brokers, and city officials. While some will claim Western Avenue is the eastern border, those in the communities east of Western Avenue such as West Town, the Near West Side, and Pilsen have more historical and cultural ties to the West Side and the central, inner city area more so than to the North Side or South Side. In certain texts, the communities within West Town and Pilsen are grouped together as the Near Northwest Side and Near Southwest Side respectively. Therefore, using the Chicago River as an eastern border of the West Side becomes suitable. Regardless of how the boundaries are defined, the West Side is the smallest in area of the three sections of the city, with an area of 34.7 square miles.
caption: The Chicago River set the historical boundaries of the "sides" of the city.
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