Trip to Pilsen

Visiting Pilsen has been a great experience. It was very easy to distinguish Chicago once you hit the South Side. When you are downtown, Chicago leaves you speechless because of its immense buildings, beautiful parks and watching people keeping the streets busy. As soon as you travel away from downtown you start to see a dramatic change. The buildings become smaller and smaller and in a matter of minutes, all you see are houses.
What I found interesting was the fact that building the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) brought change to Chicago. I believe that even though many people were affected by this change, UIC created a more secure atmosphere to the area. Now we see students living around and keeping the area alive. I believe that if you create a place in order to better the lives of others, the change, as difficult as it might be, is worth it. Chicago has been changing since it was first discovered.
Going back to the Pilsen area, we also see change in its diversity and in its history. Before it became a Mexican neighborhood, Pilsen was Czech then Italian. Now we see plenty of beautiful murals representing the Mexican community that has overtaken its streets. The one difference I noticed immediately was the lack of people in the street. Comparing it to Chicago's busy streets, we see few people walking and little to no children in the parks, which reminds me of the Robert Taylor Homes.
When reading about the Robert Taylor Homes you see the development of Chicago. When you enter "downtown" you distinguish the luxury from the slums and from all the areas surrounding Chicago. From today’s trip to Pilsen, we can easily differentiate how Chicago was primarily built for economic reasons. In the end, the Robert Taylor Homes were built, left alone and now transformed, but what happened to the African Americans who these homes were built for? In the end, discrimination against and racism surpassed the expectations of the Robert Taylor Homes and those of Mayor Daley's. As of now, we still see how the majority of African Americans still remain in the South side.

Down town Chicago has an amazing view of tall building and popular skiscrapers that are famous around the world. Once you move out of Chicago, in this case to the south, you see Pilsen. Pilsen has very unique characteristics that make it be so different from Chicago and one big difference is its view. Pilsen has small building, spacious parts used for transporting materials, and plenty of houses as you can see in the pictures.

- A view of Pilsen's homes.