Little Italy

Little Italy

Area Descriptions

Little Italy, west of Chicago’s central business district, was a dense ethnic neighborhood that HOLC officials concluded was risky for residential investment. The area saw little investment until the late 1950s, when state and federal initiatives demolished the area, creating and interstate expressway and the campus of the University of Illinois-Chicago in its place. The HOLC's area description for the Little Italy neighborhood illustrated the geographic shifts of populations: “Population is predominantly Italian; there is a marked infiltration of negro from the area on the south who, in turn, are driving the Italians into the section on the north. Most properties are little better than minimum shelter and rents here are about as low as it is possible to imagine....As a residential area, it has no future, but a slum clearance project could well be located in this district. Neighborhood is graded fourth class because of the presence of so many adverse influences and the absence of anything favorable.”