Burnside

An interesting statistic about Burnside that stands out is the fact that 52.4% of its already very small population live alone. This coincides with the fact that Burnside, also known as “The Triangle”, because it is triangular, is further well-defined in its boundaries with three railroad tracks on each side. Somehow, there is just something about living alone that aligns better with well-defined boundaries than living with another person or persons which require some merging in certain aspects of life.

But then again, even if more than half of its residents live alone, it doesn’t mean they’re isolated from the hubbub of everyday life — urban life at that. Burnside is only 13.5 miles from the main streets of Chicago and can be reached by car via I-94 in 10 minutes.

Map

Located in the far south side of Chicago in Cook County, 11 miles south of the Chicago Loop, Burnside is bordered by the Canadian National Railway tracks on the west, the Union Pacific Railroad tracks on the south, and the Norfolk Southern Railway tracks on the east. Its zip code is 60619.

In a different physical area from what Chicagoans traditionally knew as Burnside, which was located in the Roseham and Chatham communities, the present Burnside area is the area once known as Stony Island and subsequently, “The Triangle”. It was created when the University of Chicago sociologists mapped the city in the 1920s to 1930s.

Population

Identified as community number 47 in the 77 community areas of Chicago, Burnside has the second smallest area of 0.62 square miles next only to Oakland’s 0.60 square miles. However, in terms of the 2020 population, Burnside has the smallest population at 2,527 compared to Oakland’s 6,799, making it less dense than Oakland, too.

With a median age of 45.7, Burnside’s residents who are aged 19 and below comprise only 13.3% of the population, with those aged 20 to 34 (21.4%) and aged 35 to 49 (20%) forming the two largest age groups.

The Burnside community is predominantly Black (96.3%), with Hispanics/Latinos (1.9%), Whites (0.5%), and no Asians, but other people of other races and ethnicities (1.3%) making up the rest of the population. Most of the residents are native (95.7%) while only 4.3% are foreign-born.

It hasn’t always been this way. The first settlers of Burnside in the late 19th century were Hungarian, Italian, Polish, and Ukrainian immigrants who were willing to take the least skilled jobs in the Illinois Central Railroad (IC) shops, the New York Central Stony Island shops, the Calumet & South Chicago street railway shops, the Pullman Car Works, Burnside Steel, and other factories in the area. After World War II, the vacant residential lands in Burnside attracted the attention of real estate developers and potential new residents. The nature of the Burnside population gradually changed by class — from working class to middle class, and, with the 1960s civil rights movement, by race — from predominantly White to predominantly Black.

Real Estate

The area is named after Ambrose Burnside, a general for the Union in the American Civil War, and an official of the former Illinois Central Railroad (IC) now known as the Canadian National Railway (CN).

From 400 homes and boarding houses scattered across its 30 blocks in the early 20th century, Burnside is now home to 1,036 households mostly living in single-family detached housing units (48.2%) and 2-unit housing (23.2%), with the houses’ median year built in 1953.

Close to four-fifths (79.9%) of the labor force are employed, with 38.7% working outside of Chicago, 20.7% in The Loop, and the rest near the North Side (5.9%), near the West Side (4.3%), and in Hyde Park (2.3%). The top industry sectors employing Burnside residents are healthcare (18.9%), administration (12.5%), retail trade (10.5%), education (10%), and transportation (7.8%). Residents’ median annual income is $29,324, half of Chicago’s $58,247,

The Burnside housing market is considered as “somewhat competitive” with a Redfin score of 47 out of 100. At a median sale price of $230,000, it is lower than the Chicago median price of $335,000. Some homes get multiple offers, with an average of 24 days in the market.

Top-rated by locals for having lots of sidewalks (94%) so it’s walkable to restaurants (55%) and grocery stores (42%), with well-kept yards (76%), easy parking (75%), and well-lit streets (72%), Burnside has an urban-suburban mix with a little more people renting (51%) than owing (49%) their homes.

The City of Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development (DPD) has currently its Stony Island Commercial/Burnside Industrial Tax Increment Financing (TIF) program until 2034 for funding public improvements and to encourage more developers in the area.

Schools (200 – 300 words: include the neighborhood school districts and prominent private schools; see Niche.com)

Three-quarters of the residents have either earned their high school diploma or equivalent (39.3%) or taken some college courses but have not earned a degree (24.7%). A fifth of the population has either earned associate’s degrees (5.6%), bachelor’s degrees (7.4%), or graduate or professional degrees (7.6%). Those who have earned less than a high school diploma or its equivalent (15.4%) can be accounted for by the 19-and-below age group.

In Burnside, there are around 19 schools with the top-rated schools being Thomas Dorsey APC School (5 stars), University of Illinois Extension (5 stars), Dixon Elementary Schools (4.7 stars), Mary E. McDowell School (4.1 stars), and Burnside Academy (4 stars).

There are 146 public schools in the Chicago metropolitan area that can serve Burnside residents, with five A+-rated schools listed below:

(1) Payton College Preparatory High School

Population: 1,220 students in grades 9 to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 16-to-1

(2) Northside College Preparatory High School

Population: 1,078 students in grades 9 to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 18 to 1

(3) Whitney M. Young Magnet High School

Population: 2,198 students in grades 7 to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 18 to 1

(4) Jones College Prep High School

Population: 1,968 students in grades 9 to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 18 to 1

(5) Lane Tech College Prep High School

Population: 4,500 students in grades 7 to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 19 to 1

There are 123 private schools in the Chicago metropolitan area that can serve Burnside residents, with two A+-rated schools listed below:

(1) University of Chicago Laboratory Schools

Population: 2,051 students in grades PK and K to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 8 to 1

(5) Morgan Park Academy

Population: 423 students in pre-K to grade 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 8 to 1

There are 55 colleges or universities in the Chicago metropolitan area that can serve Burnside residents, with two A+-rated schools listed below:

(1) Northwestern University

Population: 8,284 undergraduate students

Student-Teacher Ratio: 6 to 1

(2) University of Chicago

Population: 6,847 undergraduate students

Student-Teacher Ration: 5 to 1

Crime Rate

As of the fourth week of January 2022 in Chicago Police District 011, where Burnside is, the total crime complaints received were 43, a 14% reduction from the previous week. Compared to the last 28 days it’s a 24% reduction. Compared to the same period in 2021, it’s a 16% reduction. MTR vehicle theft and aggravated battery topped the week’s list at 11 cases each, which has been the 2022 trend so far. In the previous four years from 2018 to 2021, robbery topped the list with MTR vehicle theft and aggravated battery as the next two top crime complaints.

Burnside’s total crime rate (6,408 per 100,000 people), though, is 173% higher than the national rate (2,346 per 100,000 people) and 63% higher than Chicago’s (3,926 per 100,000 people). It’s violent crime rate (1,955 per 100,000 people) is 404% higher than the national average (388 per 100,000 people) and 107% higher than Chicago’s (943 per 100,000 people).

History

As a low and swampy land surrounding Lake Calumet in the mid-18th century, The Triangle seemed more appropriate for industrial rather than commercial use.

It was only in the 1890s when the Illinois Central Railroad (IC) built a roundhouse and locomotive repair shops south of 95th Street (where the Chicago State University is located now) did developer W.V. Jacobs purchase and subdivided land in The Triangle for residential development.

In 1911, when the area was entangled in a strike against the IC, an influx of new immigrants — mostly Hungarians, Italians, Ukrainians, and Poles — willing to take on the least skilled and poorest paid jobs settled in the area.

By the 1920s, when the railroads were raised, Burnside’s well-defined physical boundaries were further enhanced and the residents’ ethnic ties and common work experiences made Burnside a well-defined community socially until the Second World War. It meant that Burnside attracted little outside attention, even in the political arena. Its population was too few to be considered worthy of much political attention.

As Burnside’s community transformed by class after the last World War and by race in the 1960s, with the decline of the iron and steel industries in the 1970s and 1980s, it evolved from an industrial area to the mainly residential community it is now. Where residents provided labor for the iron and steel manufacturing industries decades and a century ago, residents now provide mainly professional services in healthcare, administration, retail, and education not only in Burnside but to the greater Chicago area.

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