Edgewater

Imagine living near Lake Michigan, one of the five great lakes of North America, in a lakefront community that is diverse and vibrant, with great homes and a low crime rate, among top-rated schools and beaches, in a neighborhood that is a cultural haven for antique and vintage finds and historic districts.

You’ve just imagined Edgewater, one of the top four neighborhoods in Chicago’s North Side. It is only 8.9 miles and a 15-minute car drive away from The Loop, Chicago’s seat of government, main business district, and official downtown.

Map

Located in Cook Country, Illinois, Edgewater is community no. 77 of Chicago’s 77 official community areas. Edgewater is bounded by Foster Avenue on the south, Devon Avenue on the north, Ravenswood Avenue on the west, and Lake Michigan on the east. Its zip code is 60660, with some areas belonging to the 60640 zip code.

Population

As of 2020, Edgewater has a population of 56,296 individuals in 30,466 households, with an average household size of 1.7. A little more than half of its population is White (56.6%), while the rest are Hispanic or Latino (15%), Black (12.3%), Asian (12.4%), and of other races (3.6%).

Edgewater is made up of tightly-knit neighborhoods: Andersonville in the southwest, Magnolia Glen and Edgewater Glen in the north, and Edgewater Beach in the east.

Edgewater’s early settlers in the 1880s were German, Irish, and Swedes who mostly farmed celery. The Swedes gathered along Clark Street in an area now known as Andersonville, known for being one of the most concentrated areas of Swedish culture in the United States, with a thriving gay and lesbian community.

Edgewater’s residents have a median age of 38.3 years, mostly distributed among the 20 to 34 age group (30.2%), the 35 to 49 age group (21.6%), the 50 to 64 age group (18.6%), and the 5 to 19 age group (10.2%). They are highly educated, with a third (32.3%) having earned bachelor’s degrees, and a fourth (25.4%) having earned a graduate or professional degrees. Only less than a tenth (9.1%) have less than a high school diploma, which can be explained by the existence of around a tenth of the population aged 19 and below, and who are expected to still be on their way to earning their high school diploma.

Three-fourths (73.2%) of the population are native, while the rest are foreign-born. A little more than half (51.1%) of the population live in single-person households, while a third (32.3%) live in two-person households. Residents’ median income is $55,768, close to Chicago’s $58,247, which is within the general middle-class income classification.

Almost all (94.9%) are employed, in the top industry sectors of healthcare (13.4%), professional service (12.9%), accommodation and food service (10.8%), education (10.7%), and retail trade (8.2%). A third (32.6%) work outside Chicago, while a fifth 21.8%) work in The Loop itself. The rest work near North Side (12.8%), near West Side (5.5%), and right at Edgewater itself (3.2%)

Real Estate

Around more than half (56.6%) of Edgewater’s housing types are those which have 20 or more units, while a sixth (14.7%) have 5 to 9 units. Most of these housing units have one bedroom (53%) while a third have two bedrooms (30.8%). These data indicate the preponderance of multi-family housing units like apartments and condominiums in the area.

As of December 2021, Edgewater homes sold for around $215,000, less than Chicago’s median price of $335,000, which makes it very attractive to those who want to live near Chicago in what is considered an “It” community. Redfin has assigned Edgewater’s housing market a “not very competitive” score of 28 out of 100, which means multiple offers are rare and homes can take months to sell, so it’s virtually a buyer’s market. Most sought-after homes are in the Andersonville, Broadway, Edgewater Glen, and Sheridan Road neighborhoods.

Edgewater has annual festivals residents and tourists alike look forward to, like the EdgeFest, the Andersonville Midsommarfest, and the Edgewater Arts Festival.

A local non-profit and community-based organization, the Edgewater Development Corporation (EDC), spearheads the redevelopment of Edgewater’s commercial resources to better serve the Edgewater community, in partnership with the Edgewater Chamber of Commerce. The EDC serves as the economic development arm of the Chamber of Commerce, helping local businesses grow and supporting the business community for Edgewater’s overall prosperity and development.

Schools

Several Chicago Public Schools (CPS) campuses are in Edgewater. The local public high school is Nicholas Senn High School, which was established in 1913. Four of the neighborhood’s elementary schools achieved excellent status in 2013 – Goudy, Hayt, Peirce, and Swift — and they all feed into Senn. There’s also Rickover Naval Academy, known as “Chicago’s Leadership High School”, which prides itself in providing “private school opportunities in a public school setting.”

There are 150 public schools in the Chicago metropolitan area that can serve Edgewater 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 151 private schools in the Chicago metropolitan area that can serve Edgewater residents, with eleven A+-rated schools listed below:

(1) Latin School of Chicago

Population: 1,155 students in PK, K-12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 8 to 1

(2) British International School of Chicago South Loop

Population: 604 in PK, K-12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 8 to 1

(3) Roycemore School

Population: 239 in K-12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 6 to 1

(4) Francis W. Parker School

Population: 935 students in PK, K-12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 9 to 1

(5) Beacon Academy

Population: 213 students in grades 9 to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 7 to 1

(6) Lycee Francais de Chicago

Population: 790 students in PK, K-12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 8 to 1

(7) The Chicago Academy for the Arts

Population: 145 students in grades 9 to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 4 to 1

(8) GEMS World Academy Chicago

Population: 440 students in PK, K-12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 5 to 1

(9) Ida Crown Jewish Academy

Population: 214 students in grades 9 to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 6 to 1

(10) GCE Lab School

Population: 50 students in grades 9 to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 7 to 1

(11) Chicago Waldorf School

Population: 366 students in PK, K-12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 8 to 1

There are 55 colleges or universities in the Chicago metropolitan area that can serve Edgewater 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

Edgewater’s total crime rate of 2,099 per 100,000 people is 119% less than the U.S. national average, with property crime rate of 1,687 per 100,000 people as 19% lower than the national average, and violent crime rate of an estimated 412 per 100,000 people as 6% higher than the national average.

As of the fourth week of January 2022, District 24, the Chicago police district where Edgewater belongs, had 14 crime complaints, with the highest as theft (5), then motor vehicle theft (4), burglary (3), robbery (1) and criminal sexual assault (1). This reflects the consistent top three crime complaints pattern of theft, motor vehicle theft, and burglary in the last five years since 2018, indicating that crimes in the area mostly involve property crimes.

Locals rate Edgewater high for being dog-friendly (95%), having a lot of sidewalks (95%), being walkable to restaurants (94%), being walkable to grocery stores (92%), having streets that are well lit (82%), and that people can walk alone at night (70%). They rate it lowest for “cars are needed” (30%), there being wildlife (35%), and yards are well-kept (39%).

History

Historically part of Lake View township which was annexed to the city of Chicago in 1889, Edgewater was developed in the 1880s as a summer home community for Chicago’s elite. Developers bought up orchards and truck farms and cleared thick woods in the Lake View township to make way for residential and commercial development. In 1886, the northeastern section of the township was purchased, turned into a subdivision, and named Edgewater by the developer and Philadelphian tobacco salesman John Lewis Cochran.

Cochran built mansions on the lakefront for wealthy families and later had smaller houses built to the west. Unlike many suburban developers, Cochran already installed improvements like sidewalks, sewers, and streetlights before clients moved in. Many of the homes he built can still be found in the Lakewood Balmoral Historic District. Edgewater was also celebrated as being the only electric-lighted suburb adjacent to Chicago during that era.

Cochran also named every street in Edgewater after a train station on the former Pennsylvania Railroad Main Line, and most still exist today. These streets include Ardmore Avenue, Berwyn Avenue, Bryn Mawr Avenue, Devon Avenue, Rosemont Avenue, Thorndale Avenue, and Wayne Avenue.

By the early 1900s, Edgewater was already regarded as one of Chicago’s most prestigious communities. The Edgewater building boom peaked in 1926 and property values in 1928. The wealthy population grew so much that developers renamed a portion of the neighborhood Uptown, which became the commercial and nightlife hub of Edgewater. In the late 1920s, when Chicago designated its community areas, the Edgewater area was designated as a portion of Uptown. In 1980, the Chicago city government ratified the separation of Edgewater from Uptown by designating it as community area no. 77.

During the citywide housing crisis of the 1940s, apartment buildings were further subdivided into smaller units, attracting transients and new waves of residents. Many of the shop owners at Argyle Street were Asian Americans of diverse ethnic heritage: Indians, Japanese, Koreans, Thai, and Vietnamese. There were also Spanish-speaking immigrants, Albanians, Greeks, and the Swedish who populated Clark Street.

In the 1990s, Edgewater’s population of gay and lesbian couples significantly increased. The Andersonville-based feminist bookstore, Women and Children First, is recognized as a contributory catalyst. Soon, lesbian bars and lesbian-centered businesses sprouted in Andersonville that it was sometimes referred to as “Girlstown“, as an alternative to nearby Lakeview’s “Boystown”. By the late 2000s, rising rents and the closing of these businesses led to the decline in the gay and lesbian population, as LGBTQ people moved further north.

Today, Edgewater is considered an international community, with many new residents from the Horn of Africa and the former Yugoslavia, fleeing from their troubled countries. True to its history of welcoming new immigrants and nurturing thriving ethnic enclaves within its community, it continues its legacy of fostering cultural diversity and vibrancy.