South Lakefront (continued)

White people in South Shore tried to deal with the problems of racial change in the 1960s, but they could not stop the transition. The Washington Park connection continued to operate as it had before. Upwardly mobile black people looking for better housing naturally looked to South Shore, just as white Protestants, Irish Catholics, and German and Russian Jews had before them. They simply followed the trail that had been blazed two generations earlier.

Today South Shore faces many of the problems of other inner-city neighborhoods. Seventy-first Street declined as a fashionable shopping district. Much of the housing stock has deteriorated. The community is nominally integrated, with most of the white people living in the Jackson Park Highlands or along the lakefront.

The South Shore Country Club is no longer the preserve of local privilege. It is now owned by the Chicago Park District, and its golf course, beach, and party facilities are available to the general public. The Irish and the Jews have, for the most part, moved on to other parts of the city or to the suburbs. The South Side Hebrew Congregation is no located on the Near North Side. Many of the Irish live on the Southwest Side of Chicago. As in 1930, the change has been complete.

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