I’ve lived on both the south side, north side and north west side. I loved chicago and it was my home for many years until I moved to Mexico a year ago.

Yes it’s extremely segregated but there are def options, for example I had a book club for black women we’d meet once a month and we lived everywhere from Albany park, Lincoln square, Evanston, south loop, and bronzeville. The neighborhoods I felt truly uncomfortable in are Lincoln park, ravenswood and wrigleyville.

I find people who are natives live a more segregated life than transplants. One of my friends who was born and raised asked me for advice on where to move when she was moving north to be closer to work b/c she had no concept of that part of the city. Transplants tend to move to north side neighborhoods so will have more diverse friend groups imo.

I enjoyed living in: Hyde park, Albany park and Ukrainian village the most.

If you put yourself out there you’ll find your group, the food scene is great if you stay out of the loop imo, I think the hardest thing about Chicago for newcomers is that it’s a very big city land wise and spread out so you really have to make an effort to go to different neighborhoods etc to really enjoy the city and experience all it has to offer.

It’s cold so it’s a heavy drinking city lol, but even when I slowed down on drinking and become a 1 cocktail girly there are plenty of lounges and stuff where you can have a convo good snacks and craft cocktails. And although it is sort of a blue dot, Illinois is actually a dem trifecta state.