Public Squares Project, 606 Trail

Have you heard? The 606 Trail is the hottest thing happening in Chicago in the moment. It is a three mile trail on an elevated rail line in the northwest side of Chicago! It connects four different neighborhoods and you can run, walk, or bike this trail!

As part of the seminar class, you complete a public squares project. This entails going to a public park twice and learning about the location, neighborhoods, and the people who visit. We chose the 606 Trail because I did a lot of research on it for work and it is the talk of Chicago!

While completing our project we did a variety of activities to learn about the trail.


1. Online research
2. Biked the trail
3. Conducted interviews of trail patrons
4. Visited neighborhoods the trail runs through
5. Visited at two different times and days

We made a video of our findings which mainly consisted of comparing the different neighborhoods that the neighborhoods ran through and who is affected by gentrification. As many of those we talked to would say, the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer, but it is bringing the city "together." So that obviously means it cannot be too bad, right?

Personally, I enjoyed the trail and thought it was a great way to bring the communities together. I can only hope that the property values will not go up too much and drive people out that cannot afford it who have called their homes home for decades.

We made a video of our findings and then presented to Scott, Lane, and Whitney on our last Friday in Chicago!

606 Trail Chicago 

Trail Map 

More information on the trail can be found at the606.org