ABSTRACT
The ghetto has long served as an important concept in American social science, although it is likely that most persons would more immediately connect it with inner-city black neighborhoods than with older areas of Jewish settlement. For Louis Wirth, the ghetto referred to the Halsted Street Ghetto, the first area of settlement for Jewish immigrants in the 1880s. The most important early study of the black population in Chicago is Charles S. Johnson's study of the Chicago race riots and the relegation of the black population to segregated neighborhoods on the South Side. Central to community life in Black Metropolis was the commercial entertainment and business district stretching along State Street from 26th to 39th Streets, popularly known as The Stroll. William J. Wilson describes his mapping of community areas in Chicago's Black Belt as including communities that represent the historic Black Belt—but this mapping shows areas that are very different from the Black Belt in Burgess.
