[11] The land was located seven miles south of Downtown Chicago in a rural area that enjoyed weather tempered by the lake – cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.

Hyde Park quickly became a suburban retreat for affluent Chicagoans who wanted to escape the noise and congestion of the rapidly growing city.

[14] After annexation, the definition of Hyde Park as a Chicago neighborhood was restricted to the historic core of the former township, centered on Cornell's initial development between 51st and 55th streets near the lakefront.

The World's Columbian Exposition brought fame to the neighborhood, which gave rise to an inflow of new residents and spurred new development that gradually started transforming Hyde Park into a more urban area.

The only major structure from the fair that is still standing today is Charles Atwood's Palace of Fine Arts, which has since been converted into the Museum of Science and Industry.

[15] Until the middle of the twentieth century, Hyde Park remained an almost exclusively white neighborhood (despite its proximity to Chicago's Black Belt).

[16] After the Supreme Court banned racially restrictive covenants in 1948, African Americans began moving into Hyde Park, and the neighborhood gradually became multiracial.

In 1955, civil rights activist Leon Despres was elected alderman of Hyde Park and held the position for twenty years.

[18] During the 1950s, Hyde Park experienced economic decline as a result of the white flight that followed the rapid inflow of African Americans into the neighborhood.

[19][20] The plan involved the demolition and redevelopment of entire blocks of supposedly decayed buildings with the goal of creating an "interracial community of high standards.

"[21] After the plan was carried out, Hyde Park's average income soared by seventy percent, but its African American population fell by forty percent, since the substandard housing primarily occupied by low-income African Americans had been purchased, torn down, and replaced, with the residents not being able to afford to remain in the newly rehabilitated areas.

[citation needed] The ultimate result of the renewal plan was that Hyde Park did not experience the economic depression that occurred in the surrounding areas and became a racially integrated middle-class neighborhood.

Due to the university's proximity, the blocks just east of the central campus are dominated by (privately owned) student and faculty residences.

This area, the part of Hyde Park nearest to Lake Michigan, has a large number of high-rise condominiums, many of them facing the lakefront.

Some differences are nonetheless apparent: unlike Hyde Park, which is dominated by three- and four-story apartment buildings and modest family homes, southern Kenwood boasts a great many luxurious mansions, built mainly at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries for wealthy Chicagoans.

A number of prominent Chicagoans currently reside or own homes in this area, including former U.S. president Barack Obama and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

[23] The neighborhood's northern and southern halves exhibit some demographic differences, however: south of 55th Street, the population is predominantly white and Asian-American, with a smaller percentage of African-Americans and Hispanics.

Promontory Point is an artificial peninsula that extends into Lake Michigan at 55th Street, providing views of the Downtown Chicago skyline to the north.

53rd Street is Hyde Park's oldest shopping district, lined with many small businesses and restaurants offering various dining options.

The segment of 55th Street between the Metra line and the lake offers a series of ethnic restaurants serving Thai, Japanese, and Korean cuisine.

[31] By car, Hyde Park is easily accessed from Lake Shore Drive, which runs along the neighborhood's easternmost edge.