Don't Go
How Informal Rules Make and Break Cities
DIBS. Quick takes worth claiming: fresh observations about neighborhood life and urban change.
"Don't go past Popeye's." That's what Yale students were told about navigating New Haven when I lived there, a tidy shorthand for marking the boundary between university space and "dangerous" neighborhoods. As a Chicagoan who'd spent decades studying cities, I recognized the familiar weight of that warning: the street names might change from city to city, but these casual rules about safety and danger are what transform segregation from abstract policy into daily practice.
Cities might speak different dialects, but they share the same grammar of exclusion. In New Haven, the “lake wasn't always” east (in fact, there was no lake, but there was something called a "sound") and the streets didn't follow a predictable grid. Even the pizza demanded its own understanding—thin-crusted and coal-fired, neither better nor worse than Chicago's (let's not start that war this early in my Substack). Yet beneath these surface differences laid the same patterns of power and division: informal boundaries marking who belonged where.
These thoughts came rushing back recently as I listened to Chicago artist Tonika Lewis Johnson and sociologist Maria Krysan discuss their new book, Don't Go: Stories of Segregation and How to Disrupt It. The title captures those everyday warnings that maintain urban segregation: don't go there, don't cross that street, don’t go to that neighborhood. Krysan, whose academic work helped reveal how redlining and institutional policies carved up our cities, joins forces with Johnson, whose artistic practice maps Chicago's divides, to show how these casual warnings do the heavy lifting of keeping segregation alive. Legacies of redlining and housing segregation live on through the thousands of small decisions and warnings that shape how we move—or don't move—through any given city.
Source: The Folded Map Project https://www.foldedmapproject.com/address-pairs
What makes this book so powerful is how it reveals segregation not just as policy but as practice. Urban segregation is maintained through the actions, inactions, and assumptions of power brokers and everyday people. While sociologists (including Krysan) have spent decades documenting how institutional power carved up our cities, this book shows how those divisions are reinforced in totally quotidian ways: parents and teachers warn children away from certain areas, real estate agents steer clients toward "safe" spaces, administrators tell students not to stray too far off campus.
I see this in my research on gun violence prevention, wherein seemingly innocent questions carry deadly weight. For many young people in Chicago, especially those living in communities experiencing gun violence, asking “Where are you from?" isn't just casual inquiry—it's a loaded question about territory and allegiance. In the 1980s, Chicago youth unaffiliated with street crews would answer "I'm a neutron" to signal their lack of group affiliation. Today, the response is often "I'm from nowhere”—a strategic placelessness in a city where place carries heavy meaning. Like Odysseus claiming to be "nobody," it's a way of moving through threatening spaces by refusing to be placed within them. For safety, many casually abandon belonging to their own communities.
These patterns repeat across cities and generations. I think about my former Chicagoan uncle. He worked for the Chicago Transit Authority for 35 years before deciding that even first-ring suburbs were "too dangerous," then moved about as far north as you can get without crossing into Wisconsin (its own kind of boundary—that's where Packers fans live, after all). I think, too, of the relatives who, visiting us at our 53rd St. apartment, fretted over parking a few blocks away. Each point of worry maintains the invisible daily infrastructure of segregation.
Johnson and Krysan's work becomes so vital because, rather than just document patterns, it offers solutions, disruptions, ways to upend the steady accrual of segregated space. Johnson’s Folded Map Project, for instance, encourages Chicago residents to find pairs of "map twins”—neighborhoods with a different composition than one’s own for users to visit, in some instances the literal mirror opposite on the city’s gridded map (see above photo). It's more than just a prompt to see the city; it's a structured way to move through a city and chip away rules like “don’t go.” Johnson’s accompanying Action Kit guides participants through a careful process: reflect on your own neighborhood, find its "twin," then explore the twin not as a tourist but as a temporary resident. Visit the grocery store, find a sit-down restaurant, locate the nearest bus stop, and so on. Notice what's present, what's missing. Share these experiences not just on social media, but in conversations with friends, family, and colleagues.
The Folded Map approach reminds me of lessons learned in my family's diner: if you want to know a place, eat there. Don't just take pictures—engage with people, ask questions, become part of the rhythm of a space. I used to dread my father's endless recycling of the same corny jokes with customers. But now I understand what he was doing: using routine to build trust, turning strangers into regulars, making a space where everyone belonged. What looked like simple repetition—the worn punchlines and familiar greetings—was actually the patient work of breaking down boundaries. In a city defined by “don't go,” my father was always saying “come back soon."
Further Investigations
Want to go deeper? Pick up your copy of Don’t Go, recently written up by Block Club Chicago, at a local bookstore (why not try 57th Street Books or Exile in Bookville) and check out the Folded Map Project online. Learn about how this relates to gun violence (and non-Chicago settings) by looking up Nickolas Dawidoff’s The Other Side of Prospect. And while you’re at it, dive into Robert Garot’s book, Who You Claim?, or article, “‘Where you From!’ Gang Identity as Performance,” to round out your readings on a very loaded question.
Just finished “Don’t Go”—fantastic book! The interviewees were so honest, open, and reflective about the challenges they faced in overcoming the knee-jerk biases behind the ‘don’t go’ mentality, as well as the harm it causes. Thanks for posting about this book—I hope it encourages more people to read it.