The Pilsen Neighborhood is located on the Lower West Side of Chicago, extending approximately from Western Avenue and Blue Island Avenue to Sixteenth Street and Canal Street. (Pero.) Today Pilsen has transformed into a colorful, artistic and beautiful community with the majority of the population skewed Hispanic. Over these years Pilsen has gone through many changes ranging from cultural to economic and social ones that have shaped it into its present-day form. Pilsen residents have resisted attempts to gentrify their neighborhood and have preserved the community as a gateway for Hispanic immigrants. Pilsen flourished from its inception in the late 19th century with German and Irish immigrants, later followed by Czech ones, also known as Bohemians. (Mead-Lucero.) This boom was caused by the Southwestern Plank Road, which was a major building trade route at the time. (Pilsen.) The Czechs adopted the name Pilsen from a city in the Czech Republic known as “Plzen.” (History of Pilsen and the little village.) After the fire of 1871, Pilsen became an industrial district; industrial works became the pillar that shaped the Pilsen neighborhood. These works not only increased the population of Pilsen, but also developed a community among the people. (Pilsen.) The Pilsen neighborhood began to prosper and continued to accelerate. Although there has been a change in the ethnicity of the communities, the neighborhood has remained a working-class society. Mexicans have now become the majority race in the Pilsen area, but this was not always the case. Due to labor shortages during World War I, many immigrants were admitted to the neighborhood, most of them Mexican decadents. (Pilsen.) When UIC began to expand this further push...... middle of document ......First xpayer basis for understanding TIFs. Coo County: Cook County Clerk, 2009. Word Document. Gellman, Erik. "Pilsen." Chicago Encyclopedia. 205. Network. 24 November 2011. "History of Pilsen and the small village". Mission San Jose Obrero. Network. November 24, 2011. .Joravsky, Ben. Those slippery TIFs. Chicago: Chicago Reader, December 9, 2005. Word Document.Mead-Lucero, Jerry. "Almost 200 years of struggle". Untitled document. Network. November 24, 2011. .Pero, Pilsen neighborhood by Peter N. Chicago. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub., 2011. Print."Pilsen, Heart of Chicago | Chicago Neighborhoods | Explore Chicago." Explore Chicago | The official Chicago tourism website. Network. November 24. 2011. .