Chicago, IL

ZIP code 60649 is assigned to Chicago, IL, and falls within Cook County. Like every US postal code, it began as a mail-routing device rather than a geographic boundary — the US Postal Service groups delivery routes under a single code so carriers and sorting equipment can process mail efficiently. Today it also serves as a practical shorthand for the area itself: roughly 48,720 people live inside it.

At 13,459 residents per square mile spread over 3.62 square miles, 60649 reads as a dense urban area. It is a populous postal code, and density shapes almost everything else on this page — how people get to work, whether they own or rent, and what housing costs.

Household earnings are well below the national median. At $40,142, 60649 ranks among the lower-income postal codes, ahead of 6% of them. The US median for comparison is $70,109. Bear in mind that median income describes the midpoint household, not the average — it is not pulled upward by a handful of very high earners the way a mean would be.

Housing in 60649 costs close to the national median. A typical home is valued at $199,500 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $1,066 a month. This is firmly renter territory — 74.9% of occupied homes are rented, a pattern typical of city centres, student areas and neighbourhoods with a lot of apartment stock.

The building stock is dominated by mid-sized apartment buildings, which account for 46.5% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1943, making the housing here largely pre-war.

The population skews broadly in line with the national age profile, with a median age of 39.6 against 42 nationally. The average household holds 2.0 people, and 39.1% are family households.

Getting to work takes 41.2 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is drove alone at 52.6% of workers, while 26.9% take public transit, 10.3% work from home. Commute patterns are one of the better proxies for how a place actually functions day to day.

Beyond addressing mail, 60649 does a lot of quiet administrative work. Retailers use it to calculate shipping and sales tax at checkout. Insurers use it to set premiums, since risk profiles vary geographically. Employers and marketers use it to define service areas. Government agencies use it to route benefits and organise reporting. If you have ever been asked for a postal code by a form that clearly does not intend to send you anything, this is why.

For anyone weighing a move, 60649 offers a compact profile of Chicago: 48,720 residents, a median household income of $40,142, 25.2% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 14.2%. A handful of figures like these answer more relocation questions than most neighbourhood guides do.

One caution worth repeating: a postal code is not a neighbourhood. 60649 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Chicago may be split across more than one code. Boundaries also shift as USPS adjusts delivery routes. Treat the figures here as describing a delivery area, which is what they actually measure.