Chicago's university neighbourhood on the South Side, home to the University of Chicago — one of the great research universities in the world, whose economics department alone has produced nearly 100 Nobel laureates. The university dominates the neighbourhood physically and intellectually: Gothic quadrangles, the Regenstein Library, the Smart Museum of Art, and the Oriental Institute all sit within a few blocks of each other.
Hyde Park is also the neighbourhood where Barack Obama lived and taught constitutional law before entering politics. The Museum of Science and Industry on the lakefront is the largest science museum in the Western Hemisphere, housed in the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition's Fine Arts Building. The neighbourhood has a distinct, slightly insular character compared to the rest of Chicago — quieter, more racially mixed, and focused inward on the university campus.