Posted on 04/03/2014 9:43:51 AM PDT by Red Badger
CHICAGO (CBS) — The graphic that you are about to see is sobering, perhaps depressing, and you can’t take your eyes off it.
We have the exhaustive work of Daniel Kay Hertz, a masters student at the University Of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, to thank for that.
At the risk of sounding like an old carnival barker, step right up and watch the middle class of Chicago vanish before your eyes.
However, this is no side-show.
It shows the demise of the foundation of an American city.
Watch as the grey squares, which illustrate the middle class that dominated the most of the city’s neighborhoods in 1970s, quickly vanish over 40 years.
The poor, represented by the orange and red colors, explode across the map.
And watch what happens in the green areas representing the upper middle class and wealthy. Not surprisingly, it spreads from downtown to the north side, but not with the same ferocity as the reds and oranges.
Especially in 2000, the greens-the color of money–grow much darker. It seems the rich simply got richer. In later years, the wealthy pushed the poor out of the near West Side. It appears that area bypassed the middle.
The data comes from the U.S. Census.
In his blog, Hertz says he fears that the often-told story of segregation and income inequality in Chicago has led to apathy.
“These facts somehow seep out of the ground here, as much a part of the city as the lake, and that as a result there’s really nothing we can do about it,” Hertz writes.
Hertz says the work isn’t meant to be depressing. Not along ago, he reasons, there was a large vibrant middle class in Chicago, and it is possible to get it back.
The goal of the maps “is not merely to depress you (you’re welcome!), but to suggest just how dramatically the reality of Chicago’s ‘two cities’ has changed over the last few generations, how non-eternal its present state is, and that a happier alternate reality isn’t just possible, but actually existed relatively recently.”
No, like New York.
That’s not going to happen in Chicago, they are not even close to that.
Besides, this is a misleading chart, because the middle class is still very much there, they just moved to the suburbs. I’m sure you could make a similar chart for every city in America since the 70s if you exclude the suburbs.
“Did the middle class leave or did they just become poor? Or both?”
They moved to the suburbs, which are conveniently excluded from this chart to make it seem dramatic.
It would have to come from entitlements - Soc. Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They are by far the biggest portion of money spent by Fedzilla. Eliminating EPA, Depts of Commerce, Education, Energy would save very little - although in terms of eliminating regulation, it would probably stimulate economic growth quite a lot.
More than anything, it's that the median income gray areas are evaporating and being replaced by green/brick red colors (the extreme opposites of the spectrum).
Slashing the federal government by 80% would theoretically leave the DOD untouched becasue the DOD is only 1/8th of the budget. Of course what should happen also is streamlining DOD the way Reagan did, getting out the waste and getting in the best and the brightest to defend our country.
Anyone hear (or in this case see) a giant sucking sound?
I noticed that, too.
Probably the bigger news in this graph is that the middle class is getting poorer because the wealthy few are sucking every last cent out of the economy.
Headed the way of Detroit!
The middle class didn’t become poor; they left. It started with forced busing and went down from there. I can’t tell you how many conversations I had with friends, and acquaintances who would say “I just don’t feel safe anymore” or “it’s not safe for my kids to be outside”. And then they move. The grad student who made this map should have included the suburbs too. That would have been more interesting.
Yes — we’re in agreement there. However, my main point was that (using constant dollars), the “rich” did not have to actually become more wealthy, for the number of green spots to go up, or for them to get greener. If you remove the middle income families, and replace them with lower income families, the median income will go down — by definition. If a “rich” household initially had an income 1.5 times the median income; they might have an income 2.0 times greater than the new, lower median — with no increase in their household income.
The graphic shows that the “middle class” is being driven out — but, it simply does not show that the rich are getting richer. They might be — but, the graphic does not prove that. All that’s needed to have your income go from 1.5 times the median, to 2.0 times the median; is to have more people making less than the median. Similarly, some of the upper-middle class families will see their colour code change to green — just because the median income has fallen.
Disagree. The green areas are those above average income. And the green areas show the greatest growth. It appears that many many people are doing quite well in Chicago I think this is what we want — as garrison Keillor says, everybody’s above average. Or at least more and more people have higher incomes in Chicago from this graphic. Looks like a pretty good place to be.
‘because the middle class is still very much there, they just moved to the suburbs’
That is the case for most urban areas. Where do you think the middle class in Detroit went? The same place as the middle class in Cleveland, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and NYC went, the suburbs. The problem is that a city can not be only a few very rich and a large amount of very poor. The tax and social structure simply does not work.
The death of most cities was the desegregation through busing of most of the major cities.
The plain fact is that middle class whites do not want their children sitting next to poor blacks. NEWS FLASH: Middle Class Blacks don’t want their children sitting next to poor blacks either.
When the Federal Government took away the right of self determination via the public schools through desegregation court orders, people decided to vote with their feet.
In doing so they turned formerly middle class inner city neighborhoods into lawless wastelands and exurban farms into tract houses and McMansions.
Until inner city governments provide unlimited numbers of educational options through unrestricted vouchers, middle class families will never move back into the cities.
Once again liberal policies destroy everything they touch.
“Where do you think the middle class in Detroit went? The same place as the middle class in Cleveland, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and NYC went, the suburbs. The problem is that a city can not be only a few very rich and a large amount of very poor. The tax and social structure simply does not work.”
I get what you are saying, but the fact is that this population shift is common to most all cities in the U.S., and only Detroit is suffering “Detroit-style consequences” as of yet. So, I can’t logically ascribe the blame for those consequences to the middle class moving to the suburbs. If that was the case, then every city would look like Detroit, but they do not.
There are other factors at play that made Detroit what it is today, and those factors just aren’t present if every urban area, no matter how much some FReepers seem to wish that they were.
Chicago has more than its fair share of ghettos, but outside of them, most areas are quite nice. This story seems to obsess with the shrinking middle class neighborhoods, which is the case, but gentrification is in full swing in the city, with lots of areas that used to be dodgy or rundown becoming upper-middle class areas dominated by young professionals.
we want people to get ahead (at least, we did prior to 2008)
and if so many people in ChiTown are getting ahead as these charts indicate, Wonderful!!!!
Also, there are miles and miles of suburban communities that do not seem to be on this graphic display.... but which have grown up all around the region... and which are filled with “middle class” people......
I think this graphic is not very helpful
“Also, there are miles and miles of suburban communities that do not seem to be on this graphic display.... but which have grown up all around the region... and which are filled with “middle class” people......”
Yes, I noticed that too. Someone pointed out that middle class people in the suburbs shrink the tax base for the city, but that is a simplistic reasoning. Property taxes are paid at the county level, not the city level, and Cook County includes plenty of middle-class (and upper-class) suburbs. Also, the middle class suburbanites mostly still commute to work in the city, spend money there, and often own investment property there too.
Im no expert so I am quite happy to stand corrected, but are Aurora, Elgin, Donners Grove, Wheaton, Joliet, Waukegan, Lake Forest, and all the rest....all depressed low-income slumvilles?
I doubt it.
This graphic is not worth our time. Let’s move on to discussing some of the other great FR topics like sexual depravity, how we can help UknowWho further expand the new IslamoNazi empire, and what’s wrong with John McCain
“Im no expert so I am quite happy to stand corrected, but are Aurora, Elgin, Donners Grove, Wheaton, Joliet, Waukegan, Lake Forest, and all the rest....all depressed low-income slumvilles?
I doubt it.”
Nope, they are not, but I think most of those are outside Cook County, so they wouldn’t be contributing to the property taxes, at least. However, Cook County has Evanston, Winnetka, Skokie, Niles, Oak Park, River Forest, and plenty of other nice suburbs that this map is still excluding, that do contribute to the property tax base.
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