Do you Have a Solution for the segregation in Chicago? (Washington: renters, crime)
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If you want to talk about racism you will need to open a dialogue elsewhere else. City and State Forums at C-D were opened speciifically to answer relocation, visitor and general questions such as food, sports, shopping, hotels, tourist attractions, routes, streets, neighborhoods, ect..
If you want to talk about racism you will need to open a dialogue elsewhere else. City and State Forums at C-D were opened speciifically to answer relocation, visitor and general questions such as food, sports, shopping, hotels, tourist attractions, routes, streets, neighborhoods, ect..
I understand, but I do think potential visitors and "relocators" would be very interested that Chicagoans do care about these issues and that we try to learn from each other.
For example, I had never heard of Mr. Bourgeoisie' point regarding bank branches, that's frustrating, and something people across the City might like to know. I don't like mega banks in general, but if I knew that my bank was doing this I'd certainly be more prone to either petition them to voice my annoyance or to close my accounts.
btw, I agree with RiverRise that none of this is unique to Chicago, it's just more noticeable here. I just heard this on NPR:
I understand, but I do think potential visitors and "relocators" would be very interested that Chicagoans do care about these issues and that we try to learn from each other.
For example, I had never heard of Mr. Bourgeoisie' point regarding bank branches, that's frustrating, and something people across the City might like to know. I don't like mega banks in general, but if I knew that my bank was doing this I'd certainly be more prone to either petition them to voice my annoyance or to close my accounts.
btw, I agree with RiverRise that none of this is unique to Chicago, it's just more noticeable here. I just heard this on NPR:
fyi..many people never knew of the CRA, therefore there was no way to know they were being discriminated against. I thought since upper class AA's were more educated they would have known and spoken out. I had never heard of it until I worked for that bank.
I understand your concern, but you must understand there is a difference betweeen discussing CRA in poor neighborhoods, or black dating issues and comments that inflame and insult.
The former is an important issue to all. but we can do it in a respectful manner. Chicagoans have not cared about segregation for a very long time unless it was in their face as it is now. . .
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chi-town Native
I understand, but I do think potential visitors and "relocators" would be very interested that Chicagoans do care about these issues and that we try to learn from each other.
For example, I had never heard of Mr. Bourgeoisie' point regarding bank branches, that's frustrating, and something people across the City might like to know. I don't like mega banks in general, but if I knew that my bank was doing this I'd certainly be more prone to either petition them to voice my annoyance or to close my accounts.
btw, I agree with RiverRise that none of this is unique to Chicago, it's just more noticeable here. I just heard this on NPR:
Chicagoans have not cared about segregation for a very long time unless it was in their face as it is now. . .
I grew up with loads of people who tried to build more "Sesame Street" integrated communities and who sought out diversity to expose their kids to.
I think much (most?) Chicago really is often fairly desegregated during the day, in the sense that almost everyone works/travels/socializes in environments that diverse. Editing to note that public schools are often the glaring exception to this rule.
However, where people live clearly is still a different story.
And I think a lot of people don't quite understand how progress on the former doesn't solve the latter, in the sense of how resource and capital investment-strapped those poorer almost exclusively AA areas are.
I think this gets at Mr. Bourgeois' point - what these areas need is not so much an influx of people of a different color, they need capital. They need the money spent in that neighborhood to stay and be re-invested there.
This also highlights the differing opinions on the arrival of chain stores like WalMart. More well to do folks on the north side are irked by what they see as a foreign occupier, and the "food desert" areas (with horrible unemployment) see a company willing to hire their neighbors and invest there.
All I can offer is that it would be great to see an AA neighborhood with the equivalent of this:
Home (http://www.civiceconomics.com/Andersonville/ - broken link)
This compelling study, commissioned by the Andersonville Development Corporation, finds that locally owned businesses generate 70 percent more local economic impact per square foot than chain stores. The study's authors, Dan Houston and Matt Cunningham of Civic Economics, analyzed ten locally owned restaurants, retail stores, and service providers in the Andersonville neighborhood on Chicago's north side and compared them with ten national chains competing in the same categories. They found that spending $100 at one of the neighborhood's independent businesses creates $68 in additional local economic activity, while spending $100 at a chain produces only $43 worth of local impact. They also found that the local businesses generated slightly more sales per square foot compared to the chains ($263 versus $243). Because chains funnel more of this revenue out of the local economy, the study concluded that, for every square foot of space occupied by a chain, the local economic impact is $105, compared to $179 for every square foot occupied by an independent business.
Segregation in Chicago can be traced back to white immigrant populations of Europe. This is why we have or had a little Italy, Greektown, Jewtown, Ukranian Village, little Sicily, Germantown, etc. When Blacks came to the Chicago in huge numbers, all of these white ethic differences became irrelevant and it evolve into a purely Black and White issue. It all began during WWI when Blacks were used as cheap labor and pissed off working class whites. These problems reached its breaking point during the 1919 race riots. Race relations in Chicago was never the same and will never be the same.
The only solutions to the race problem is for people to invest more into each other communities. Open up more restaurants and entertainment venues and not focus everything on one part of the city. I shouldn't have to go to a predominantly black club playing hip hop music on the Northside, when most Blacks live on the South and Westside. I went to the Black Ensemble theater a few months back and drove waaaay up North and saw plenty of non-blacks. I had a great time, but I wonder if the same shows and performers were at the Regal Theater would I see the same demographics? Garrets, a white-own company, opened a store in predominantly Black Chatham. This is the only Garrets outside of Downtown and O'hare airport. This should attract people from all over the Southland region and NWI being that Garretts is so darn popular. I think that the more people spend time in each others neighborhoods, the more comfortable people will be around each other. I believe that economics can bridge that gap.
All I can offer is that it would be great to see an AA neighborhood with the equivalent of this:
Home (http://www.civiceconomics.com/Andersonville/ - broken link)
This compelling study, commissioned by the Andersonville Development Corporation, finds that locally owned businesses generate 70 percent more local economic impact per square foot than chain stores. The study's authors, Dan Houston and Matt Cunningham of Civic Economics, analyzed ten locally owned restaurants, retail stores, and service providers in the Andersonville neighborhood on Chicago's north side and compared them with ten national chains competing in the same categories. They found that spending $100 at one of the neighborhood's independent businesses creates $68 in additional local economic activity, while spending $100 at a chain produces only $43 worth of local impact. They also found that the local businesses generated slightly more sales per square foot compared to the chains ($263 versus $243). Because chains funnel more of this revenue out of the local economy, the study concluded that, for every square foot of space occupied by a chain, the local economic impact is $105, compared to $179 for every square foot occupied by an independent business.[/quote]
I'm not sure about the numbers, but Chatham, which is predominantly black, has a lot of locally owned Businesses.
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