Is the Southside really that bad? (Chicago, Harvey: motel, live in, dangerous)

[Humboldt1]

Manigault,

Can you or someone else please post the ethnographic breakdown of Hyde Park using 2005 or newer numbers? A lot is different than 20000.

You said Hyde Park is only 40 percent white (which implies it is 60 percent black).

What are the actual numbers? Thanks in advance.

[oakparkdude]

Originally Posted by Manigault

Since Hyde Park is only about 40% white (for the last 30 years) I will discount your rant by the same percentage and judge your remarks accordingly.

Yeah, Manigault is right. Hyde Park is nowhere close to lily-white. A brief walk or drive through the neighborhood makes this obvious.

Hyde Park

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by sukwoo

Yeah, Manigault is right. Hyde Park is nowhere close to lily-white. A brief walk or drive through the neighborhood makes this obvious.

Hyde Park

Hyde Park


Ummm 2000's stats say White alone is (45.8%). I am willing to bet there are more Whites now. I am curious to see where I can find more recent stats.

Of course, I would not say Hyde Park is "Lily White", but there are way more Whites in Hyde Park than most areas of the South Side.

Does the census count the college students? Hmmm.

[Humboldt1]

Avengerfire and I are on the same page. No one is saying that Hyde Park is lily white but there are certainly more whites than blacks (especially if you include the students which mostly don't get counted).

This next bit is from me only, not avengerfire.

Tough question that will tick many off:

What are the neighborhoods in Chicago or suburbs that are nice where blacks outnumber whites? Hyde Park and Oak Park cannot be included as whites outnumber blacks in these neighborhoods and suburbs.

I think Olympia Fields would be an example of this. I don't know the exact racial breakdown there though.

[noid_1985]

Originally Posted by NearWestSider

Do you have any numbers to back that up, because that is NOT what I am hearing from the long-term residents of South Shore, Chatham, etc, who are complaining the the CHA's "plan for transformation" is in reality a plan for transforming THEIR neighborhoods into ghettos.

I know the CHA is a convenient excuse and a wonderful target, so if their is any hard data on this, please point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance.

CHANGE - Chicago Housing Authority | About Us | Frequently Asked Questions not the hard facts that you and I both were looking for, but I guess it sheds a LITTLE light about where the residents were being moved to. I was shocked that ONLY 30 families have moved to the south suburbs using their voucher in the first two years of the relocation process, but the relocation process has been in motion for almost 10 years. The site also doesn't mention the locations of temporary relocated families. The site seems to be very vague in that regard.

[NearWestSider]

Originally Posted by Humboldt1

Avengerfire and I are on the same page. No one is saying that Hyde Park is lily white but there are certainly more whites than blacks (especially if you include the students which mostly don't get counted).

This next bit is from me only, not avengerfire.

Tough question that will tick many off:

What are the neighborhoods in Chicago or suburbs that are nice where blacks outnumber whites? Hyde Park and Oak Park cannot be included as whites outnumber blacks in these neighborhoods and suburbs.

I think Olympia Fields would be an example of this. I don't know the exact racial breakdown there though.

Your question won't tick me off, because I'm not afraid of the truth. And the truth is, most of the South Side is not really all that bad. If it were, all those people wouldn't be living there.

But it is difficult to pin down specific neighborhoods as being "good" or "bad", only specific parts of neighborhoods. For example, South Shore, which has been getting a horrible rap of late, is a rathole along 79th street, but for the most part quiet and middle class south of 83'rd. It is literally night and day. Wentworth Gardens is mostly CHA, but it is also a quiet neighborhood I have no qualms about going into. Even Back of the Yards, which has been maligned badly in the press of late, is OK around 47th, but transitions to bad once you get to 55th.

Things vary block by block down there, so generalizations are hard to make, and the only "neighborhood" I have found to be uniformly bad is Englewood, although people tell me that even there the area around Chicago State is OK.

The point is: middle class or working class black people don't need a bunch of white people around to live quiet, normal lives. But they don't need a bunch of low-class slobs robbing them and begging for money, either, and if thieves start moving into and taking over their neighborhoods, those that have the means to do so will pack up and leave.

[ajolotl]

Originally Posted by NearWestSider

Your question won't tick me off, because I'm not afraid of the truth. And the truth is, most of the South Side is not really all that bad. If it were, all those people wouldn't be living there.

But it is difficult to pin down specific neighborhoods as being "good" or "bad", only specific parts of neighborhoods. For example, South Shore, which has been getting a horrible rap of late, is a rathole along 79th street, but for the most part quiet and middle class south of 83'rd. It is literally night and day. Wentworth Gardens is mostly CHA, but it is also a quiet neighborhood I have no qualms about going into. Even Back of the Yards, which has been maligned badly in the press of late, is OK around 47th, but transitions to bad once you get to 55th.

Things vary block by block down there, so generalizations are hard to make, and the only "neighborhood" I have found to be uniformly bad is Englewood, although people tell me that even there the area around Chicago State is OK.

The point is: middle class or working class black people don't need a bunch of white people around to live quiet, normal lives. But they don't need a bunch of low-class slobs robbing them and begging for money, either, and if thieves start moving into and taking over their neighborhoods, those that have the means to do so will pack up and leave.

This is a very sensible post. This reminds me of friends of mine who live in smaller towns or rural areas. They tell me that Chicago is a hello-hole and cesspool of crime and can't believe that I would feel safe living here. When I protest they say "look at the crime numbers". I try to explain the nuances, local variations, how it affects some neighborhoods but not mine, etc. but these distinctions seem totally lost on them. I tend to feel offended that they characterize my city as a dump. I think the same is true on a smaller scale for individual neighborhoods with troubled spots -- there are large segments where the residents feel safe and where there are few if any problems.

[Humboldt1]

Nearwestsider,

I understand and agree with most of your post. Neighborhoods vary by block, with some nicer than areas and it is tough to generalize whether an entire neighborhood is nice or not.

Still, saying Wentworth Gardens, which is mostly CHA, is nice is a bit of a stretch.

North Lawndale, West Garfield Park are definitely "bad." Englewood is a gimme.

Most of East Garfield Park, Austin are "bad." Half of Humboldt Park, particularly south of grand, is "bad."

Of course many don't agree with me on this. These also tend to be the same people that say Lansing is a "nice area."

[Manigault]

I've lived in Hyde park 34 years and in all that time there have been more black folks than white folks in this neighborhood. Every census I have seen about the area in that time reflects this.

Of course others, farther away and dealing with anecdotal rather than empirical evidence, may be more credible in their claim that Hyde Park has a white majority.

A person can count students, but how often are the commuters to Hyde Park counted? Don't let the mid-day crowds fool ya!

[MrChicago]

Well the southside is kinda bad. I'm from the the southside of Chicago and I don't even miss around with it like that because of the crime infested souls that are residence. But the southside only got that way from people that was pushed out of the projects to the southside. These people(the ones that made the projects so terrifing to live) have no regard for life at all , not even their own. If this was five years ago you would be asking is the westside really that bad.