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I understand why people think Chicago is similar to Detroit, both are midwestern cities in decline. Both cities have a massive black population but is decreasing. Coming from a person born and raised on the South Side and visits Detroit allot, I been all over Detriot. I stayed on the East Side of Detroit ,been to Highland Park,Detroit isn't similar to Chicago.For one,when affluent blacks move from to Detroit to suburbs , they stay in suburbs.Chicago blacks move,they keep ties to the city,allot commute back daily.Chicago black communities are somewhat vibrant,compact and urban.Detroit feels dead ,allot vacant properties, little street activity. Chicago doesn't feel like a declining city,only people that think like that are people that haven't visited or spent time in the city.
hmm . . . I don't know, I realize its hard to find points that Detroit has over Chicago (although as far as 60s music, Motown beats the Blues. Sorry everyone knows a Supremes or 4 Tops song over B.B. King or Buddy Guy), but in terms of wealthy African American enclaves within the city limits, its hard to beat Detroit propers best neighborhoods.
Although these are not "urban" in the structural sense. Chicago does have a few areas sort of like this. Beverly-Morgan Park, Hyde Park-Kenwood
Chicago is amazing in many ways, but it really does have some of the largest income/education gaps between white and other in the US. (As far as Chicagos hispanic population - no critical mass of white collared, middle class hispanics. Only barrios). Compared that with the sunbelt (California/Texas for Mexicans, Florida for Cubans/South Americans).
(As far as Chicagos hispanic population - no critical mass of white collared, middle class hispanics. Only barrios). Compared that with the sunbelt (California/Texas for Mexicans, Florida for Cubans/South Americans).
Yes lets compare a city where much of the hispanic population is new, to border states and traditional ports of entry for Cubans. Sounds totally logical {sarcasm}.
I understand why people think Chicago is similar to Detroit, both are midwestern cities in decline. Both cities have a massive black population but is decreasing. Coming from a person born and raised on the South Side and visits Detroit allot, I been all over Detriot. I stayed on the East Side of Detroit ,been to Highland Park,Detroit isn't similar to Chicago.For one,when affluent blacks move from to Detroit to suburbs , they stay in suburbs.Chicago blacks move,they keep ties to the city,allot commute back daily.Chicago black communities are somewhat vibrant,compact and urban.Detroit feels dead ,allot vacant properties, little street activity. Chicago doesn't feel like a declining city,only people that think like that are people that haven't visited or spent time in the city.
I would also say, the major difference between Chicago and Detroit, is that Chicagos civic leadership made a swath of the north side appealing to white, well off people, whereas Detroit simply lost ALL its wealthy, white population to the suburbs.
Suburban Chicago and suburban Detroit are basically equivalent. Lake and DuPage Counties Basically as long as you have the concentration of wealth and business in Oakland County (as well as Gross Pointe, etc.) and the world class educational institutions of Ann Arbor, Detroit will have the opportunity to turn around if it really wants to. Again, it does take cooperation.
Yes lets compare a city where much of the hispanic population is new, to border states and traditional ports of entry for Cubans. Sounds totally logical {sarcasm}.
He's not talking specifically about latinos in Chicago, he's talking about minorities in Chicago.
He's not talking specifically about latinos in Chicago, he's talking about minorities in Chicago.
Chicago's black middle class is amongst the largest on planet earth. Our Asian population is small, but fairly affluent. So there really is not much, if any truth to that statement. The only group that has not reached affluence yet are hispanics (largely Mexican). Considering most of them migrated here from poverty plagued locals with in the last 25 years, it's going to take time. But I am already seeing a growing hispanic middle class right here in my zipcode.
Stick to talking about your own backyard as far as this issue is concerned.
Chicago's black middle class is amongst the largest on planet earth. Our Asian population is small, but fairly affluent. So there really is not much, if any truth to that statement. The only group that has not reached affluence yet are hispanics (largely Mexican). Considering most of them migrated here from poverty plagued locals with in the last 25 years, it's going to take time. But I am already seeing a growing hispanic middle class right here in my zipcode.
Stick to talking about your own backyard as far as this issue is concerned.
I mean really, someone from California should not even talk about income disparities. California is the poster child for income disparity. State-by-State: Income Inequality . NOW on PBS
I'm from the Chicago suburbs and moved to LA, so I can safely say I know a little about both areas.
Chicago's black middle class is amongst the largest on planet earth. Our Asian population is small, but fairly affluent. So there really is not much, if any truth to that statement. The only group that has not reached affluence yet are hispanics (largely Mexican). Considering most of them migrated here from poverty plagued locals with in the last 25 years, it's going to take time. But I am already seeing a growing hispanic middle class right here in my zipcode.
Stick to talking about your own backyard as far as this issue is concerned.
I mean really, someone from California should not even talk about income disparities. California is the poster child for income disparity. State-by-State: Income Inequality . NOW on PBS
Compelling stuff. Like the pot calling the kettle "oxford-gray".
Illinois: The gap between Illinois's richest and poorest families is 13th largest in the nation.
New York: The gap between New York's richest and poorest families is the largest in the nation.
In other words: You never actually lived in Chicago, but on the white suburban periphery.
First off, so what if I didn't live in the city?? I actually lived in Oak Park, which is about as close to the city as one can get while still being outside of it.
Secondly, before you got a chance to reply, (I had to go out for a second), but the thought I had was addressing ironically, this very comment.
My comments about Chicago were specifically directed to the CITY itself. There are many suburbs that are in fact more of a model of diversity and integration more than the city itself.
I love Oak Park and is one of the places I miss about Chicagoland. Oak Park is a major exception to what I mentioned. It is very mixed, with a black middle class.
Other suburbs that I think are very diverse, with middle class residents of all creeds include Bolingbrook. Its almost literally 25/25/25/25 there. And nearby Naperville despite its reputation as being lily-white, its downtown district on weekends reflect the more diversified middle class of nearby Bolingrbook, etc.
Schaumburg too (although not too many blacks in Schaumburg). Also, the far south suburbs south of I-80, and east of I-57 are where the largest black middle class areas are.
However, there are specific reasons why I directed my comments towards Chicago proper.
The wave of gentrification that has hapened virtually overnight, is largely a white wave. From the thick rim glass, tight jeans wearing, art school hipsters that move into a neighborhood (that poor hispanics complain about) to the yuppies that have more money that price out the artsy-hipsters it always seemed that in Chicago neighborhood homogeneity was something regarded as inevitable and expected. In an addition to this drastic, sudden wave of gentrification. Chicago (proper) also hit rock bottom in the 80s), with really only the Gold Coast (which always remained ritzy) and a few streets in Lincoln Park) all those areas were generally low income.
To most hispanics and blacks in Chicago, the "city" is not seen in the same light as it is by white (and in some cases) Asian. They typically want to leave the city for the suburbs, to get out of their crappy neighborhoods.
So, while minority families move out of the city and into the suburbs, the remaining minorities become on average less well off, and as areas become more gentrified, by white big ten graduates who have similar tastes in music, food, etc., etc. move in. Plus the white generational Irish-Polish Catholic population in the NW and SW corners of Chicago remain staunchly segregated, because many of them come from long lines of cops and firefighters, and there whole communities of St. Patrick-Pulaski guinness-battered pierogis stay there, and an "Archie Bunker" vibe remains.
LA and California are not a paradise by any means, but a lot of this dialogue of neighborhood change that I heard back in Chicago from people, on the news, etc. such as the artists moving into Pilsen and Humboldt Park and "changing" the neighborhood. I just don't hear that here. In Chicago it always seemed to be about yuppies OR hipsters OR working class ethnics.
In Chicago proper the only truly diverse and integrated areas (which is more typical of New York, LA) are on the far north lakefront (Rogers Park, Edgewater, Uptown, Albany Park), Hyde Park, which is like a little Cambridge, MA surrounded by hood.
I guess in urban California, (which has had its problems don't get me wrong as it was recently the 20th anniversary of the riots), you always had transplants from everywhere, in many different areas, I don't know, but you didn't have this talk like it was EITHER, OR in a neighborhood.
People who aren't too keen on Californias diversity, tend to leave the state altogether, whereas in Chicagoland, they simply move to an area within Chicagoland where people are more like them. And even the riots in LA 20 years ago, was more of a blunder by the courts than anything that reflects that cities race relations.
So, in conclusion, Chicagoland has some great integrated, diversified suburbs (Oak Park, Evanston, Bolingbrook, Schaumburg, Homewood-Flossmoor), but the dynamics in the city however, is a reflection of a city that hit rock bottom 20-30 years ago, then became gentrified overnight, through a progression of artsy-hipsters, and frat-sorority yuppies.
The wave of gentrification that has hapened virtually overnight, is largely a white wave
No it didn't. It was a slow and steady process that started in the late 80's. Thanks for establishing you know nothing about Chicago. Stick to to talking about Oak Park and LA.
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