Chicago Turning into a Tale of Two Cities (Springfield, Lincoln: credit, camp)

[C. Maurio]

Do you know where I went to college after prison? The City Colleges of Chicago. Specifically Truman College with some classes at Harold Washington College (Loop College). The point I am trying to make is that there is plenty of good opportunity in Chicago. If a convicted felon and high school drop out can make it work here, most people can. That is not to say it will be easy street but if you put yourself into it and stick with the programs, you can make it here.

[Irishtom29]

People who think that because they made it then most anyone can fail to give themselves enough credit.

The fact is we have a system in which many people MUST fail for the system to work and we seem content with this system though few are content to honestly face that reality.

People value hard work until they have to pay for it.

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by emathias

In the 1950s and 60s there were dozens of movies dealing with "what happens when science and automation eliminate all the easy jobs". We're finally fast approaching that time, and no one seems to have an answer to the question of "what do we do with people who simply aren't capable of doing the remaining high-skilled jobs?"

An ancillary question is, "How long will we run our economy where we treat lottery winners like they won on skill?"

Inventors and leaders should be rewarded for their vision and ability to make things happen. But it shouldn't be like winning the lottery where lucky makes the bulk of the difference between a nice time and an explosion of cash.

and I think its the source of a lot of Americas social issues. I know people need to take responsibility for themselves and don't and I know those committing street crime aren't doing it because they became unemployed from the plant. Yet there seems to be obvious connections.

[williepotatoes]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

People value hard work until they have to pay for it.

And then they move the plant to China.

[Midwest Revival]

Chicago has always been the Tale of Two Cities, just compare the Southside with the Northside..

[williepotatoes]

Originally Posted by Midwest Revival

Chicago has always been the Tale of Two Cities, just compare the Southside with the Northside..

Good point. You could write volumes about the economic and class distinctions that have come, gone and come again in this town over the last century. As well as the ecomonic seachanges that have swept thru here and turned things upside down time and time again. Add in the changes in social fabric and you have a casserole of events that influenced where we are today.

I don't lose sleep over the future, because of the large core of wealth and discretionary income that is at Chicago's core. The growth in newcomers/transplants over the last twenty years is a divine blessing. And we should see that flow keep trickling in if amongst other things, we can just get our local journalistic vermin to keep the gloom and doom in proper perspective.

The shiny, prosperous chunk of Chicago is bigger than anything I would have imagined 30-40 years ago. In simple English, there's lots of money flowing back and forth on those streets. The question is, will enough of our have nots be be intuitive enough to find the path to these dollars thru work, imagination and basic skills.

[Link N. Parker]

I love, love, love this city!!!!

There HAS to be a way to brainstorm and come up with ideas on how to fix the challenges (problems) that are our city is facing.

Let's come up with some ideas.

I am going to break my ideas down into Priority Tiers:

Tier 1: Public Safety. The basic responsibility of government is Public Safety. We HAVE to secure the City and make not only the North Side, but the ENTIRE CITY, an environment where ALL residents can exist and operate their lives on a daily basis, so that they can pursue the american dream. We must create an environment where all Constitutional protections are honored and where people can safely live and pursue their dreams. Having said that, we must shore up the police force. We must admit that we have made mistakes as a city, and ask for help from the Federal Government if need be, to hire 2000+ police officers and to ask the Federal govt to shore up the pension funds. We need to petition for National Guard assistance in patrolling the city and dissolving the gang control over intersections and neighborhoods. Make it hard for gangs to operate by limiting their movement. Admit that citizens are allowed to protect their own bodies, and allow Concealed Carry. CC has been a huge success in 49 other states, allow it here and crime will go down. The Republicans are right on this issue; be a leader and admit it and lets move forward with this.

Tier 2: Education. In order to attract more families back to the city, we need to rearrange and reorganize the city schools to serve local communities and to get the same level of funding that suburban schools would receive.

Tier 3: Business and Jobs. Other states (epesically TX) offer VERY competitive economic packages. We need to find ways to offer the same benefits to companies so that they will want to move here.

Any other ideas?

[JBVirtuoso]

I think Chicago needs to really excel in one particular industry. I can't think of any industry where Chicago is the best that the world has to offer. I'm not sure what industry this would be, and it's too vague to be a policy goal. But when we look at the cities in the US with the strongest job markets, they all have one defining feature. Chicago is "pretty good" at what it does, but it's not "the best." I think that being the best at one thing (while still having a diversified and holistic economy) could really accelerate the city's economic growth. Then again, this will almost certainly not lead to economic equality, so it might not be a direct solution to this issue.

[chicagobear]

I think part of the issue is that the increase in Mexicans has caused low skill wage rates to go down and they've taken jobs away from blacks. Lots of jobs that blacks used to have are filled by Mexicans now, mostly illegal I think. If Mexicans had never come to Chicago in such large numbers, the native blacks would have better and higher paying jobs.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by chicagobear

I think part of the issue is that the increase in Mexicans has caused low skill wage rates to go down and they've taken jobs away from blacks. Lots of jobs that blacks used to have are filled by Mexicans now, mostly illegal I think. If Mexicans had never come to Chicago in such large numbers, the native blacks would have better and higher paying jobs.

Mexican migration may have had some impact, but it certainly was not the most important cause of a decline in wages experienced by those in historically black neighborhoods.

The loss of manufacturing, especially the collapse of the steel industry in the U.S., was a far, far larger contributing factor. That had absolutely nothing to do with immigration, it had to do with automation and disparity between U.S. environmental attitudes vs. environmental attitudes in other countries. Much of the employment issues on the Southeast Side is a direct result of the steel industry collapse.

Much of the issue in places like Englewood is the result of a collapse of other manufacturing in Chicago caused by offshoring. When it comes to offshoring, an argument could be made that MORE immigration would have saved jobs by preventing wages from increasing to the point where moving entire production lines overseas made sense. Offshoring millions of jobs didn't only hurt black workers, it hurt immigrant workers and it also hurt white workers, and it certainly wasn't caused by immigration to the U.S.

Finally, it was "white flight" that caused the economic collapse of large neighborhoods on the South and West Sides. Immigrants had zero to do with white flight. White flight was caused by white racism and, to some extent, either real or perceived dangers caused by rioting and crime that followed some of the social revolution of the 1960s fed by the Civil Rights movement and the assassinations of many of the Civil Rights leaders. The interaction of Civil Rights efforts mixed with assassinations, the hope of progress with the despair of oppressive assassinations is a complicated issue and I'm not at all judging the cultural upheavals that happened during and after that, but even positive change often has unintended and unforeseeable negative aspects which shouldn't be ignored simply because it's a hard thing to think about.