Trib editorial on families leaving Chicago (Bentley: buy, private schools, living in)

[Vlajos]

I think blame is the wrong word. The absence of a strong middle class in CPS is the reason many of the schools are bad. I don't blame families for not living in Englewood and West Garfield Park.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by Chi-town Native

Either way, there are a lot of great options in CPS right now, IF you are lucky, wealthy, or your kid is a brainiac. That's great for some of us, not great for the majority.

I feel like the neighborhood school options for K-8 are finally "good enough" to keep many middle class parents engaged in the system in select neighborhoods, but high school is still a real problem since the only true quality options are selective enrollment. And if your oldest kid tests in to one of the better schools, it doesn't mean your second or third or fourth child will. And it can be a really logistical pain to have your kids in various schools across the city.

[chet everett]

The reason there are not "solid middle class families" has more to do with the hostile attitiude toward legitimate employers. Look at places like Elk Grove Village, Romeoville, Addison, Bensenville, or even Gurnee, the kinds of jobs there are heavily biased toward "logistics", which, no secret, are often kind of labor intensive and not really all that hard to fill with folks of just average skills. If folks that run those companies no doubt COULD have put their warehouses and distribution facilities INSIDE Chicago especially out near the airports or down near the terminus of the Skyway or Dan Ryan, but the Teamsters would have had clout with City Hall and the connected building contractors would have charged boatloads more to do the same work that some non-union firms did out in the collar counties.

The same sort of forces that have caused the bankruptcy of Detroit are part of the problem in Chicago and folks that do not want to acknowledge that are not going to make any progress...

[Lookout Kid]

Well, the employment center for the "middle class families" that are being discussed in this article is clearly the greater Loop, and the jobs that they have are typically professional-level. 46% of 25-34 year olds living in the city of Chicago have at least a bachelor's degree, and that is higher than any other major city in the U.S. for that particular demographic (according to the Tribune article being discussed). Employment is not the issue.

"Chicago demographer Rob Paral points out that the 25- to 34-year-olds counted from 2007 to 2011 are even better educated than those in 2000. The Census Bureau's American Community Survey found 46 percent of the residents in that age bracket had a bachelor's degree or higher, compared with 36 percent in 2000. Among America's top 10 cities, Chicago recorded the highest percentage of young college grads and the largest increase since 2000."

[chet everett]

The overall base of employment that Chicago once had literally stretched from corner to corner and the trend that has destroyed the "old" Central Manufacturing District AND the Southeast Side mills AND the Northwest Side smalleer assembly facilities has NOT been offset with growth in the Downtown white collar employment that has LARGELY benefited Report: Downtown Chicago Job Growth Excludes Most City Residents | Progress Illinois

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

I feel like the neighborhood school options for K-8 are finally "good enough" to keep many middle class parents engaged in the system in select neighborhoods, but high school is still a real problem since the only true quality options are selective enrollment. And if your oldest kid tests in to one of the better schools, it doesn't mean your second or third or fourth child will. And it can be a really logistical pain to have your kids in various schools across the city.

Bingo. This.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by chet everett

The overall base of employment that Chicago once had literally stretched from corner to corner and the trend that has destroyed the "old" Central Manufacturing District AND the Southeast Side mills AND the Northwest Side smalleer assembly facilities has NOT been offset with growth in the Downtown white collar employment that has LARGELY benefited Report: Downtown Chicago Job Growth Excludes Most City Residents | Progress Illinois

I get that, and understand that most of the city is suffering from white flight and job loss while other areas are flooded with young college-educated people with higher-paying jobs. But the article referenced here is about people from the Midwest who move to Chicago after college, and then move to the suburbs when they have families. 100% of the warehouses/logistics operations could move from Bensenville and Franklin Park to the Northwest side of the city, and it would have little effect on this segment of the population.

But perhaps the Tribune missed the boat by focusing on 25-34 year-olds with college degrees. The "middle class" used to be a lot larger and more inclusive, and included many without college degrees. So I see where you're coming from, Chet.

[North Side Brandon]

Originally Posted by Chi-town Native

Why? It's unAmerican - I mean, literally - and deeply divisive. There is no fair way to do this.

A kid could go to a secular private school too.

[todd00]

Originally Posted by Atlanta_BD

it was the kids from dysfunctional environments that made going to school a problem.

And it's still that same way, in the schools and the neighborhoods.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

I get that, and understand that most of the city is suffering from white flight and job loss while other areas are flooded with young college-educated people with higher-paying jobs. But the article referenced here is about people from the Midwest who move to Chicago after college, and then move to the suburbs when they have families. 100% of the warehouses/logistics operations could move from Bensenville and Franklin Park to the Northwest side of the city, and it would have little effect on this segment of the population.

But perhaps the Tribune missed the boat by focusing on 25-34 year-olds with college degrees. The "middle class" used to be a lot larger and more inclusive, and included many without college degrees. So I see where you're coming from, Chet.

Believe me, I like having neighbors out in the burbs that are part of the 1st generation immigrant experience as I think the drive and ambition they bring is a good thing. I similarly have no problem with folks that may not have a college degree but becuase of technical saavy can command a salary well into the six figures but the elites that are so eager to help connected developers make over parts of Chicago that used to hold appeal for these same folks are a trading short term "pop" of gentrification for a long term bimodal distribution of a permament underclass and an urbanophile upperclass with no signficant real "middle"...

When I see folks that are not just the advanced degree holders from Birla Institute of Technology settling first into Naperville but also folks that maybe came from a much less prestigous school or never finished college working as a technician but choosing to live in the burbs that really signals some problems that Chicago is going to face when it immigrants skip over Chicago altogether....