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This will never ever happen. Economics forced them to leave in the first place so how has that changed? Watch the Obama produced documentary "American Factory" about Chinese company Fuyao opening a glass factory in Dayton, OH....or the Michael Moore documentay "The Big One" where he pleads with Nike founder Phil Knight to move a factory to Detroit. Both make this blatantly clear. If you have a high school diploma you'd better get a job that can't be outsourced like construction, plumbing, electrician, etc. (all which pay fairly well). Education, technology, skills and high tech manufacturing are keys to the American future.
As for revitalizing the West side it can happen from within if the culture changes. But that likely won't happen so it will have to hope gentrification from West Loop development marching West which also won't happen much more as white collar workers de-couple from offices and move elsewhere. I fear we will gradually see the slow and steady decline of Chicago due to politics, debt, taxes, topography, weather and crime.
Much like COVID may have reshaped office work (as you have pointed out many times) it also showed the strategic problem of continued reliance on foreign goods. I don't see how you can say office work is nearly certain to change but manufacturing is going to continue to follow the same unsustainable course it has been.
Our incoming President, in winning by over 7 million popular votes, stated that he will:
Mobilize American manufacturing and innovation to ensure that the future is made in America, and in all of America. We’ve seen the importance of bringing home critical supply chains so that we aren’t dependent on other countries in future crises. But Biden believes we can’t stop there — he is releasing a plan today to build a strong industrial base and small-business-led supply chains to retain and create millions of good-paying union jobs in manufacturing and technology across the country.
I'm curious to see what the new administration does to fulfill this promise. It certainly helped win key swing states such as PA, so I hope it's not empty rhetoric.
Start replacing the anti-White, victim preaching, race-obsessed leftist local govt with strong Black conservatives who preach two-parent families, education and love of country.
Within a decade the west side would see unfathomable improvements
Bring back the good paying manufacturing jobs that only called for a high school diploma.
The end.
Whenever I hear some variation of "give them a job" thing in relation on how to stop crime and fix hoods, I'm reminded of a particular joke I would hear when I was a kid in the early 80's: "throw them a basketball".
Like bringing back mfg jobs (and how do we propose to do that, with a magic wand?) and presto, no more crime, streets get clean, fences mended and flowers planted, and everything becomes right with the world. I'm sorry, but this is a fairy tale.
Boddicker is right on, the internal culture needs a major overhaul, that's the answer.
Whenever I hear some variation of "give them a job" thing in relation on how to stop crime and fix hoods, I'm reminded of a particular joke I would hear when I was a kid in the early 80's: "throw them a basketball".
Like bringing back mfg jobs (and how do we propose to do that, with a magic wand?) and presto, no more crime, streets get clean, fences mended and flowers planted, and everything becomes right with the world. I'm sorry, but this is a fairy tale.
Boddicker is right on, the internal culture needs a major overhaul, that's the answer.
A Perfect Storm created the growth of the inner-city of lost middle-class jobs for low-skilled workers that yes.... Unions did help secure and played a roll in abandonment (yes abandonment) of America by Companies/Corporations with even tax incentives to we know where....
The Perfect Storm was ...
- opening up more suburban development by expressways destroying neighborhoods to speed those who left the city entirely toward its core.
- as a Anti-Union aid, Companies actually lured Southern African-Americans to work in the mills up North and could pay them less by the racial card.
- all these Black people restricted to certain areas of the city needed more room and of course laws that then gave them a right to live elsewhere.
- White Flight. Most see it as prejudice alone and bigotry. Still it had a key fear-factor point that fueled it mostly..... that was those that set Property Values or Price-Points. Minorities present caused Property Values to drop fast.
- The resulting FEAR of - last one out took the larges loss - was the real factor and FACT more-or-less.
- The big beginning of course Corporations ABANDONING their inner-city mills to build a new plant in the Suburbs.
- The Huge Kahuna .... of movement of our MFG to Asia. Japan then Taiwan and of course the Giant we created in China today.
All this fed on itself to racial turmoil in each decade and Chicago's history proves it with riots even the Machine vs Unions kinds and of course the Race ones where the 60s in general was as DRASTIC as it comes and culminating in 1968 assasinations and Democratic Convention and Richie Daley wanting especially all the Anti-Vietnam protesters and of course MLK killed and Bobby Kennedy had Da Major demand they all leave Grant Park as never given Permits to be there and even camp out etc.
Some neighborhoods were set on fire of course in rioting even before the Convention with such a year where two figures were assasinated a couple months apart and the Convention set Chicago back for years of bad publicity.
By the late 60's ..... the South side was already changed forever. The large Hispanic Movement yet to come. Term Changing neighborhoods approaching the Northwest Side and Southwest Sides that were where many of White-Flight lead many.... feared it reaching them. As I noted once.... 70s 80s Chicago had you judged by how far North, South,and West you lived by the 100s blocks.
Lost jobs, Low Pride or crushed Pride that has a way to feed anger and hate. Crime increases and failure in Great Society measures that could not fix the core problems in - BRING BACK THE JOBS or change the divided Families and DRUGS TO CRIME factors that the High-Rise Projects proved to be a total Failure in became Ghettos they were to prevent.
Presidents can say they are running on BRINGING BACK THE JOBS FROM CHINA.... Still do we think by their OWN GOOD WILL will relocate to the inner-cities? There will need to be HUUUUGE Incentives and the issue of is our Minimum Wage still a living wage if we want a materialistic Society where masses need spending power to keep the money going round and round.
Everyone one needing insurance for cars and healthcare a huge issue over a certain wage to have without the right kind of job that provides it at least partly paying a big share..... wanting a newer cell phone and computer need for internet that is hardly free unless access to WiFi from someone else or business. Added cost past generations did not have. HOA fees that once did not exist. Still they do not exist for all of small City America. Plenty that do not have a HOA fee as my area.
There is no way wages in the US can Compete with China's labor and devalued currency.
Today..... the only hope is Gentrification and access to downtown was a key. Now today so called continued Work-from-home being touted to be a New Normal..... has one even see this hope slow.
Ronald Reagan wanted inner-city incentive regions called - Enterprise Zones in the 80s passed which did not pass Congress. It might have been a Great Start that early to at least KEEP what was left in the city with some Federal incentives? There are some Fed $$$ that go to states .... still it is not restricted to inner-cities.
Elon Musk got some Fed $$$ for his new plant to be built just outside of Austin TX yes... Fed $$$ somehow went his way too. Texas was for decades a getting back more in Fed $$$ then sent in. That has recently changed... did not all just dry up though.
Illinois I believe is still a state more fed $$ are sent to DC then the state gets back.
Still IT IS EASY to say --- bring back Family Values and Mom and Dad at home .....well at least both working and maintaining a home. Just soooo much bad out there to lure even the kids from the best families...WE ALL KNOW HOW DRUGS ALONE HAVE CAUSE CHILDREN OF THE BEST PARENTS TO FAIL. Those raised in the inner-cities hoods.... have even more likelihood of falling prey to all the strife around them......
So not magic wand will be doing it...... ANOTHER PERFECT STORM perhaps of each movement in the right direction..... may or at least Gentrification increasing and more poor find relocation outside the cities best to look into.....
Lost jobs, Low Pride or crushed Pride that has a way to feed anger and hate. Crime increases and failure in Great Society measures that could not fix the core problems in - BRING BACK THE JOBS or change the divided Families and DRUGS TO CRIME factors that the High-Rise Projects proved to be a total Failure in became Ghettos they were to prevent.
Presidents can say they are running on BRINGING BACK THE JOBS FROM CHINA.... Still do we think by their OWN GOOD WILL will relocate to the inner-cities? There will need to be HUUUUGE Incentives and the issue of is our Minimum Wage still a living wage if we want a materialistic Society where masses need spending power to keep the money going round and round.
Still IT IS EASY to say --- bring back Family Values and Mom and Dad at home .....well at least both working and maintaining a home. Just soooo much bad out there to lure even the kids from the best families...WE ALL KNOW HOW DRUGS ALONE HAVE CAUSE CHILDREN OF THE BEST PARENTS TO FAIL. Those raised in the inner-cities hoods.... have even more likelihood of falling prey to all the strife around them......
So not magic wand will be doing it...... ANOTHER PERFECT STORM perhaps of each movement in the right direction..... may or at least Gentrification increasing and more poor find relocation outside the cities best to look into.....
Excellent points. The lack of dignity of work is a large part of what's causing the deplorable conditions in our ghettos. There are other issues, of course, but good paying jobs are the cornerstone of fixing them. Without that, all the "pick 'em up by the scruff of the neck and instill family values in 'em" talk is a bunch of empty hot air that isn't going to work.
We need to stand up to China. Lately, we've been doing that more than ever in the past, and hopefully that will continue under the new administration. Even if you don't give a hoot about the urban poor getting any opportunity, it's strategically very dangerous for us to keep going down the path we've been going. Some people act like there's a fundamental right to cheap labor. There isn't. Continue using tariffs to incentivize manufacturing in the U.S. That's what China does, along with currency manipulation, suppression of labor rights, lack of environmental standards, and so on to benefit their own country. Why can't we ever do the same?
Excellent points. The lack of dignity of work is a large part of what's causing the deplorable conditions in our ghettos. There are other issues, of course, but good paying jobs are the cornerstone of fixing them. Without that, all the "pick 'em up by the scruff of the neck and instill family values in 'em" talk is a bunch of empty hot air that isn't going to work.
We need to stand up to China. Lately, we've been doing that more than ever in the past, and hopefully that will continue under the new administration. Even if you don't give a hoot about the urban poor getting any opportunity, it's strategically very dangerous for us to keep going down the path we've been going. Some people act like there's a fundamental right to cheap labor. There isn't. Continue using tariffs to incentivize manufacturing in the U.S. That's what China does, along with currency manipulation, suppression of labor rights, lack of environmental standards, and so on to benefit their own country. Why can't we ever do the same?
Family life and culture / values is everything. Again, Chinatowns, Koreatowns, and all other asian towns all over the US prove this. Harvard literally got sued over allegations its admissions process was limiting Asians. Here is a great article on the journey of Atlanta Falcons kicker Younghoe Koo from Korea to the NFL pro bowl. One excerpt from the article says it all about family life and culture:
"When I was in Korea, you don't have the opportunity to play sports unless you give up academics," Koo says. "My dad knew I had the athleticism, so he gave me the chance to not have to get all A's but get B's and pursue football, just to go play. Even the Korean friends that I had, their parents didn't really allow them to come over because of that," Koo says. "I just felt independent from a very young age."
Family life and culture / values is everything. Again, Chinatowns, Koreatowns, and all other asian towns all over the US prove this. Harvard literally got sued over allegations its admissions process was limiting Asians. Here is a great article on the journey of Atlanta Falcons kicker Younghoe Koo from Korea to the NFL pro bowl. One excerpt from the article says it all about family life and culture:
"When I was in Korea, you don't have the opportunity to play sports unless you give up academics," Koo says. "My dad knew I had the athleticism, so he gave me the chance to not have to get all A's but get B's and pursue football, just to go play. Even the Korean friends that I had, their parents didn't really allow them to come over because of that," Koo says. "I just felt independent from a very young age."
Different demographics do not possess the same culture/values, one may note.
Nearly all immigrant ethnic groups have a few things in common. Take the indians for instance, you got east indians immigrating here, a few years later they got a business going, a house in the burbs, and pretty much guaranteed the kids will be college-bound and onto great careers.
Why is that? Well primarily, it's because they have a strong family structure, which is within a strong community structure. It's simply unacceptable to have a slacker son in the family, let alone a criminal...it a pox on the family within the community. Or a man abandoning his family? An unmarried indian woman raising kids from multiple fathers? Unthinkable...what would the community think? I'm sure all that happens, but it's rare because of the resulting stigma within the community. The entire community is geared toward upward mobility primarily because that brings status within it, while not being upwardly mobile lowers said status. You'll see exactly that in basically every other ethnic group as well.
But take the reverse approach, normalize criminality, normalize single-mother parenting, normalize sitting on the dole...ain't no "jobs" gonna fix jack, sorry. But all that stuff really started AFTER the civil rights movement, btw. You guys ever hear of Thomas Sowell? Brilliant man. He's got some interesting things to say about black america, as a black american.
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