The Loop and lakefront show all the signs of a city that’s booming. Yet Chicago, and more broadly the midwest, is the epicenter of a little-understood reverse Great Migration.
Economists and policy wonks also say Chicago’s economy isn’t as strong or dynamic as New York’s or those of the Bay Area or metropolitan D.C. They also cite Chicago’s high taxes as a factor in pushing some residents out. And they’d be partly right. But the fact remains that big coastal cities have taxes that are every bit as high, even higher, than those we have here in Chicago.
There’s also the “crime and schools” theory. Chicago’s violent crime rate has been a national story for some years now, and while crime is down significantly from the “crack era” 90s, it hasn’t fallen as much as it has in other major cities. The closure of more than 50 schools in 2013, mostly in black communities on the south and west sides, meant the loss of key local anchor institutions. Without a doubt there are many blacks who feel they are being pushed out of Chicago by its crime challenges, and that the school closures were an indication of a lack of investment in critical local institutions.
The “crime and schools” theory is related to an even broader concept—displacement by decline. A lack of investment in parts of the city leads to institutional destabilization, and ultimately abandonment. When the time is right—values are at their lowest, or the social stigma is lost—revitalization can take place under a new regime. Some black Chicagoans point to the transformation of the South Loop and near south side, which lost nearly half of their (mostly black) residents between 1950 and 1990, but have since tripled in population via a high-rise condo-tower boom. The South Loop and near south side are more diverse than ever, as whites, Latinos, Asians, and others inhabit areas previously unexplored. This is why the discussion of black population loss in Chicago ends with bafflement and befuddlement—and makes “displacement by decline” the de facto policy.
By the middle of this century we could be talking about the incredible transformation of former rust-belt cities. But the blacks who contributed mightily to their growth in the 20th century might not be able to share in the new prosperity. Which leads to the question: Are blacks moving to new spaces with greater opportunity, or moving away from their next best shot at it? v
