Posted on 04/03/2014 9:43:51 AM PDT by Red Badger
CHICAGO (CBS) — The graphic that you are about to see is sobering, perhaps depressing, and you can’t take your eyes off it.
We have the exhaustive work of Daniel Kay Hertz, a masters student at the University Of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, to thank for that.
At the risk of sounding like an old carnival barker, step right up and watch the middle class of Chicago vanish before your eyes.
However, this is no side-show.
It shows the demise of the foundation of an American city.
Watch as the grey squares, which illustrate the middle class that dominated the most of the city’s neighborhoods in 1970s, quickly vanish over 40 years.
The poor, represented by the orange and red colors, explode across the map.
And watch what happens in the green areas representing the upper middle class and wealthy. Not surprisingly, it spreads from downtown to the north side, but not with the same ferocity as the reds and oranges.
Especially in 2000, the greens-the color of money–grow much darker. It seems the rich simply got richer. In later years, the wealthy pushed the poor out of the near West Side. It appears that area bypassed the middle.
The data comes from the U.S. Census.
In his blog, Hertz says he fears that the often-told story of segregation and income inequality in Chicago has led to apathy.
“These facts somehow seep out of the ground here, as much a part of the city as the lake, and that as a result there’s really nothing we can do about it,” Hertz writes.
Hertz says the work isn’t meant to be depressing. Not along ago, he reasons, there was a large vibrant middle class in Chicago, and it is possible to get it back.
The goal of the maps “is not merely to depress you (you’re welcome!), but to suggest just how dramatically the reality of Chicago’s ‘two cities’ has changed over the last few generations, how non-eternal its present state is, and that a happier alternate reality isn’t just possible, but actually existed relatively recently.”
The middle class is made up of independent, uncontrollable people.
Better (for the left) to have a bunch of dependent peasants and a ruling nobility (them).
Ok then great, you know the area well... and I think we agree that the graphic does not portray an accurate picture
(indeed, it appears that ChiTown region may be doing far better than 80 or 90 percent of American cities these days!)
Which conservative will run against Mayor Emanuel? A May 2013 poll said that 19% of Chicago voters approve of him. I heard of three people who are running against Rahm, but none of them is conservative.
Likely none. I say bring back partisan elections so at least we can have a Republican nominee to cast a protest vote for.
“Besides, this is a misleading chart, because the middle class is still very much there, they just moved to the suburbs. I’m sure you could make a similar chart for every city in America since the 70s if you exclude the suburbs.”
What does that mean for the city itself? Here in NJ having people and businesses flee to the suburbs really hurts the cities; they run out of money, and the infrastructure falls apart. Newark NJ was laying off cops during their worst murder stats in decades; having ants living outside of the grasshoppers’ hive didn’t save them.
I don’t know about Chicago, but another problem facing cities is that the whites aren’t moving to the suburbs; they are disappearing altogether. The suburbs are increasingly Hispanic, and the dwindling number of whites move even further away.
Why, any conservative that will promise the Sow-side a full retention of their welfare bennies.
Now, which “conservative” would that be? My guess is Kirk because he fits that “very specific” conservative profile.
Other wise, some sacrificial pubbi-goat will get tied to the “republican stake” (yes, I recall the race is “non-partisan”) to be slaughtered in the election. Giving another couple of years of gloating to the Dhimmicrats about how republicans can’t win in Chicago.
The only correct response will be to quietly and non-verbally point toward the East and mumble the name “New Fallujah” (AKA: Detroit).
Well, the infrastructure has only improved in Chicago in recent decades, so I haven’t seen that effect. The city has budget problems, but those are mostly all due to the union demands and bloated pension plans, not from drops in revenue.
One thing that helps Chicago is that the near suburbs are in Cook County, so a lot of suburbanites are paying into the same property tax pool. Also, most of the jobs are still in the city, so those businesses are still paying taxes.
I see; here in NJ our municipal taxes pay most of the expenses. The union demands and pensions are killing all of NJ; the cities are dying faster because those expenses are so much higher.
To me this shows the effects of global competition.
Watching a cesspool regurgitate bloody vomit.
“The only correct response will be to quietly and non-verbally point toward the East and mumble the name “New Fallujah” (AKA: Detroit).”
This wouldn’t have any effect, because the people that live here can see there is no real comparison to Detroit’s trajectory. It’s only outsiders that seem convinced this is inevitable.
In Chicago, there are no “direct” municipal taxes on residents, like an income tax. The closest is property tax, but that is collected by the county. Most of the funding comes from sales taxes (along with cigarette/liquor taxes), which is probably why we have one of the highest sales taxes in the country.
In addition to that, there are all sorts of “indirect” taxes, like parking meters, permits, traffic tickets, etc. The city loves to game those “indirect” taxes because the voters don’t get as riled up over those. There are red light and speeding cameras giving automated tickets going up everywhere now to increase those revenues.
I’m betting on white flight to the suburbs.
There is still the need for an honest national conversation about race and the issues of the urban black underclass. Obama has set the chances for that back another 10 years, minimum.
Are you an Illinois resident? If not, are you sure that’s how tax collections work?
Because I can assure you, in these parts much of the point of becoming a city is to wrest control of tax dollars going to the county, and directing them more wisely/locally.
Sen. Mark Kirk won’t run for Chicago mayor, since he lives in Highland Park.
I think that Diane Shapiro, William Kelly, and Carlos Alvarez would be good candidates for mayor.
Yes, I’m a lifelong Chicago resident. All your property taxes go to the county, not the city. Outside of Cook county, other parts of the state do it differently, sometimes levying municipal, township, or school district property taxes too. In Chicago, they just control the county government through the votes that the Chicago political machine controls, so they can spend most of the county resources to run the hospitals and jails in the city.
The city also leeches money indirectly from the rest of the state tax revenues, getting hundreds of millions in education funding back from different state programs so they don’t have to levy local taxes to fund all the schools either. Same thing with public transit, it is under the umbrella of “regional transit authority” not officially controlled by the city (wink wink), so they get bailed out by state money whenever they are in trouble. It’s a pretty tricky system they’ve set up here!
Here in NJ our highest taxes are the property taxes; for “normal” areas those are used to pay cops, teachers, etc.; we don’t have local income taxes (NYC does).
Indeed. Not that he would run even if he did live in Chicago.
Some of his apologists here treated him as if he were from Chicago, claiming that only a Republican as liberal as him could win his old district (which was several points MORE Republican than the state at large and gave Bush 47% of the vote)
Anyway, I'd be happy with almost any choice, instead of the usual nobody.
But that's the thing, the suburbs are not Chicago. And as much as he wants mayor Tiny Dancer (Rahm) can't tax US in the suburbs. And that's ChiRaq's whole problem -- not enough money coming in from the ever dwindling tax base for what's owed to pensions (BILLIONS). And that's a problem the Dems brought on themselves starting with mumble-mouth Daley.
When King Richie II, aka Shortshanks, opened the doors to the city and declared it a 'Sanctuary City' the illegals poured in and the White Middle class -- aka Taxpayers -- left fled in droves. Neighborhood after neighborhood especially on the southwest side went from being a stable, CRIME FREE, tax base to below poverty level Mexican Barrios full of f--king bang-bangers. Add in the 'Gibs-me-dat' generational welfare Blacks who breed like rodents with all the illegals and what's left is one big pile of cr-p.
And it's only getting worse. There's not one single area in ChiRaq now that can be called 'safe' -- not one. Not the Mag Mile, not the Gold Coast, not the far SW or South side. And not the NW Side -- Thursday a guy got robbed at Gun Point a couple hundred feet from Rahm's house, and he has Two Cop Cars right there.
The urban goblins don't care. But the middle class DOES!
-- The only thing keeping the lid on that city is the Coppers and they're undermanned by the thousands. Some beats don't have cops patrolling any more, there's no cop to patrol it. (and there's no money to hire more cops) --
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