Amazing Graphic Shows Chicago’s Middle Class Disappear Before Your Eyes

[Steely Dan]

^ good point. pdxtex seemed to be making an erroneous connection between the most "bombed out" neighborhoods and the most unsafe neighborhoods, but as you pointed out, truly "bombed-out" urban prairies like one finds in detroit are so vacant and abandoned that there aren't enough people left for crime to be as big an issue as it is in a more populated area. neighborhoods like chicago's englewood, where the commercial strips are mostly destroyed, but the residential housing stock & population remain, are far more dangerous.

as of census 2010, englewood still had ~30,000 people living in about 3 sq. miles for a density of roughly 10,000 ppsm. that's not terribly high in the grand scheme of things, but it's way, WAY higher than some completely abandoned urban prairie. despite large population losses over the past half century, englewood is still home to enough people for there to be serious problems there.

[pdxtex]

when you grow up around detroit the bar has been set high for urban blight! i guess it needs to look shitty for me to believe it is. if there is only one or two burned out houses along the block then its ok. its like that dave chappelle skit when he goes out to see his cousins in compton expecting to see a real life n.w.a. tape, and people are out mowing their lawns and drinking lemonade. growing up, chicago was described to me as a block by block kind of city. one block was good, one was shady. so then whats going on in the north side? is it just a lack of supply? seems like a 30 minute train ride out from the loop is reasonable distance and might yield some cool neighborhoods.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

seems like a 30 minute train ride out from the loop is reasonable distance and might yield some cool neighborhoods....

a 30 minute el ride out from the loop can yield some cool neighborhoods and also some of the worst ghettos in the nation. chicago's good neighbrohoods are amazing (and exorbitantly expensive for family-sized homes). chicago's bad neighborhoods are otherworldly bad. as the graphic in the first post of this thread shows, chicago's in-between neighborhoods for regular old middle class folks have been getting squeezed out as the middle class moved en masse to places like like mount prospect and bolingbrook over the past 40 years, and the rich people left in the city got richer and the poor people left in the city got poorer on a relative scale.

a tale of two cities, over and over and over again. a problem that seems to be getting worse. meanwhile, my wife and i ponder where our white middle class asses might fit in this city, or if we should just throw in the towel and join the rest of our family-raising demographic out in the burbs. ugh.....

fuck it, we should just move to milwaukee. my brother-in-law's nephew recently purchased a very nice century-old 4-bedroom house in milwaukee's bayview neighborhood for $185,000. sign me up!

[Steely Dan]

i cleaned up a bunch of off-topic posts in this thread.

now back to our regularly scheduled discussion.

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

a 30 minute el ride out from the loop can yield some cool neighborhoods and also some of the worst ghettos in the nation. chicago's good neighbrohoods are amazing (and exorbitantly expensive for family-sized homes). chicago's bad neighborhoods are otherworldly bad. as the graphic in the first post of this thread shows, chicago's in-between neighborhoods for regular old middle class folks have been getting squeezed out as the middle class moved en masse to places like like mount prospect and bolingbrook over the past 40 years, and the rich people left in the city got richer and the poor people left in the city got poorer on a relative scale.

a tale of two cities, over and over and over again. a problem that seems to be getting worse. meanwhile, my wife and i ponder where our white middle class asses might fit in this city, or if we should just throw in the towel and join the rest of our family-raising demographic out in the burbs. ugh.....

fuck it, we should just move to milwaukee. my brother-in-law's nephew recently purchased a very nice century-old 4-bedroom house in milwaukee's bayview neighborhood for $185,000. sign me up!

milwaukee is cool (or the fact that it isnt cool makes it desireable) i think what you are feeling about chicago is happening all over the country though, this rush back to central cities is driving up prices and real estate speculation is going nutty. i get that people want to live in the central city, but portland, SF, chicago, (fill in the blank) isnt that cool, or much cooler then any other place really. the place to be might be the milwaukees, pittsburghs, clevelands, omahas! its people who make it or break it. chicago is a world city though, its just happens to be in the midwest so its full of cautious and pragmatic people. imagine if chicago were plopped down along coastal georgia or someplace warmer. it would be twice as expensive! dude, go to duluth if you want cheap and fun......you are already used to the cold.....

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

a 30 minute el ride out from the loop can yield some cool neighborhoods and also some of the worst ghettos in the nation. chicago's good neighbrohoods are amazing (and exorbitantly expensive for family-sized homes). chicago's bad neighborhoods are otherworldly bad. as the graphic in the first post of this thread shows, chicago's in-between neighborhoods for regular old middle class folks have been getting squeezed out as the middle class moved en masse to places like like mount prospect and bolingbrook over the past 40 years, and the rich people left in the city got richer and the poor people left in the city got poorer on a relative scale.

a tale of two cities, over and over and over again. a problem that seems to be getting worse. meanwhile, my wife and i ponder where our white middle class asses might fit in this city, or if we should just throw in the towel and join the rest of our family-raising demographic out in the burbs. ugh.....

fuck it, we should just move to milwaukee. my brother-in-law's nephew recently purchased a very nice century-old 4-bedroom house in milwaukee's bayview neighborhood for $185,000. sign me up!

Steely, Milwaukee is nice but it depends on how badly you want to stay in Chicago.

I chose metro Chicago over Milwaukee, but I gave up a walkable environment for the proximity to a global city. You have made it clear that you care much more for the walkable environment than anything else, so I gather that these are your choices:

1) Live in Milwaukee
2) Buy a cheap fixer upper in Chicago and do a lot of the work yourself
3) Buy a condo in Chicago--cheaper, but obviously it's not a SFH. But if it's near a park, you can still have space for your kids.
4) There must still be some walkable suburbs that have cheaper housing (and aren't full of gangsters), right? This one I'm not so sure about, but worth considering...

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

imagine if chicago were plopped down along coastal georgia or someplace warmer. it would be twice as expensive! dude,

^ While I get your point, if I were picky I would actually argue that if Chicago were "plopped down somewhere warmer" it never would have grown to what it currently is to begin with.

Chicago owes its size and economic importance to its location, to which it also owes its having to miss out on some of the "action" of the coasts.

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Steely, Milwaukee is nice but it depends on how badly you want to stay in Chicago.

I chose metro Chicago over Milwaukee, but I gave up a walkable environment for the proximity to a global city. You have made it clear that you care much more for the walkable environment than anything else, so I gather that these are your choices:

1) Live in Milwaukee
2) Buy a cheap fixer upper in Chicago and do a lot of the work yourself
3) Buy a condo in Chicago--cheaper, but obviously it's not a SFH. But if it's near a park, you can still have space for your kids.
4) There must still be some walkable suburbs that have cheaper housing (and aren't full of gangsters), right? This one I'm not so sure about, but worth considering...

^^^4 is what im curious about also. does a neighborhood have to be mixed for most white people to consider living there? as i understand it, chicago has a dicey history with race relations but things hopefully are changing. what would happen if a white family moved into an all black middle class block somewhere on the south side? would the neighbors look at them like they are crazy, run them out of town, bake them cookies??

[Buckman821]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

what would happen if a white family moved into an all black middle class block somewhere on the south side?

This doesn't even really exist in Chicago anymore, unfortunately. The nicer parts of South Shore are the closest thing that comes to mind, but even that neighborhood has some pretty serious gang problems if you walked a few blocks in the wrong direction.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Buckman821

This doesn't even really exist in Chicago anymore, unfortunately. The nicer parts of South Shore are the closest thing that comes to mind, but even that neighborhood has some pretty serious gang problems if you walked a few blocks in the wrong direction.

It doesn't exist because why would a middle class black family want to live in an all-black neighborhood, which is bound to have various economic and social problems (that's why it's a racial ghetto)?

[Reverberation]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

a 30 minute el ride out from the loop can yield some cool neighborhoods and also some of the worst ghettos in the nation. chicago's good neighbrohoods are amazing (and exorbitantly expensive for family-sized homes). chicago's bad neighborhoods are otherworldly bad. as the graphic in the first post of this thread shows, chicago's in-between neighborhoods for regular old middle class folks have been getting squeezed out as the middle class moved en masse to places like like mount prospect and bolingbrook over the past 40 years, and the rich people left in the city got richer and the poor people left in the city got poorer on a relative scale.

a tale of two cities, over and over and over again. a problem that seems to be getting worse. meanwhile, my wife and i ponder where our white middle class asses might fit in this city, or if we should just throw in the towel and join the rest of our family-raising demographic out in the burbs. ugh.....

fuck it, we should just move to milwaukee. my brother-in-law's nephew recently purchased a very nice century-old 4-bedroom house in milwaukee's bayview neighborhood for $185,000. sign me up!

An interesting point. So imagine you are a middle class family living in inner city Chicago. Three blocks to the south is a ghetto which occasionally spills violence and crime into your area. Even when the boundary is a street or railroad tracks, proximity to bad areas often means occasional shootings, theft, robbery, and bad education once children graduate to middle school or high school. That would be enough to make someone take a loss on their house and move.

[ChicagotoRoanoke]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ good point. pdxtex seemed to be making an erroneous connection between the most "bombed out" neighborhoods and the most unsafe neighborhoods, but as you pointed out, truly "bombed-out" urban prairies like one finds in detroit are so vacant and abandoned that there aren't enough people left for crime to be as big an issue as it is in a more populated area. neighborhoods like chicago's englewood, where the commercial strips are mostly destroyed, but the residential housing stock & population remain, are far more dangerous.

as of census 2010, englewood still had ~30,000 people living in about 3 sq. miles for a density of roughly 10,000 ppsm. that's not terribly high in the grand scheme of things, but it's way, WAY higher than some completely abandoned urban prairie. despite large population losses over the past half century, englewood is still home to enough people for there to be serious problems there.

Some thoughts from someone who lives with his wife and two kids in a single family home that we bought in 2011 in Chicago.

I hear you on this. Having a single family home on the north side in a desireable neighborhood with the best rated schools (Rocoe Village, North Center, West Lakeview, Lincoln Park etc.) is incredibly expensive. The schools in these areas do not test "OK", they are 9/10 or even 10/10 on the greatschools ratings. They are some of the higher performing in the state. In these areas, a modest single family home will run you 700k or significantly more, depending on the area. We didn't have that kind of money. Most people don't.

We moved here in 2008 and lived in the North Center/Lincoln Square area. We really loved it and wanted to stay as it is very family friendly, full of opportunities for kids. It was just too expensive for us to buy something there.

The Nortwest side of the city provided an option that let us stay in the city and avoid the suburbs which would have made my commute to work terrible. We bought a newly renovated bungalow with 4 bedrooms and three bathrooms as well as a huge back yard for 356k. The basement was newly and fully finished as well, providing as second family room/play area as well. The house was really beautifully done and we couldn't believe the price given where we came from. The house is in mayfair/old irving park on the nortwest side. We are a 7 minute walk (about 3 blocks) from the Blue line stop at Montrose. I take the train without difficulty to work daily. It also gives us very easy access to OHare. Mayfair Park is just down the street and offers a variety of programs for the kids that are low key (just our style) and have been great. We can walk there in a couple minutes without crossing any major streets. Our nine year old goes to Belding, the neighborhood school. This school does not look great on paper (4/10 on greatschools). However, my wife and I are both well educated (she is a teacher staying at home with our 9 yo and 9 month old for now) and figured we could supplement any shortcoming of the school. We reallly haven't had to.

When we lived in Northcenter/Lincoln Square he went to private school (stopped because we couldn't afford it after buying a house) and academically he has actually been more challenged and he has shown more improvement than he did at the private school. He is happy, learning, getting good grades, safe and doing well on the the necessary standardized testing which is all I really give a crap about. He walks to school everyday with his mom which is much better than getting in a car and schleping him through traffic to another school far off. The school has lower scores because there are a lot more poor kids and english as a second language kids compared to where we came from. There are other kids of his demographic there as well and they do just fine. I think the diversity is actually good exposure for them. We have found the principle and teachers to be invested, more than competent and hard working. They have been very responsive to questions/issues. If you just look at the ratings, it looks like another broken CPS school. When you look at the performance by demographic (eg. race and income, which I did but can't recall the website) kids in our demographic do just as well as kids in the high rated schools. Even so, Disney II, a magnet school with high ratings and test scores is also in the neighborhood and presents another option for people.

In the end, 350k is still way more than the 185k for Milwaukee, but think how much more money you will have in retirement in the form of the asset that is the house when it is paid off!

Sorry for the long response. I have other thoughts about living here I would like to share as well but don't want to make this post too long for people to read. There are definitely things I miss about our old hood. Just thought some of you might find our experiences interesting.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

a 30 minute el ride out from the loop can yield some cool neighborhoods and also some of the worst ghettos in the nation. chicago's good neighbrohoods are amazing (and exorbitantly expensive for family-sized homes). chicago's bad neighborhoods are otherworldly bad. as the graphic in the first post of this thread shows, chicago's in-between neighborhoods for regular old middle class folks have been getting squeezed out as the middle class moved en masse to places like like mount prospect and bolingbrook over the past 40 years, and the rich people left in the city got richer and the poor people left in the city got poorer on a relative scale.

a tale of two cities, over and over and over again. a problem that seems to be getting worse. meanwhile, my wife and i ponder where our white middle class asses might fit in this city, or if we should just throw in the towel and join the rest of our family-raising demographic out in the burbs. ugh.....

I don't get why there aren't a lot of "sorta not bad" neighborhoods getting gentrified and infilled. Are there semi-sketchy areas just outside the better areas, without highways/railways in the way? Islands of semi-prosperity amid the underoccupied zones?

My first guess is that despite rising prices, they're still not high enough to justify risk outside B- to A+ zones. When they are, maybe that plus cheap land will result in more investment of either the piecemeal or all-in variety. Sometimes doing multiple blocks will change the neighborhood dynamic entirely, if you're lucky to have visionary risk-taking investors.

[dc_denizen]

^ I wonder how bogus (or not) the greatschools ratings really are that drive real estate values in these areas.

[ChicagotoRoanoke]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

^ I wonder how bogus (or not) the greatschools ratings really are that drive real estate values in these areas.

They are (greatschools ratings) based completely on test scores which are what they are. Difficult to fudge as they are a matter of public record. It is however, not the only or necessarily even the best way to evaluate the quality of a school, which was kind of the point I was making.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by ChicagotoRoanoke

Some thoughts from someone who lives with his wife and two kids in a single family home that we bought in 2011 in Chicago.
...

Thank you for sharing!

My partner and I have talked about having a kid in the 5-years-from-now range and while that's still a ways off there's so much we want to get planned and set by then that it's helpful to keep an eye on the details as we go along.

[pdxtex]

it seems like the transition zone between good and bad neighborhoods is really abrupt in chicago (and elsewhere, philly fairmount ave kind of thing) but ive never really seen a racial dividing line as stark as the south side/north side of chicago. i understand the history behind it and how its been perpetuated but i guess it still kind of floors me how disparate some neighborhoods only mere miles south of the loop are in such chaos.....steely dans tale of two cities i guess......so what is recognized as the south side dmz then. years ago, u. chicago officially warned not to go past 63rd but i think thats been lifted since, probably for awhile. i tracked down my pops old house in south shore, its on chappel and 83rd, id like to see it in person sometime.

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by mhays

I don't get why there aren't a lot of "sorta not bad" neighborhoods getting gentrified and infilled. Are there semi-sketchy areas just outside the better areas, without highways/railways in the way? Islands of semi-prosperity amid the underoccupied zones?

My first guess is that despite rising prices, they're still not high enough to justify risk outside B- to A+ zones. When they are, maybe that plus cheap land will result in more investment of either the piecemeal or all-in variety. Sometimes doing multiple blocks will change the neighborhood dynamic entirely, if you're lucky to have visionary risk-taking investors.

^^i get the feeling even though chicago is seeing modest population gains citywide, they aren't so much that the absolute supply is being diminished in hotter areas. sure everybody wants a brick two story with yard near a train line but there seems like there isn't much of a shortage in overall housing. stuff people can at least make due with where it isnt so imperative they go south of the river to find a home,..............yet.....but yeah, im surprised professional types aren't taking the plunge anyway and moving further south....

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by ChicagotoRoanoke

Some thoughts from someone who lives with his wife and two kids in a single family home that we bought in 2011 in Chicago.

I hear you on this. Having a single family home on the north side in a desireable neighborhood with the best rated schools (Rocoe Village, North Center, West Lakeview, Lincoln Park etc.) is incredibly expensive. The schools in these areas do not test "OK", they are 9/10 or even 10/10 on the greatschools ratings. They are some of the higher performing in the state. In these areas, a modest single family home will run you 700k or significantly more, depending on the area. We didn't have that kind of money. Most people don't.

We moved here in 2008 and lived in the North Center/Lincoln Square area. We really loved it and wanted to stay as it is very family friendly, full of opportunities for kids. It was just too expensive for us to buy something there.

The Nortwest side of the city provided an option that let us stay in the city and avoid the suburbs which would have made my commute to work terrible. We bought a newly renovated bungalow with 4 bedrooms and three bathrooms as well as a huge back yard for 356k. The basement was newly and fully finished as well, providing as second family room/play area as well. The house was really beautifully done and we couldn't believe the price given where we came from. The house is in mayfair/old irving park on the nortwest side. We are a 7 minute walk (about 3 blocks) from the Blue line stop at Montrose. I take the train without difficulty to work daily. It also gives us very easy access to OHare. Mayfair Park is just down the street and offers a variety of programs for the kids that are low key (just our style) and have been great. We can walk there in a couple minutes without crossing any major streets. Our nine year old goes to Belding, the neighborhood school. This school does not look great on paper (4/10 on greatschools). However, my wife and I are both well educated (she is a teacher staying at home with our 9 yo and 9 month old for now) and figured we could supplement any shortcoming of the school. We reallly haven't had to.

When we lived in Northcenter/Lincoln Square he went to private school (stopped because we couldn't afford it after buying a house) and academically he has actually been more challenged and he has shown more improvement than he did at the private school. He is happy, learning, getting good grades, safe and doing well on the the necessary standardized testing which is all I really give a crap about. He walks to school everyday with his mom which is much better than getting in a car and schleping him through traffic to another school far off. The school has lower scores because there are a lot more poor kids and english as a second language kids compared to where we came from. There are other kids of his demographic there as well and they do just fine. I think the diversity is actually good exposure for them. We have found the principle and teachers to be invested, more than competent and hard working. They have been very responsive to questions/issues. If you just look at the ratings, it looks like another broken CPS school. When you look at the performance by demographic (eg. race and income, which I did but can't recall the website) kids in our demographic do just as well as kids in the high rated schools. Even so, Disney II, a magnet school with high ratings and test scores is also in the neighborhood and presents another option for people.

In the end, 350k is still way more than the 185k for Milwaukee, but think how much more money you will have in retirement in the form of the asset that is the house when it is paid off!

Sorry for the long response. I have other thoughts about living here I would like to share as well but don't want to make this post too long for people to read. There are definitely things I miss about our old hood. Just thought some of you might find our experiences interesting.

Great post! As I keep saying: we don't have a school problem, a teacher problem, or a funding problem, we have a parent problem. The CPS teachers and administrators might be, as you said, even more motivated in a lot of cases than private school teachers and probably LOVE having kids with parents that put in the extra hours.

There are plenty of areas that are perfectly acceptable, affordable, places to live in Chicago if you are planning on being an attentive parent. Portage Park, Jefferson Park, Norwood Park, Avondale, parts of Logan Square, parts of Humbolt Park, parts of Ukranian Village, and now even certain sections of Pilsen.

Steely, your options probably are not as limited as you think...

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Great post! As I keep saying: we don't have a school problem, a teacher problem, or a funding problem, we have a parent problem. The CPS teachers and administrators might be, as you said, even more motivated in a lot of cases than private school teachers and probably LOVE having kids with parents that put in the extra hours.

There are plenty of areas that are perfectly acceptable, affordable, places to live in Chicago if you are planning on being an attentive parent. Portage Park, Jefferson Park, Norwood Park, Avondale, parts of Logan Square, parts of Humbolt Park, parts of Ukranian Village, and now even certain sections of Pilsen.

Steely, your options probably are not as limited as you think...

The bold is the truth.

If anyone really wants to delve into the demographics, test scores, etc of IL schools, this site is the best.

http://iirc.niu.edu/Default.aspx

We have three kids in CPS, the top line numbers at the school aren't terribly impressive, however adjust for non-low income, and our school is as good as Naperville schools. Our school is about 50% low income (and decreasing every year), Naperville schools are about 4% low income.