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

[M II A II R II K]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

it's the quandary my wife and i find ourselves in right now. we live in a small downtown condo. our first child is due this coming august. combined, we make decent money but we're far from rich; we can't afford a family-sized home (3 bedrooms +) in downtown or in pretty much any of the greener areas on the 2012 map. however, i am NOT gonna raise my family in some gang-banging, shitty schools neighborhood.

Are there any outlying neighbourhoods that are close to transit, or at least a METRA station where you may have to pay a bit more to ride it but not be that car dependent...

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Reverberation

Most students starting in the workforce and new immigrants start poor and end up in the middle class or "rich" ten years later while new people have taken their place in the poor category.

I doubt this is true. Most college grads I know aren't poor in their 20's, and median foreign-born household income isn't much lower than median U.S. household income (I think it's 95% of median native-born income).

I suspect that most inner-city poor in the U.S. are intergenerational poor, and not immigrants or recent college grads.

Originally Posted by Reverberation

I'd bet that lots of those red neighborhoods reflect a landing pad for a growing number of immigrants and a starting point for people who are new in the workforce who need to be close to transportation and jobs but plan on moving the F out to the suburbs as soon as their paychecks justify it.

I would bet against this.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Reverberation

But there is more to it than the whole "rich get richer and the poor get poorer" claim. That is a myth that uses brief snapshots of how many people are rich vs. poor and what they make. Overall since the 70's everyone has been getting richer and rarely do people stay poor for decades.

Income growth accounting for inflation has remained relatively stagnant since the '70s for most Americans (despite better productivity and rising working hours). Taking into account the relative increase in cost of living, and wages have probably declined since then. The poverty rate certainly hasn't shrunk.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/shenegot...d-collapses/2/


http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...-harder-charts

Most students starting in the workforce and new immigrants start poor and end up in the middle class or "rich" ten years later while new people have taken their place in the poor category. Only a very small number of poor people remain poor for more than a few years.

Starting out at a career is one thing, but the fact is that most people who are poor, are poor for life. And their kids are too.


http://mattbruenig.com/2013/06/13/wh...ing-born-rich/


http://www.alternet.org/personal-hea...rth-till-death


Inheritance certainly doesn't help:


http://www.alternet.org/personal-hea...rth-till-death


And even those who do succeed do not do so nearly to the extent of their peers raised in wealthy housholds.


http://www.alternet.org/personal-hea...rth-till-death




TL;DR, social mobility is nonexistent for most.

[inSaeculaSaeculorum]

There's a paradox where we tout urbanism as a model for efficiency/quality of life/cost effective living, yet our most attractive urban places are poster children for unaffordability and wide income gaps. Urbanism is supposedly progressive and liberal but I have seen too many attitudes endorse a "trickle down" theory to reviving our downtowns. It's like we call ourselves progressives but act like reganites when it comes to revitalizing our downtowns. As Americans we are too afraid of shunning the free market and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

[dc_denizen]

The growth in unskilled immigration from Mexico and other central American countries, coupled with the poor wealth-generating performance of African Americans in general, can no doubt explain most of the growth in inequality in the US.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Income growth accounting for inflation has remained relatively stagnant since the '70s for most Americans (despite better productivity and rising working hours). Taking into account the relative increase in cost of living, and wages have probably declined since then. The poverty rate certainly hasn't shrunk.



http://www.alternet.org/personal-hea...rth-till-death




TL;DR, social mobility is nonexistent for most.

This graph is particularly fascinating, but I think it conflicts with your TLDR to a degree. While I think is certainly shows that social mobility for SOME portion of American society is very difficult, it definitely shows there is a very specific path that virtually guarantees significant upwards social mobility if not individually, generationally.

That path is education. The middle three quintiles all have a roughly 30-40% chance of jumping to the top quintile and a roughly 60% chance of jumping or remaining in the fourth quintile. In fact, it seems the second quintile (lower middle class) has the highest upwards social mobility of all groups (excluding the top quintile since they can't jump to the top'er quintile given this statistical set). Obviously there is probably a great propensity of that 51% portion of the top quintile that stays in the top quintile to get even richer, but that doesn't tell us too much. What is more interesting is that 49% of the top quintile will NOT be as rich as their parents.

Now we get to the bottom quintile. This is where mobility is pretty unacceptably low. Obviously this stems from an array of social issues in our society. Even then, that quintile has a 90% chance of upwards mobility with a college degree. While they have a lower chance of landing at the top, they have an incredibly high chance of doing better than their parents, with a college degree.


Once you venture into the realm of non-college grads, things obviously become much bleaker. What this tells us is that higher education is enormously important for social mobility and needs to be encouraged if we are to increase social mobility as a whole.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by inSaeculaSaeculorum

There's a paradox where we tout urbanism as a model for efficiency/quality of life/cost effective living, yet our most attractive urban places are poster children for unaffordability and wide income gaps. Urbanism is supposedly progressive and liberal but I have seen too many attitudes endorse a "trickle down" theory to reviving our downtowns. It's like we call ourselves progressives but act like reganites when it comes to revitalizing our downtowns. As Americans we are too afraid of shunning the free market and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Yes, many left-wing places actively restrict or disincentivize housing supply in their centers, contributing to their cost problems.

Some do better. Chicago is cheaper than most, due to simplifying and even encouraging infill. Its land is apparently pretty affordable too, since a lot of it is zoned for dense infill. The only major counter appears to be its (mandated or market-driven?) prevalence of large parking counts, which appears to be translating to large above-grade podiums in many cases, negating some of the benefits. And of course highrises are expensive to build. But the result is still that Chicago has a lot of affordable housing overall.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Once you venture into the realm of non-college grads, things obviously become much bleaker. What this tells us is that higher education is enormously important for social mobility and needs to be encouraged if we are to increase social mobility as a whole.

Correlation isn't necessarily causation.

The average college grad is (safe assumption) smarter and more driven than the average non-grad. Maybe the smarts and drive are a big part of the difference, not just college.

(My bias...95 college credits about 24 years ago, but decent smarts, moderate drive, and a bit of luck)

[Jelly Roll]

Originally Posted by mhays

Correlation isn't necessarily causation.

The average college grad is (safe assumption) smarter and more driven than the average non-grad. Maybe the smarts and drive are a big part of the difference, not just college.

I don't know about that. It is pretty easy to pass the classes in college. It is much harder to actually afford to be able to pay to attend those same college classes.

[mhays]

I'm saying average, not that everyone is smart.

That a difference exists isn't a question. It's only how large the difference is. For starters most of the mentally retarded are on the non-degree side.

[mhays]

When I grew up (in cheaper times) I shared a bedroom for years, so our family of four could fit in a two-bedroom in an urban neighborhood. We also shared housing with other families a couple times. Those were methods of living in better parts of town on a small budget.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by Jelly Roll

Smarter, sure but more driven I disagree with. Most of the people I attended college with including me were there because our parents made us go to college. We had no choice in the matter. The networking of the top 10 percent in America should not be overlooked. Growing up in the affluent class ensures job opportunities and connections. Coming from wealth allows for so many advantages in the US it is not surprising the vast majority of poor people stay poor and their child also end up poor. It is a completely different culture and atmosphere between the wealthy and everyone else.

Good point about networking.

As for drive, I bet there's a difference between those who start and those who finish. (I for example didn't finish, and don't have a ton of drive...good job, but also told my boss many years ago that I didn't want his job.)

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Jelly Roll

Smarter, sure but more driven I disagree with. Most of the people I attended college with including me were there because our parents made us go to college. We had no choice in the matter. The networking of the top 10 percent in America should not be overlooked. Growing up in the affluent class ensures job opportunities and connections. Coming from wealth allows for so many advantages in the US it is not surprising the vast majority of poor people stay poor and their child also end up poor. It is a completely different culture and atmosphere between the wealthy and everyone else.

One always has a choice in the matter.

I, for one, came from a working class income-level family but wanted to go to college and would have gone regardless of my parents' desire (they were supportive of the idea as it turned out). I ended up paying the vast majority of the costs myself, though.

Both of my brothers also went to (and graduated from) college, as much due to their own ambition as to my example. When your oldest brother (me) goes to college and earns more than dad the day after graduation, it becomes a pretty clear motivation to the siblings.

The middle brother even went on to law school and, with the networking you reference, now earns probably about twice what I do, and I earn about 3 to 4 times the median individual income. We're doing pretty well considering my parents together earned just barely the median household income the year before I left for college (and less than that the year I left since my dad lost his job the week before I left).

My lawyer brother and I both went to very good small, private schools, but his is more anchored with wealthy families and more of his college friends came from serious money. And it has made a difference in his career, to some extent. We've both managed to leverage extended family ties to our advantage, advantages that many poor families may not have. But even without those aids, just the education itself and a willingness to see and seize opportunity where it exists has made a big difference in our economic lives.

[Zapatan]

I guess the future of most American cities doesn't look too bright.

I would've thought we were moving in the right direction but I guess not.

[brian_b]

Originally Posted by emathias

Yes, it's showing that areas populated by the households with earnings falling within 25 percentage points of the median income are growing smaller, while areas populated both by households earning more than 25 percentage points above and 25 percentage points below the median are growing. It's also showing that initially the areas with people earning 25 or more percentage points below median grew much faster, within the past 15 years or so those areas have more or less reached an upper limit and now the number of areas where people are earning 25 or more percentage points above the median are expanding more quickly.

This thread has really gone off the rails, but I guess that before it gets locked I might be able to get a reply in...

Go to the Census web site and you can find report DP03 for the Chicago Metro. For family income, it lists 10 income brackets and the number of families that are within that income bracket. Plug it into Excel and turn it into a chart. You see that?

It looks remarkably like a bell curve. If I knew how to get historical data, I would bet that each year would look like a bell curve. Even better would be if you could get each income bracket to be the same income range.

The animated GIF shows two things - income and geographic area. But there is no control for population density in the geographic areas. How can you draw any meaningful conclusions without population density?

[10023]

Originally Posted by Mr Roboto

btw, despite their vastly superior and unique skills, Kobe Lebron and other famous athletes are still overpaid IMO, relative to the service they provide to the world via entertainment; which as an industry has also disproportionately ballooned from the increase in easy access to media through TV internet etc.

No one is paid based on the "service they provide to society". That's the mistake many of you are making, and the mistake of people who complain that, for instance, teachers make less than baseball players.

At the end of the day this argument is silly because the opinions expressed are not going to have an influence. The one thing I am in favor of with respect to executive compensation is some degree of shareholder influence ("say on pay"), though I also understand the argument that their elected board needs to be given some freedom to oversee the business based on its best judgment. But aside from shareholders, it's certainly no one else's business.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Zapatan

I guess the future of most American cities doesn't look too bright.

I would've thought we were moving in the right direction but I guess not.

The future is bright for places where people live by choice (as opposed to where they have to live to work for a particular company, etc). Unfortunately that's a smaller group of cities rather than all of them.

I think what Americans (and Western Europeans) may need to realize is that the postwar years of relative equity and abundance for all, and the great industrial middle class, were temporary historical anomalies brought about by two world wars and the head start that the West has had over the rest of the world. Globalization has been and will continue to be a really tough thing for the bottom half of Western society, as living standards simply will decline, at least on a relative basis, for people who do the jobs that a couple billion people in the developing world can also do. Fifty years ago the "average" American was part of the global 0.1% (forget 1%), but going forward that's simply not going to be the case.

And in a world with scarce resources, it is of course the relative standards that matter. I think historians are going to remember the late 20th and early 21st centuries as the period in which Western civilization repeatedly shot itself in its collective foot by trying to "aid" development in other parts of the world, instead of competing and protecting its own interests. Just think about the population projections for Africa, and what that inevitably means for nearby Europe.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by 10023

The future is bright for places where people live by choice (as opposed to where they have to live to work for a particular company, etc). Unfortunately that's a smaller group of cities rather than all of them.

I think what Americans (and Western Europeans) may need to realize is that the postwar years of relative equity and abundance for all, and the great industrial middle class, were temporary historical anomalies brought about by two world wars and the head start that the West has had over the rest of the world. Globalization has been and will continue to be a really tough thing for the bottom half of Western society, as living standards simply will decline, at least on a relative basis, for people who do the jobs that a couple billion people in the developing world can also do. Fifty years ago the "average" American was part of the global 0.1% (forget 1%), but going forward that's simply not going to be the case.

And in a world with scarce resources, it is of course the relative standards that matter. I think historians are going to remember the late 20th and early 21st centuries as the period in which Western civilization repeatedly shot itself in its collective foot by trying to "aid" development in other parts of the world, instead of competing and protecting its own interests. Just think about the population projections for Africa, and what that inevitably means for nearby Europe.

and of course, this is not a big deal so long as a culture can adapt to this reality. the problem is with parts of/people in the more capitalist west that cannot achieve their own material expectations (and lets face it, material wealth is a component of contentedness to a limited extent) or can't shift their worldview accordingly. i personally have no problem with a relative decline in the material wealth of western civilization. i'm not a baby boomer, and i don't need or want the jagged babyboomer life-arc and life-phases. it's stale, and theres not enough life time.

[pdxtex]

the trend is more like white flight, minority population increase in west and south side, followed by dual income no kid households in the north. two people with so so jobs and no kids can easily put them above average household income.

[Zapatan]

Originally Posted by 10023

The future is bright for places where people live by choice (as opposed to where they have to live to work for a particular company, etc). Unfortunately that's a smaller group of cities rather than all of them.

I think what Americans (and Western Europeans) may need to realize is that the postwar years of relative equity and abundance for all, and the great industrial middle class, were temporary historical anomalies brought about by two world wars and the head start that the West has had over the rest of the world. Globalization has been and will continue to be a really tough thing for the bottom half of Western society, as living standards simply will decline, at least on a relative basis, for people who do the jobs that a couple billion people in the developing world can also do. Fifty years ago the "average" American was part of the global 0.1% (forget 1%), but going forward that's simply not going to be the case.

And in a world with scarce resources, it is of course the relative standards that matter. I think historians are going to remember the late 20th and early 21st centuries as the period in which Western civilization repeatedly shot itself in its collective foot by trying to "aid" development in other parts of the world, instead of competing and protecting its own interests. Just think about the population projections for Africa, and what that inevitably means for nearby Europe.

I think the US will become more 3rd world, not totally third world but maybe like a slightly more modernized version of Brazil with a few very rich and tons of poor.

I can't say I'm super optimistic about the future looking at places like LA, Detroit, Philly, Baltimore etc. but hopefully I'm being too pessimistic. Of course any big city is going to have it's bad areas but many US cities are much worse than a lot of places.