Decline of Black Chicago https://t.co/Nk2Xoewhlq— The Sixth Ward (@TheSixthWard) July 30, 2018
Austin's population has dropped dramatically as retaliatory gang violence persists https://t.co/fPIxIjoMeJ pic.twitter.com/b6bOfrT6uQ— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) July 17, 2017
Home to nearly 118,000 people in 2000, Austin has seen its population drop to 97,600, according to an average of census data collected between 2011 and 2015. It has been overtaken by the North Side's Lakeview neighborhood, whose population has remained steady since the 1980s and currently has about 98,200 residents.Now the reasons Austin is losing population is not much different than a number of neighborhoods on the south side or even the west side. Better yet not much different than why many are leaving Chicago, period.
In a neighborhood as large as Austin, each block can be its own world.Of course there is more to this story so I suggest you give this a read. And check out the video with the Trib article. If only many of us has signs like this to rep our neighborhoods. For example I <3 Chatham or I <3 Roseland or I <3 Englewood.
The tree-lined ones, with restored Victorian homes or brick two-flats and kids playing in polished gardens, are what residents call good blocks. They're free of the shootings and drug deals that plague others. But those other blocks, dotted with boarded-up houses and vacant lots with overgrown weeds, are often down the street or around the corner.
Austin is the city's largest community area geographically, and was the most populated for 45 years. But as the West Side neighborhood's gun violence has increased, so too has families' realization that at any moment the shootings can creep into their blocks — even the good blocks. Austin's residents are leaving, with some saying goodbye to the place they've called home their entire lives.
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Chicago's violence is at its highest since the drug wars of the 1990s, and Austin is center stage to many of the shootings and homicides: As of July 13, there were 258 shootings in the area in 2017 and 44 homicides, according to Tribune data. More than 1,900 people have been shot in Chicago so far this year.
The city as a whole is losing residents, and Chicago last year was the only city of the country's 10 largest to lose population. Residents who've packed up and left Chicago have cited a variety of reasons — high taxes, the state budget stalemate and the weather.
Those in Austin have a different list of concerns. More than 30 percent live in poverty. Storefronts are shuttered, and grocery stores are few and far between. The neighborhood high schools that remain open are under-resourced.
But in a neighborhood where retaliatory shootings mean unending violence, many residents say safety is the biggest issue.
After a lifetime of living in Chicago, my husband is seriously talking about moving away.6th Ward Alderman Roderick Sawyer was quoted:
It’s not just one thing that is spurring him to pack up and leave, he explained; it’s a combination of things.
He cited high taxes, crime and bad politics, but he’s obviously not alone. Black people are fleeing the city’s predominantly black neighborhoods on the South and West Sides.
Meanwhile, according to recent U.S. Census data, white people are flocking to neighborhoods near Downtown.
Chicago, once a haven for the black middle class, is no longer seen as a place of economic opportunity for African Americans.
Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th) argues that white people are moving in as black people abandon these neighborhoods.Conclusion:
“I’m in Woodlawn right now, and there are white people walking down the street, walking dogs and jogging. People don’t mess with white people. If I walked up and down the street over here, I would probably get hit in the head, and that’s an awful thing to say,” Sawyer conceded.
“But we can make it better by staying and putting in the time and work and getting involved in your neighborhood. You can’t complain about it while you are locked up in your house,” he said.
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“We may lose another black alderman as some of our wards are teetering around 60 percent black. In fact, Walter Burnett’s ward is not black. We lost the second ward in the last redistricting,” Sawyer said.
Still, the alderman is wary of the Census data.
“I don’t think as many people are leaving, as they are not being counted,” he said.
This latest Census data shows black residents want the same things other people want: employment, fair government, safe neighborhoods and good schools.Employment, fair gov't, safe neighborhoods, & good schools. How do we get any of those?
Unfortunately, too few African-Americans in Chicago can say they have any of those things.
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| Chicago Mag illustration Richard Mia |
Since the early ’80s, blacks in South and West Side neighborhoods have been steadily leaving the city, resettling at first largely in the Cook County suburbs. But over the past 15 years, more and more have been leaving the area entirely for northwest Indiana, Iowa’s Quad Cities, and Sun Belt states, says Alden Loury, the director of research and evaluation at the Metropolitan Planning Council. Today there are roughly 850,000 blacks in Chicago, down from 1.2 million in 1980.How does Chicago send the message that the city cares about its Black residents?
The reasons for this are varied: The foreclosure crisis saw blacks evicted disproportionately from their rental apartments and houses; the Chicago Housing Authority leveled high-rises like the Robert Taylor Homes, scattering public housing residents; the lack of stable employment in South and West Side neighborhoods continues to force residents to look elsewhere for jobs; and school closures further disenfranchise communities. “There are not a lot of messages that Chicago cares about its black residents,” says Mary Pattillo, a sociology and African American studies professor at Northwestern University and author of the book Black Picket Fences. “When you lose the institutions that cultivate attachment, it makes it a lot easier to pick up and leave.”
Today’s most-read story: The Real Problem with Chicago's Shrinking Population https://t.co/JEVokZHtIS pic.twitter.com/AXOFYvXdMn— Chicago magazine (@ChicagoMag) May 9, 2017
The estimates are that the three-state Chicago metropolitan area lost 19,570 people in the year ending last June 30, dipping to 9.513 million. That's bigger than the drop of 11,324 people the year before, according to the bureau.Somewhat related
The region did gain a little bit since the last census in 2010, moving from 9.461 million then. But the increase of .4 percent is a small fraction of the hike in the same period by large peer cities like Los Angeles (up 3.6 percent), New York (+2.8 percent) and San Francisco (+7.7 percent).
However, Chicago's decline last year and small rise over the past six years is roughly similar to that of other big Midwestern cities, lagging the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and Indianapolis, but ahead of Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis. Even so, all of them did better than Chicago in the last year alone.
The metro area declines are heavily concentrated in Cook County, but show signs of spreading to outlying counties, too. For instance, the bureau estimates that DuPage County lost 3,000 people in the past two years, and that Will and Grundy Counties had small population losses last year.
Though the percentage drop was more elsewhere, the numerical population of Cook County dropped more last year than in any other county in the country, according to new U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
The bureau did not break down the data by municipality, so it's impossible to tell for sure if the Cook County decline was in Chicago proper, suburban areas, or both.
The city center now is growing faster than ever, having gained an estimated 42,423 people from 2010-15. But the population of the non-lakefront South Side is dropping even quicker, falling about 50,000 in the same period. The number of non-Hispanic whites, Asians and people of Hispanic descent is growing, but the number of non-Hispanic blacks is dropping.Also:
The new data come from the 2015 American Community Survey, which is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and was released last week.
The Census Bureau in 2012 reported this area grew faster in the first decade of the century than any downtown in the country, adding 48,000 people. But with an unprecedented construction wave underway, growth has hit the gas, with the area—roughly the Loop, plus the Near North, Near South and Near West sides—growing almost as much in five years as it did in the previous 10.The map above illustrates where the people are going or leaving. As you see the far south side has lost almost 50,000 people. The bottom number you see, I believe is long term population loss.
The area now is home to an estimated 238,259 residents. That's enough to make it the second largest city in Illinois, if it were counted by itself.
The population is also growing in the north section of the city—roughly the North and Northwest sides, plus the demographically similar area around the West Side Medical Center, the Southwest Side and the South Side lakefront—which Zotti puts together with a few inland neighborhoods that are close by public transit to well-paying downtown service jobs. Each of those lost considerable population between 2000 and 2010, but each now is gaining people.
But the city is still losing people in Austin and other neighborhoods west of the United Center. And the total number of residents inland from the lakefront, or Far South Side, continues the free-fall that began in the last decade. Total population there has gone from 526,750 to 476,903, ACS figures show.Now the challenge is to reverse these many trends.
That's a remarkable drop of nearly 10 percent—in just five years.
Among once-solidly middle-class, industrial African-American neighborhoods that are being hammered:Overall, the population figures roughly track income data that I wrote about earlier this year, in which other demographers suggested Chicago is turning into three cities: one prosperous and growing, one vanishing, and the third treading water.
- Auburn Gresham, off 7,159 residents to an estimated 45,842.
- Englewood, down 6,911 people, to 26,121.
- West Englewood, down 6,552, to 32,156.
- Roseland, which lost 5,141 residents and is down to 42,305.
- Chatham, which has 31,359 residents after losing 3,664.
