There will be political, social and economic ramifications for Blacks throughout the Chicago metro area, and in other metros undergoing a similar transition.
In a related though different vain, in the past (it was a series on changes in Chicago neighborhoods as I recall) you have writted about how while the Black population leaving Chicago was untill recently, disproportionately middle class and affluent Chicago itself has continued to be a destination for White professionals.
But you also pointed out how Chicago has also long been loosing middle and working class Whites more broadly as has Chicagoland as a whole (to a lesser extent) this century (largely to other parts of the country but especially the South) and this has lead to a major increase in racial polarization along class lines in recent decades in Greater Chicago but especially in the city itself.
Large scale immigration (which is less of a factor in greater Chicago then in the major coastal regions) only further adds to these tendencies.
The increased racial-class polarization and geographic peripheralization of both Black and working-lower middle class White residents resulting from these race-class specific migration trends is something I find deeply troubling. It is a trend that has by now repeated itself in many global city regions and their wealthier satellites across the US for decades, and has radically changed places such as the SF Bay Area where I reside since beginning around the mid 1990’s or so, just after the end of The Cold War.
I guess I'd say the racial segregation dynamic in Chicago has never gone away, but it has been modified somewhat by changes in class mobility. Chicago's really got a steady inflow of young, college-educated, upper-middle class whites moving here, many of them from schools throughout the traditional Big Ten footprint. The outflow of Blacks has been mostly from the middle and working classes, or the same people who would've prospered with the manufacturing jobs we had 50 years ago. For the Crains opinion piece I reference above, all of us co-authors recognized that there is a Black upper-middle class inflow that's focusing on the south lakefront, but it's getting little acknowledgement. I'd say scale-wise it's similar to what Chicago witnessed in the '80s and '90s with young, college-educated, upper-middle class whites on the north lakefront, but 30-40 years later.
It's unfortunate that the more recent influx you mentioned is getting so little acknowledgement, though I am hardly surprised... Hopefully though the newer upper middle class Black influx will also continue and help to balance things out more in the future. Just based off census data but also anecdotally in Oakland at least, It appears as though a similer (but probably lesser) trend has recently began within the last decade here on the west coast as well.
Great article as usual! I think this issue is concerning to many, and is one form of a lesser discussed but major issue leading many to be wary or even outright apposed to increased globalization in urbanized areas (and often in turn, new urban development) in general, and especially to the growth of right wing populism in many cases. Namely, not only direct urban displacement but more broadly, but also a sense of cultural and political displacement from major (especially globally oriented) urban areas, greatly exacerbated by demographic decline.
Mayor Brandon's form of left wing urban populism is a different but related responce and seems to have also affected both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's polticial stratagy, in the form of more support for trade restrictions and now more conservative immigration policy as well. People feel displaced by the trends you mention above whether they directly have been or not and often respond poltically in various ways.
In a related though different vain, in the past (it was a series on changes in Chicago neighborhoods as I recall) you have writted about how while the Black population leaving Chicago was untill recently, disproportionately middle class and affluent Chicago itself has continued to be a destination for White professionals.
But you also pointed out how Chicago has also long been loosing middle and working class Whites more broadly as has Chicagoland as a whole (to a lesser extent) this century (largely to other parts of the country but especially the South) and this has lead to a major increase in racial polarization along class lines in recent decades in Greater Chicago but especially in the city itself.
Large scale immigration (which is less of a factor in greater Chicago then in the major coastal regions) only further adds to these tendencies.
The increased racial-class polarization and geographic peripheralization of both Black and working-lower middle class White residents resulting from these race-class specific migration trends is something I find deeply troubling. It is a trend that has by now repeated itself in many global city regions and their wealthier satellites across the US for decades, and has radically changed places such as the SF Bay Area where I reside since beginning around the mid 1990’s or so, just after the end of The Cold War.
I guess I'd say the racial segregation dynamic in Chicago has never gone away, but it has been modified somewhat by changes in class mobility. Chicago's really got a steady inflow of young, college-educated, upper-middle class whites moving here, many of them from schools throughout the traditional Big Ten footprint. The outflow of Blacks has been mostly from the middle and working classes, or the same people who would've prospered with the manufacturing jobs we had 50 years ago. For the Crains opinion piece I reference above, all of us co-authors recognized that there is a Black upper-middle class inflow that's focusing on the south lakefront, but it's getting little acknowledgement. I'd say scale-wise it's similar to what Chicago witnessed in the '80s and '90s with young, college-educated, upper-middle class whites on the north lakefront, but 30-40 years later.
It's unfortunate that the more recent influx you mentioned is getting so little acknowledgement, though I am hardly surprised... Hopefully though the newer upper middle class Black influx will also continue and help to balance things out more in the future. Just based off census data but also anecdotally in Oakland at least, It appears as though a similer (but probably lesser) trend has recently began within the last decade here on the west coast as well.
Great article as usual! I think this issue is concerning to many, and is one form of a lesser discussed but major issue leading many to be wary or even outright apposed to increased globalization in urbanized areas (and often in turn, new urban development) in general, and especially to the growth of right wing populism in many cases. Namely, not only direct urban displacement but more broadly, but also a sense of cultural and political displacement from major (especially globally oriented) urban areas, greatly exacerbated by demographic decline.
Mayor Brandon's form of left wing urban populism is a different but related responce and seems to have also affected both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's polticial stratagy, in the form of more support for trade restrictions and now more conservative immigration policy as well. People feel displaced by the trends you mention above whether they directly have been or not and often respond poltically in various ways.