CSY Opinion Piece In Crain's Chicago Business

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(Note: Last week I was fortunate enough to have an opinion piece written by Ed Zotti and myself published in Crain's Chicago Business. It's on the continuing loss of Chicago's Black middle class, at least as defined by its ability to attract Black college graduates. The article is behind a paywall, but as a co-author I took the liberty of posting it here. It's a themeI've writtenextensively about, and Chicago'snot the only city or metroto experience this. However, I think Chicago's (and other Rust Belt cities) particular brand of segregation is an under-recognized feature that holds them back. Please take a look. -Pete)

Opinion: Chicago needs to attract more Black talent. Right now, we're not even trying.

Crain's Chicago Business, March 21, 2024

The past few years have seen much handwringing about the supposedly dire state of Black America, with one local business leader warning that "without significant intervention, Black people will become a permanent underclass."

We beg to differ. We're well aware of the challenges Black Americans face. But the alarmist talk ignores the substantial progress that has been made and perpetuates the myth that Black people are doomed victims incapable of helping themselves.

That's nonsense. Our analysis of the latest Census Bureau data for the 10 U.S. metropolitan areas with the largest Black populations clearly shows that, in many regions, Black Americans have built strong middle-class communities that collectively are home to millions of people.

Granted, we found wide variation. Pessimism in the Midwest surely stems from the fact that Chicago and Detroit — where one of us, Pete Saunders, grew up — are at the bottom of the list on important metrics such as Black income growth, education, geographical mobility and integration. That's because huge numbers of middle-class Black Chicagoans have bailed for other parts of the country and we're not attracting enough ambitious newcomers to replace them. 

Why not? Other cities have become magnets for the Black middle class and are booming as a result. Chicago has had no difficulty attracting people of other ethnicities. Setting aside fluctuations due to the pandemic, if the number of Black residents was increasing at the same rate as the rest of the city, the overall population would be growing rather than flat, and the Black community would get a much-needed boost. 

That's not happening now, but we don't see that as cause for despair. On the contrary, the fact that other cities are far ahead of us shows the problems of Black Chicago can be solved — but only if we understand why we're so far behind and decide to do something about it. 

Some important findings from our research: 

More Black people have left the Chicago region than any other U.S. metro except New York. For decades, Black people have been moving back to the South from elsewhere in the U.S., a phenomenon demographers have termed the New Great Migration. Many of these people have come from Chicago. Our calculations suggest the area experienced net out-migration of 857,000 Black people between 1980 and 2022, more than any other metropolitan area except New York, which lost just over a million, and New York is a much larger place.

The majority of those departing were, or went on to become, middle class. We calculate that, had no Black migration occurred, the number of Black people living in middle-income communities in metro Chicago would have grown to 1.2 million by now. Instead, the number has fallen to 746,000. Chicago is one of only two of the top 10 metros to have experienced a decline in middle-income Black residents since 1980. The other is Los Angeles.

In other U.S. metros, the growth of the Black middle class has far outstripped Chicago. The standout performers are all in the South: Atlanta; Washington, D.C.; Houston; Dallas; and Miami. All have seen huge growth in Black population and in the process have become major centers of the Black middle class.

Atlanta and D.C. have blown past Chicago to become the second- and third-largest Black metros behind New York. In Atlanta, the number of Black people living in middle-income areas has grown 800%, from 164,000 in 1980 to 1.5 million now. D.C. has 1.1 million Black residents in middle-income areas, and Houston, Dallas and Miami each have 1.2 million. We can reasonably surmise a lot of those prosperous Black people came from Chicago.

The maps below starkly illustrate the differences between Chicago and the most successful Black metros in the country, D.C. and Atlanta.

In metro Chicago, more than half of Black people live in low-income areas, shown in red. The D.C. and Atlanta metros have their poor sections, too, but 72% of the Black people in both cities live in middle-income areas, shown in black and blue.

Why the vast difference? Blaming it on racism tells us nothing. It's not as if Chicago is more racist than Southern cities; racism is why Black people left the South in the first place. Rather, the industrial jobs that had initially attracted Black people to Chicago and Detroit moved somewhere else. Once the jobs left town, so did much of the Black middle class.

Chicago isn't attracting young Black talent. It's losing it. The New Great Migration "is largely driven by younger, college-educated Black Americans" from places like Chicago, writes demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution. Census data strongly supports this view. Far from attracting Black talent, Chicago and Detroit have been exporting it.

The two cities saw the least growth in Black college graduates of any of the top 10 Black metros. We calculate that, had migration not occurred, the city of Chicago would have 269,000 Black college grads today, more than twice what it actually has. 

Migration of Black college grads is part of a larger process we call the Great Sorting, when college-educated 20-somethings of all races make the pivotal decision where to settle down. Typically they choose the city where they went to school or got their first job. 

When it comes to attracting non-Black college grads, Chicago has been a remarkable success story. As we've often pointed out, the city has the highest overall percentage of college grads among the seven largest U.S. cities. A recent data analysis by the Illinois Economic Policy Institute confirms, "People who have moved into Illinois are better educated and more likely to arrive for college."

Chicago has done nowhere near as well in attracting educated Black kids. Of the 10 largest Black metros, the city ranks seventh in percentage of Black college graduates, well below the leaders and only a little above the average for all Black Americans. See the chart below:

We can't emphasize this point enough: The college grads of any race who live in thriving big cities aren't homegrown talent. Most of them have come from somewhere else. As we've previously pointed out, the majority of the college grads who've rebuilt Chicago were born outside Illinois and made a conscious choice to come here. 

That's probably not true of Chicago's Black grads, and it's definitely not true of Black Chicagoans in general, 79% of whom were born in the state. That's far higher than for any other major ethnic group in the region and for the Black communities in seven of the 10 top metros. (The other outliers are Detroit and Philadelphia.)

Bottom line: Chicago's Black community isn't attracting enough new blood, college graduates in particular, and is stagnating economically as a result. 

Abundant data supports this depressing conclusion:

• Black neighborhoods in Chicago and Detroit are more segregated than in any of the other top 10 metros, particularly within the city limits. In Chicago, 43% of Black residents live in areas that are more than 90% Black. In Detroit, it's 61%. The comparable number in New York is 4%. 

• The Chicago and Detroit metros rank ninth and 10th in growth of Black household income since 2010.

• The two metros also have the highest percentage of Black people living in poverty.

Skeptics will say that trying to attract more Black college grads to Chicago is fighting the tide. The South is the traditional home of Black America; many Black people in other parts of the country have family there. The winters aren't so cold. The high percentage of college grads among Black people in D.C. — higher than the U.S. average for all races — reflects the hiring power of the federal government. Atlanta is home to several historically Black colleges and universities. Chicago doesn't have any of those things going for it, skeptics would say.

Maybe not. But Chicago has one potent advantage over most of its Southern competitors: It's one of the world's great central cities. The growth of the Black communities in Atlanta and D.C. has been almost entirely a suburban phenomenon. In the cities themselves, the Black population is shrinking and mostly poor. If you're a Black kid just out of college and you're looking for a lively Black professional community in the heart of a big city, you don't have many options.

Chicago, we've argued, has an opportunity to create such a community on the south lakefront. Among the encouraging signs: The growth in Black grads in Chicago has risen from a few hundred per year in the early 2010s to almost 4,000 annually since 2015, for a total increase of about 27,000.

That's still not enough. Realizing the south lakefront's promise will take many more Black college grads than we're now getting, and much more public and private investment. When revitalization of the North Side began more than 50 years ago, the north lakefront was shabby in spots but basically intact; the south lakefront, in contrast, needs major rebuilding, although it has made a good start. 

What an effective strategy would look like is a subject for another day. The point is, we need to attract more young Black talent. We're making no effort to do so. We don't even recognize the problem. We'll make no progress until we do.