10 Ways Segregation and Economic Deprivation Defined Chicago

Chicago is the most segregated big city in the U.S., according to a Chicago Tribune population study. For integration to occur in Chicago, 84 percent of the Black or white population would need to change neighborhoods. Here are 10 reasons why this extreme segregation took place in the Windy City. Long History of Segregation The 1920s marked the beginning of a mass exodus. Black people who wanted to escape the Jim Crow South fled to Northern cities in search of jobs and better housing and economic opportunities. In 1940, white people comprised 91.7 percent of the population. Today, Chicago’s nearly 3 million people break down to about 35 percent African-American, 30 percent Hispanic, and 28 percent Caucasian. Although the populations of the three major ethnic groups are relatively even, each group primarily lives among themselves, most likely because for well over 100 years segregation has been the rule in Chicago, according to a 2009 article from thechicago77.com. Segregation in Chicago Is Thoroughly Institutionalized Chicago's history of segregation goes way back, and separation was institutionally enforced. Institutions like houses of worship, stores, restaurants, and schools that cater to one ethnicity or race tend to ensure that the people who live close by stay close by. According to journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates, Chicago's racist history led to this outcome. "Its mayors and aldermen razed neighborhoods and segregated public housing. Its businessmen lobbied for racial zoning. Its realtors block-busted whole neighborhoods, flipping them from black to white and then pocketing the profit. Its white citizens embraced racial covenants—in the ’50s, no city had more covenants in place than Chicago," the journalist wrote. Racist Views Drove Chicago's Housing Policies In 1934, Dr. Homer Hoyt, a Chicago researcher and chief economist of the Federal Housing Administration, wrote in "One Hundred Years of Land Values in Chicago: The Relationship of the Growth of Chicago to the Rise of Its Land Values, 1830–1933" that particular groups of people are more desirable than others. Whites of Anglo-Saxon heritage were the most desirable according to his book. The second tier consisted of Northern Italians, Czechoslovakians, Polish, Lithuanians, Greeks, Russian Jews of the lower class, South Italians, and at the bottom, Blacks and Mexicans as reported by Slate. During Hoyt's time at the FHA, his research and analysis provided the framework the FHA used to assess the risk a neighborhood posed for mortgage lenders. Redlining According to the Washington Post, the government-sponsored Home Owners' Loan Corporation drafted maps of American communities in the early 20th century to sort through which neighborhoods were worthy of mortgage lending. This act led to a policy called redlining in U.S. cities, where new, affluent, homogeneously white housing areas received green lines, while areas close to where Blacks lived were often circumscribed by red lines. Banks and insurers soon adopted the HOLC's maps as tools for lending and underwriting decisions. While this discriminatory practice was by no means unique to Chicago, Coates writes, "Throughout the 20th century — and perhaps even in the 21st — there was no more practiced advocate of housing segregation than the city of Chicago." Racial Steering Racial steering refers to the practice (illegal since 1968) engaged in by some property owners, brokers, and managers of steering white home and apartment seekers into white areas, while steering equally creditworthy Black prospects into Black and racially changing areas. This practice was also not unique to Chicago, but steering was widely condoned in the city, according to authors of the book "Chicago: Race, Class, and the Response to Urban Decline." In addition, a recent study found "steering" was the most common type of discrimination faced by test voucher holders in Chicago, regardless of race, ethnic background, or family composition. The Other Side of the Highway Another not-so subtle strategy that is particular to Chicago was physically dividing the city racially by using the Eisenhower Expressway. By the time Eisenhower's highway system was built in 1950, Black and Whites were segregated by a a fence that placed African-Americans to the south and Caucasians to the north of the city. “The wrong side of the tracks” became “the wrong side of the highway” in Chicago. School Desegregation School desegregation became a big issue in Chicago during the years following World War II, as Black neighborhoods expanded and school officials redrew boundary lines to keep school districts as segregated as the housing market. Civil rights and Black community groups demanded that the schools be integrated and that funding disparities be addressed. However, Chicago's white officials and residents resisted desegregation, and plans to achieve integration contributed to white flight from the city. When the Chicago Public Schools finally did undertake a court-ordered desegregation plan in the early 1980s, there were relatively few white students left in the system. Blockbusting Realtors would persuade Black prospective home owners to get homes in white neighborhoods. When Black residents moved into these neighborhoods, whites moved and property prices dropped dramatically. Once whites moved, other realtors came in and built multi-family dwellings, cramming large groups into row houses meant for a handful of people, explains the Daily Beast. So the realtors would urge white residents to sell quickly before Black residents came in and lower the housing prices, which led to profits for the realtors. This further segregated areas and created racial tension because the whites who could not sell blamed Black residents. The Development of the Ghettos By the 1950s, the Eisenhower highway system was constructed, along with the new suburbs that white folk would flee to. The new housing projects that began to be constructed during the 1930s under the New Deal for poor whites became Black housing. "In 1950, the median household in public housing earned about 57 percent of the national median income. That number fell to 41 percent by 1960, then 29 percent by 1970. By the 1990s, the median family in public housing made only about 17 percent what the median family in America made," reports The Washington Post. White Violence When the policies could not effectively segregate Black people, violence did. In order to keep Black people in their "place," over-policing became the status quo. Anti-Black riots also became the norm during the 1940s-1960s. In author Arnold Hirsch's "Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940–1960," he describes one such event. On July 28, 1957, a crowd of 6,000 to 7,000 whites attacked 100 Black picnickers who occupied a portion of the park that had previously been “reserved” for whites. The ensuing race riot took 500 cops to reestablish order. Events like this were common. Black residents also experienced racial bombings and arson regularly, according to Hirsch.

Related Stories

‘Did She Just Use Her Hands as a Mixing Spoon’: LisaRaye Faces Backlash Over Cooking Clip After Fans Notice Her Unusual Salad Prep

Chicago Transit Authority Criticized After Sharing Photo of Abraham Lincoln Lookalike to Celebrate Black History

Chicago Elects Lori Lightfoot As The First African-American Woman Mayor, Pledges End To Corruption