Chicago, America’s most segregated big city
By Azam Ahmed and Darnell Little
chicagotribune.com
The paths taken by Colin Lampark and Rosalyn Bates help illustrate why Chicago is the most racially segregated big city in America.
Both are young professionals with handsome earning potential. Both moved to the city a few years ago—Lampark, 28, to Lincoln Park; Bates, 31, to Bronzeville. And both chose neighborhoods reflecting their race, a practice common in Chicago.
Their personal stories, and many others, explain why blacks in Chicago are the most isolated racial group in the nation’s 20 largest cities, according to a Tribune analysis of 2008 population estimates. To truly integrate Chicago, 84 percent of the black or white population would need to change neighborhoods, the data show.
The calculations paint a starkly different picture from the ones broadcast across the nation during Barack Obama’s Election Night rally last month, when his hometown looked like one unified, harmonious city.
The fact is, racial patterns that took root in the 1800s are not easy to reverse. Racial steering, discriminatory business practices and prejudice spawned segregation in Chicago, and now personal preferences and economics fuel it. (more…)
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