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An independent report co-produced by James Lewis, senior research specialist in the UIC Great Cities Institute, is featured in a Crain’s Chicago Business blog. The report and column detail Chicago census data on income that outlines which neighborhoods fall into three areas – rising, idling, and declining- in recent years and over the past half century.
Though household income is growing smartly in parts of Chicago, a decades-old decline continues elsewhere, with the rest of the city stagnating in an awkward middle.
That’s the gist of some intriguing new data from a pair of veteran local demographers that underlines as well as any effort I’ve seen the continuing transition of Chicago into not two but three different cities over the past half-century—one thriving in the world economy, the second stuck in Rust Belt decline and the third not quite belonging to either.
