Metro Chicago Information Center has produced a report analyzing the changing economic fortunes of Chicago’s 77 community areas. Based on residents’ income, the three-decade analysis of U.S. Census data measures which neighborhoods are getting richer, which are getting poorer and which are becoming “bipolar” – with a growing gap between rich and poor. The report also determines that 19 neighborhoods are models of “stable diversity.”
The majority of the stable, diverse neighborhoods are scattered on the South Side and include Auburn-Gresham, South Shore and Woodlawn. “Stable diversity does not naturally occur” but is rather the result of thoughtful community planning, said Garth Taylor, president of MCIC, at a panel discussion held yesterday morning at Harris Bank, 115 S LaSalle St.
The areas getting richer, which the report calls “emerging high-income,” are not surprisingly clustered near downtown and the North side. But there are exceptions, such as Chatham and Morgan Park.
The “emerging low-income” neighborhoods include Rogers Park, Avondale and Pullman.
Within the emerging low-income category is “desertification,” which the report defines as, “where the total population is in steep decline and there are few remaining inhabitants remaining who are not low income.”
This data will no doubt be helpful to community planners. But we’re wary of using it to slap definitive labels on any neighborhood. For example, the assessment of Grand Boulevard, Douglas and Oakland as “desertified” doesn’t take into account the building boom underway in the greater Bronzeville area, which New Homes Magazine recently rated among Chicago’s hottest neighborhoods of 2007.