The Intersection of Education, Housing, Urban Development Policy, and Race in Making Chicago's Deepening Divide

• In Event: 72.028 - The Landscape of Education Policy and Politics in Chicago: Neoliberalism, Race, Resistance, and Justice

Abstract

Objective
This paper maps out the relationship between spatial patterns and educational opportunities in Chicago that show how as it has become more economically polarized it has also segregated opportunity for non-white, low-income children. Chicago’s future is discussed assuming the current school and housing trends continue.

Perspective.
Since 1970, Chicago has become more economically segregated and polarized (Smith 2014); Chicago’s GINI, which measures inequality, has more than doubled as has its Coefficient of Polarization (Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership 2014). Welfare economics literature suggests that inequality and polarization are possible causes of social conflicts and can hold back growth, stifle innovation and even undermine democracy (Gigliarano & Muliere, 2012; Soubbotina & Sheram, 2000; Winship, 2013). Widening income gaps are proving to have detrimental effects on low-income families as declining real incomes are associated with increasing maternal stress, mental health issues and parenting challenges, and In addition, increasing residential segregation has “led to increasing concentrations of low- and high-income children attending separate schools”(Duncan & Murnane, 2014).

Methods
The paper uses quantitative spatial analysis (cross-sectional and longitudinal) to analyze change in income inequality and its correlation to educational opportunity, racial/ethnic change and other indicators. Data visualization/mapping using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) illustrates change in these relationships 1970 to now.

Data
We use US Census 1970-2000, American Community Survey 2008-12 and Chicago Public Schools (various data and dates) to identify patterns of change over time. Data from Crain’s Business Chicago, World Business Chicago and City of Chicago will be used to analyze pending and planned development.

Results that warrant arguments.
Like many other US cities, Chicago appears to be following a national trend of declining households with children (El Nasser & Overberg, 2011). However, this is not equally distributed by race. Between 2000 and 2010, the city lost 200,000 people, 90 percent of which were African American, 65 percent were less than 18 years old and nearly all from the city’s south and west sides where disinvestment and school closings prevailed (Voorhees Center, 2014). At the same, Chicago gained new White higher income households in the downtown and north side – areas that have seen significant investment in new market rate housing and in new public select enrollment and magnet schools as well as charters. The post-recession housing market recovery is continuing these trends with a new round of gentrification (Voorhees Center, 2014). Compounding these shifts are efforts in Chicago to cultivate space for companies that require a highly educated and trained workforce, such as Google, which brings in new employees but does not necessarily produce jobs for the many unemployed in Chicago (e.g., see World Business Chicago, 2013).

Significance
In the US, the focus since the 1980s has been on the “shrinking middle class” and the concern that income distribution is shifting from the center as an increasing proportion of families are in lower-income brackets (Foster & Wolfson, 2010). This paper contributes to this research by examining how change in educational opportunities correlate with growing inequality and spatial polarization.

Author

• Janet Smith, University of Illinois at Chicago