The Decline Continues

[gla22]

In the image below you can see the changing socioeconomic status of Chicago residents from 1970 to 2012. Grey represents households with wealth within +- 25% of the median.



While the populace is distracted with the culture war of gun control and gay marriage, outrages blown out of proportion and that have limited impacts on the population at large, whether it is the statistically small number of people getting gay married or shot to death, the decline of the middle class, the decline of wealth in the U.S. and growing wealth inequality are bigger concerns. To be fair Chicago is worse hit than many other cities, but it highlights a disturbing trend of what happens when you ship jobs overseas, crush unions, and let globalization run rampant.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/04/03/ ... your-eyes/

[Professor]

So, what you're saying is, if I wanted to move to Chicago, I should look for houses in the Lincoln Park and surrounding neighborhoods? Got it.

[Indy]

If this is going to turn into a Chicago-bashing fest everybody can suck it.

That said, yeah I saw that chart and there's another short video that's made the rounds in the past year about income disparity in the U.S. which is truly mind-blowing.

But you called it: people don't pay attention to this and the media won't report on it. Remember: our economic problems are due to lazy black people using SNAP cards to buy lobsters and smokes, funded by the evil federal gov't confiscating that money from hard-working white people. Wee!

[The Dharma Bum]

wait until 2030 when 45% of current jobs are performed via automation or software

the tax base will erased and added to the welfare rolls and massive misallocations of capital such as Detroit and Chicago will be removed from the ledger

[eynon81]

[gla22]

[Indy]

[eynon81]

[Saz]

This shouldn't come as a surprise. Chicago is one of the worst cities in the country in just about ever metric. Violent? Yep. Cold. Of course. Segregated? Like it's still 1940. Income inequality? Makes brazil look like a socialist paradise. Chicago is the next Detroit, I would hesitate to extrapolate its trends to a national level.

[broken robot]

I like Chicago.