Urban Decline Moves to the Suburbs

The Boston Review reports on Chicago :

The real estate hustlers, with the blessing of the Democratic machine, made fortunes and kicked a percentage back to the local ward alderman or committeeman. Other whites accepted the instability of repeated neighborhood change for the stability of patronage employment. The city government that put food on the table took money from their savings accounts at Pioneer Bank and Talman Savings and Loan in the form of lost home equity. For more recent immigrants, the city has been stripped of opportunity in some places and sealed off in others.

The Democratic machine and its allies have fought an increasingly costly rear-guard action for nearly half a century. At the end of that period, the image of the city has been burnished, but Chicago is basically broke. Housing abandonment, homelessness, and foreclosure rates are all at historic highs. 34 public school children were murdered during the 2006-7 school year alone. The police force staggers under multiple charges of abuse and corruption. The old bungalow bedrock of the city—blue-collar and tax-paying—has disappeared.

The high tax life style isn't the wave of the future.Via LRC Blog