The Left Notices Chicago Has No Middle Class- The American Prospect Takes On Rahm Emanuel

The American Prospect reports:

Thirty years ago, the city was a run-down industrial center that seemed headed for the same Rust Belt ash heap as Cleveland and Buffalo. Today, it’s an Alpha World city, a financial and consulting capital with some of the nation’s best theater and restaurants (not to mention the home town of the most powerful man in the world). But only a third of the population lives in that Global Chicago. The Second City has its own Second City—black and Latino, occupying run-down, underserved neighborhoods far from the lake, interacting with the well-off only to bus their tables or drive their cabs. The city lost 200,000 residents in the last decade, mainly due to the demolition of public housing. But the Loop, the downtown neighborhood with a median household income of $78,124, nearly doubled in population. Chicago may have fewer people, but it has more of the people Emanuel wants.

The troubles in blue America.