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A Tale of Three Cities: The State of Racial Justice in Chicago Report
Abstract
This report by UIC's Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy provides a comprehensive picture of the conditions of different racial and ethnic groups in Chicago in relation to housing, health, economics, education, and justice and is meant as a resource for the development of new engaged research projects and policy solutions.
... It is important that this study be situated within the historical and political landscape of Chicago, which allowed for the emergence of the COVID-19, racism, and violence syndemic. First, residential segregation is a leading contributor to persistent racial inequity in health (Henricks et al., 2017), and Chicago is among the most segregated cities in America. Based on data from the 2020 Census, the dissimilarity index for Black residents in Chicago (a measure of how evenly distributed demographic groups are in the city) is 74, meaning that 74% of white people would need to move to another neighborhood in Chicago to have white and Black residents be evenly distributed across the city (Logan & Stults, 2021). ...
... Prior to the formal end of "stop-and-frisk" in 2016, Black Chicago residents accounted for 72% of all police stops, despite comprising just one-third of the city's population. Additionally, police stops are concentrated geographically; in Englewood, a predominantly Black community, there are 226 stops per 1000 residents, five times higher than in predominantly white police districts (Henricks et al., 2017). Finally, neighborhood segregation affects access to healthcare. ...
... The availability of medical providers and pharmacies mirror the city's patterns of segregation, with many Black neighborhoods on the city's south and west sides considered "healthcare provider deserts" and "pharmacy deserts." (Henricks et al., 2017) Collectively, these manifestations of structural racism and class inequality (among many others) have contributed to historically disenfranchised neighborhoods where residents have over 10 times the rate of heart disease and stroke as surrounding neighborhoods, and the rate of hypertension is almost twice as high for Black residents as it is for whites (Henricks et al., 2017). As noted earlier, these health inequities were key drivers of early racial disparities in COVID-19 morbidity and mortality (Zhou et al., 2022). ...
The COVID-19 pandemic emerged in the United States in the shadows of a vast history of structural racism and community and police violence that disproportionately affect Black communities. Collectively, they have created a syndemic, wherein COVID-19, racism, and violence are mutually reinforcing to produce adverse health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to understand the COVID-19, racism, and violence syndemic and examine how structural racism and violence contributed to the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black communities. In early 2021, we conducted phenomenological qualitative interviews with 50 Black residents of Chicago. Interview transcripts were coded and analyzed using thematic analysis. We identified four primary themes in our analyses: 1) the intersection of racism and violence in Chicago; 2) longstanding inequities were laid bare by COVID-19; 3) the pervasiveness of racism and violence contributes to poor mental health; 4) and COVID-19, racism and violence emerged as a syndemic. Our findings underscore the importance of addressing social and structural factors in remediating the health and social consequences brought about by COVID-19.
... The impact of this disinvestment in mental health services is particularly pronounced within Chicago's high economic hardship and underserved communities of color (Acosta-Cordova, 2017;Henricks et al., 2017). Among the high economic hardship communities on Chicago's southwest side that are home to a predominantly Mexican population (Acosta-Cordova, 2017), availability of mental health services is limited compared to more affluent White Chicago communities. ...
The present study used a structural social work theoretical lens to undertake a systematic mental health needs assessment. Using a community-based participatory research approach and a two-phase mixed methods design, the researchers assessed mental health needs and barriers to care among 2,556 adults of primarily Mexican background from ten economically marginalized communities in Chicago’s southwest side. Findings indicated that mental health concerns including depression, anxiety, and trauma-related symptoms were prevalent among community members and stemmed from the oppressive national and local level structural contexts in which they lived. Furthermore, data demonstrated that research participants overwhelmingly identified structural and programmatic barriers, rather than social barriers such as stigma, as posing the greatest challenges to mental health service access. Among the structural and programmatic barriers identified were service cost, lack of insurance coverage, and limited availability of services that were culturally affirming and responsive to context-specific service needs. This study has far-reaching implications for understanding the impact of structural factors on mental health. We recommend that social workers advocate for organizational and policy changes that address these structural barriers.
... Henricks et al. (2018) Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved. ...
This paper empirically tests housing market efficiency in the spatial dimension by using the spatial autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic (ARCH) and spatial quantile regression models. The tests were conducted in terms of both housing returns and squared returns (volatility). The sale price data used is from Cook County residential MLS for the years 2010–2016. The main findings are that housing returns are not spatially correlated but squared returns are spatially correlated, and the spatial dependence of squared returns seems to be stronger for higher squared return quantiles.
... Furthermore, the Black-White income gap remains even for boys who grew up in the same neighborhood (i.e., Census tract). A study set in Chicago found that Black adults with a bachelor's degree are more than twice as likely as White adults with the same degree to be unemployed (Henricks, Lewis, Arenas, & Lewis, 2018). ...
The relationship between parental education and family income to parenting practices and children’s achievement is well-documented. The effects of high parental education on these behaviors in the face of financial difficulty over time, however, are less established. Therefore, this study seeks to examine the longitudinal income status trajectories of low-income, highly-educated families in addition to the predictors and outcomes of experiencing varying durations of economic hardship. The first research aim identified income status trajectories of college-educated families living in or near poverty. The second research aim determined whether sociodemographic characteristics, such as race or sex, predict to different durations of economic hardship. The third research aim examined the effect of different durations of economic hardship on distal parent and child outcomes. The last research aim attempted to replicate findings in a conceptually similar dataset. Two datasets were used to investigate these research aims: Early Child Longitudinal Study 1998-99 (ECLS-K: 1998) and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study 2010-11 (ECLS-K: 2010). To be included in the analyses, families must be low-income (i.e., living at or below 200% of the federal poverty line) and have at least one parent with a college degree (i.e., Bachelor’s degree or higher) when their child was in kindergarten. Families must also have participated in at least two waves of data following kindergarten (ECLS-K: 1998 N = 540; ECLS-K: 2010: N = 449). First, latent growth curve analyses (LCGA) in Mplus identified income status trajectories. Second, multinomial logistic regressions determined predictors of the previously identified latent trajectories. Last, mean equality tests examined distal outcome differences amongst the previously identified latent trajectories. These three analyses were first conducted in the ECLS-K: 1998 and then replicated in the ECLS-K: 2010. In the ECLS-K: 1998, two trajectories emerged: Transient (i.e., above the low-income threshold in most waves) and Chronic (i.e., at or below the low-income threshold in most waves). Compared to the Transient class families, the Chronic class families were more likely to have a parent identify as Black and live in rural areas and less likely to have a parent with an occupation requiring a postsecondary degree. Parents in the Transient class reported higher school involvement, satisfaction with their child’s school, and warmth towards their child and children in the Transient class had higher reading and math achievement compared to families in the Chronic class. In the ECLS-K: 2010, three trajectories emerged: Immediate Transient (i.e., immediately above the low income threshold in most waves), Delayed Transient (i.e., initially at or below the low-income threshold but gradually rose above it over time), and Chronic (i.e., at or below the low-income threshold in most waves). No sociodemographic characteristics predicted trajectory class membership. Parents in both the Delayed Transient and Chronic classes reported more rules in the household than parents in the Immediate Transient class. This study was one of the first to investigate income trajectories in low-income, highly-educated families over time. Variation in duration of poverty sociodemographic characteristics and outcomes amongst low-income, college-educated families highlight the need for a range of policy and program solutions to address diverse familial needs. Parental education may be a protective buffer for parents and children in the face of economic hardship. The difference in results between the two datasets suggests issues of historical validity and additional sensitivity analyses identified important methodological differences when comparing across datasets.
... New York City has obvious social class distinctions between black and white, wealthy and homeless, which intersects the city's changing economic structure. The notion of polarization and racial and ethnic discrimination is embedded in US cities (Henricks et al. 2017). Researchers have identified its negative social and physical impacts in housing (Jackson 1987), health (Gravlee 2020), Source: https://www.fast-trackcities.org/cities. ...
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has impacted cities around the world. Global cities theory suggests that cities articulated to the global economy should be affected by such flows similarly. We start from this perspective and examine the impacts and outcomes of COVID-19 in three global cities: New York City, London and Tokyo. Our results focus on the speed, intensity, scale and characteristics of COVID-19 related cases and deaths in these cities and their respective countries. We find that while there are similarities between the experiences of global cities, there are also significant differences. The differences can be partially explained by policy, socio-economic and cultural differences. Our findings suggest that cities articulated to the global system could benefit from developing their own locally unique early warning and emergency response system, integrated with but separate from national systems.
... An indication of the vast disparities in job access, for example, is that transit riders E q u i t y a n d Tr a n s f o r m a t i o n living downtown or on the North Side can access as many as 700,000 jobs within a 30-minute commute, while residents living on the far South Side can access just 50,000 jobs. 13 One of the enduring outcomes of the loss of well-paying manufacturing jobs, many of which had been located in or near Black communities, has been declining employment in neighborhood-serving retail and services industries as consumer spending has declined. 14 Many of those engaged in Chicago's survival economies face a functional exclusion from jobs in the mainstream economy. ...
... African American residents comprise 33% of Chicago's population but nearly 80% of the residents that live in a food desert [25]. Furthermore, the metropolitan Chicago area is one of the most segregated urban centers in the U.S. with high levels of black-white segregation [26]. Chicago's racial segregation has been linked to geographic inequities in health across the city [27,28]. ...
Background: In 2016, a large chain supermarket opened in the Englewood community of Chicago, IL – a low-income African American community. The development of this supermarket was supported, in part, by the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) – a federal initiative to expand access to healthy foods in food deserts. The aim of this study was to examine changes to food and beverage availability and marketing in Englewood’s existing food stores after the supermarket’s opening.
Methods: A quasi-experimental study was conducted from 2016 – 2018. Trained fieldworkers audited all small grocery and limited-service stores (e.g., convenience stores, liquor stores, pharmacies, dollar/discount stores) located within one-square mile of the new supermarket and a one-square mile area of a demographically comparable community in Chicago that also lacked a supermarket. All stores in the one-square mile area were audited at three time points: before (2016) and after (2017 and 2018) the supermarket opened. Extensive data on availability and marketing were collected for staple food items, snacks, and beverages. Difference-in-differences (DID) regression models were used to identify significant differences between the intervention and comparison communities in the changes in food and beverage availability and marketing.
Results: Of the 78 stores audited at baseline, 71.8% were limited-service stores, and 85.9% accepted Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. The availability of healthy food and beverage options in existing food stores was limited at baseline and both follow-up periods. Stores in the intervention community offered, on average, < 3 fresh vegetable options and < 2 fresh fruit options at all three time periods. DID regression models revealed a significant increase in 1) the percentage of stores in the intervention community offering regular cheese and promoting salty snacks at check-out from 2016 – 2017 and 2) the percentage of stores in the comparison community with interior store promotions for other sweetened beverages from 2016 – 2018.
Conclusions: Minimal changes in food and beverage availability and marketing occurred one and two years after the opening of the new supermarket. However, the wide range of staple food items offered by the supermarket expanded healthy food retail in Chicago’s Englewood community.
While urban inequalities are well studied and understood by scholars, less is known about how these inequalities are localized within a neighborhood context, especially among young adults of color who are most susceptible to the effects of these inequalities. In this paper, we argue that in order to better understand the political development of young adults by race and ethnicity, more attention should be given to how local neighborhoods frame experiences of divestment and racial inequality in a city. Drawing from a large-scale, interview-based study with 160 young adults, we find that neighborhood context is a critically important space for understanding how young people of color are politicized as they transition into adulthood. We argue that neighborhoods are mini publics within a broader city that both exacerbate urban and racial inequalities and yet also serve as spaces for political development and innovation among young adults.
Black Americans face disparate health burdens of diet-related chronic diseases. Black Americans who live in communities with inadequate access to healthy foods are at an even greater risk for disparate health outcomes. Urban agriculture in communities with inadequate access to healthy food can complement the existing traditional food system and can make a difference in the accessibility of fresh fruits and vegetables and subsequently, increase fruit and vegetable consumption. However, integrating urban agriculture into a local food system can be challenging. Community capacity-building efforts have the potential to enhance organizational development and enable collaborations to enhance efforts to incorporate urban agriculture into communities with inadequate food access. This study used Chaskin’s relational framework to describe community capacity-building efforts to enhance urban agriculture in predominantly Black communities. We found that strategies for community capacity building in urban agriculture include building on existing resources, community engagement, expanding organizational capacity, identifying threats to community capacity building, and identifying ideal solutions to enhance community capacity-building efforts. Urban farmers, gardeners, and advocates identified these strategies to strengthen local control of the food environment through sustainable urban agriculture. Additional research is needed to further identify community engagement strategies that emphasize sustainability, such as workforce development efforts, building networks for new growers, and strengthening connections between farmers, gardeners, urban agriculture advocates, and community residents.
See full report at: https://ceje.uic.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Root-Shock-Report-Compressed.pdf
This report documents the rates of incarceration for whites, African Americans, and Hispanics, providing racial and ethnic composition as well as rates of disparity for each state. We find the following: in 11 states, 1 in 20 adult black men are in prison; in 5 states, racial disparity is greater than 10-1 black/white; and in 12 states, more than half of prisoners are black.
Omi and Winant examine the creation and negotiation of race's role in identify construction, contestation, and deconstruction. Since no biological basis exists for the signification of racial differences, the authors discuss racial hierarchies in terms of a "racial formation," which is a process by which racial categories are created, accepted, altered, or destroyed. This theory assumes that society contains various racial projects to which all people are subjected. The role that race plays in social stratification secures its place as a political phenomenon in the United States. This stratification is tantamount to what Omi and Winant call "racial dictatorship," which has three effects. First, the identity "American" is conflated with the racial identity "white." Second, the "color line" becomes a fundamental division in American society. Finally, oppositional racial consciousness became consolidated in opposition to racial dictatorship.
Race and Ethnic Studies/Sociology/Critical Race Theory
The vital issue facing urban America during the 1960's-the downward spiral of poverty, deterioration, and exploitation in poor neighborhoods-was attacked by The Woodlawn Organization (TWO) in Chicago. John Hall Fish, an active participant in TWO, tells the story of one of the most exciting, controversial, and significant experiments in community control. Founded in 1961 by a group of clergymen, with tactical advice from Saul Alinsky, TWO grew to become the major force for community development and self-government in the Woodlawn area. The author traces TWO's history as it struggled to achieve significant community control over the problems that threatened the black inner-city community. He concentrates on three controversial programs: the Youth Project (involving the Blackstone Rangers), the Woodlawn Experimental Schools project, and the Model Cities program. Although TWO ultimately failed to overcome the entrenched opposition of city agencies, its very survival, the author argues, is a measure of its success. For as the cumbersome urban bureaucracies prove ever more ineffective, it is the existence of organized and experienced community organizations that will determine the possibility of neighborhood rebirth and renewal.
American metropolitan areas have experienced rising residential segregation by income since 1970. One potential explanation for this change is growing income inequality. However, measures of residential sorting are typically mechanically related to the income distribution, making it difficult to identify the impact of inequality on residential choice. This paper presents a measure of residential segregation by income, the Centile Gap Index (CGI), which is based on income percentiles. Using the CGI, I find that a one standard deviation increase in income inequality raises residential income segregation by 0.4-0.9 standard deviations. Inequality at the top of the distribution is associated with more segregation of the rich, while inequality at the bottom and declines in labor demand for less-skilled men are associated with residential isolation of the poor. Inequality can fully explain the rise in income segregation between 1970 and 2000.