Tunnels

Dear Blogger,

It was around ninety degrees on Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday, it was typical fall weather: in the lower-seventy degrees. Yesterday, Thursday, it got cold and kind of unpleasant. It's become the windy city, finally. And it's almost Halloween!

We went down to the southwest side of the city yesterday for class. We've been talking about white flight, so went to see a few neighborhoods. Marquette Park, which was once a wealthy, entirely white neighborhood, as well as the location of one Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s marches in Chicago. Marquette Park is now almost entirely black, because like many other neighborhoods in the south and the west side of the city, many of the white people fled to the north side (ironic) or the suburbs or the southwestern side. A few of the white people are still remaining, like in the old Lithuanian neighborhood, where there is a gigantic, beautiful Russian Orthodox Church that is expecting to close down within the next decade from lack of participation.

We've been reading a book called There Goes The Neighborhood, which is essentially about the changing demographics of many neighborhoods in Chicago. According to this book, there are two ways people deal with their changing neighborhood: voice and exit.

• Voice being standing up and either stopping or effecting the change for better or for worse, like one neighborhood (I can't remember which) that tried to build a giant wall to keep the blacks separated from the whites. Or, Hyde Park, which is pretty well racially integrated. Which I would say is only really because the university is the backbone of the neighborhood and actively supports the neighborhood. I can't really comment on race relations, otherwise.
• Exit being white flight, essentially, just white people abandoning their old neighborhood and moving to the suburbs or another neighborhood. People who can't afford to leave are usually the elderly, or the poorer, and sometimes become the minority within their neighborhood. (The former Lithuanian neighborhood.)

Most of the times, these changes leave neighborhoods impoverished. One of the neighborhoods is extremely poor, has active gangs, and as a result at some unsettling attempts of voice, was the headquarters of the American Nazi Party. (It's been replaced by a Blockbuster.)

And when the people relocate, they just start over again, rebuilding neighborhoods. We went to Clearing, in the southwest side of the city, where many white people relocated to after white flight. The City of Chicago requires that all city employees live within the city's boundaries. Clearing is interesting, because it's on the border of the city, but looks to be suburban. It's near the airport, the streets are wide, everything is spread out, and everyone owns a Ford or a Chrysler. It's also notable for having the highest concentration of police officers and firefighters than any other neighborhood in the city. (Which results in a hyper-patriotic neighborhood, where there's a US flag recycling bin, and cars with NRA bumper stickers, Bush/Cheney '04 stickers, and big SUVs.)

Given this city's touchy relationship with race and the police force, what's going to happen if the neighborhood begins to integrate itself? We talked to a lady from a neighborhood nearby, and it's starting to integrate. It's unavoidable that Clearing not integrate eventually. Where are these people going to go? Are they going to move again? How are things going to unfold? W.E.B. DuBois said the color line is going to be the biggest problem of the 20th century.

Good Luck, Laika,

Steve