Why neighborhood demographics are shifting in Chicago

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• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  For more on black flight and the impact of Chicago's gun violence, I am joined here at WTTW by USA Today reporter Aamer Madhani.

  So, what is the impact, the ripple effect on the community when you lose 181,000 black residents in a span of 10 years?

• AAMER MADHANI, USA Today:

  It is enormous.

  You are looking at a city that is already going through this really difficult financial situation. We have about $20 billion underfunded pension system. We have a credit rating that is abysmal. We can't afford to lose more people. And we can't afford to lose people like the folks that you are talking to that have the means to leave Chicago.

  These are, you know, middle-class, working-class people with skills and education. Those are taxpayers, you know, and it is not just about — I think it is often, when we look at violence in places like Chicago, we say it is two Chicagos folks like to talk about.

  But what is happening to these families just as much affects me when they leave as it does those African-Americans communities.

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  Well, put this in kind of a national perspective.

  I mean, it has been called almost a reverse migration of African-Americans back toward different Southern cities, where maybe there seems to be opportunity and infrastructure.

• AAMER MADHANI:

  Right.

  So, you look at the biggest African-American populations, nine of the 10 have seen this decline since 2000. And you have seen places like Detroit, New York and Chicago where it has been greatest.

  But what is different about Detroit and Chicago, compared to New York, New York has a lot of gentrification going on, and you have seen violence nosedive a bit.

  But, in Chicago, there is this dark cloud that comes with this huge flight that is going on. And it's — you know, you look at who is affected by violence, and you look at — there's — we're on pace for 500-plus murders this year, and the vast majority of the people that will be killed have gang ties.

  But then you look at some of the folks that you just talked to. You know, like, how could you not leave if you got shot in the arm and you have a 5-year-old and a 7-year-old? If I was in that person's position, and if I was that person's neighbor, I would think about leaving.

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  Right.

  And economists would say it is most rational decision, right, to protect your family or to protect your life.

• AAMER MADHANI:

  Absolutely.

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  I mean, there seems to be a tension here. On the one hand, we want to support the idea of the American dream, and, sometimes, to do that, they are escaping a nightmare.

• AAMER MADHANI:

  One is just opportunity, right?

  Some of this migration has been going on since the '70s. There is industrialization, as the steel mills closed and there's fewer opportunities.

  Earlier this month, the Nabisco plant here in town on South Side that has a big African-American and Latino population that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been talking about, they just laid off 600 people.

  Why would you stay in some of these neighborhoods around if your job isn't there? If you or I's job, if we lost it, we would go to where our job — the next job is.

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  Is there a plan? I know that the city said, here is a particular opportunities program.

  But how do you get an enormous amount of unemployed young people who are in these communities an opportunity to do something and then actually to keep them there?

• AAMER MADHANI:

  It is a huge — it's a gigantic problem. It is not unique to Chicago.

  There's been some push now in private sector. Folks like Howard Schultz from Starbucks have made this sort of a prime project. But it is about saving a generation. But there aren't any sort of quick answers to this.

  The city tries hard with getting teenagers and young adults into summer programs, where they're working for the city or private enterprises. But, when you're talking about, you know, next to half of African-American men between 20 and 24 that are neither in school or employed in a city the size of Chicago, that is enormous. That's an enormous problem.

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  And this is similar to what is happening overseas in war-torn lands.

• AAMER MADHANI:

  It is not dissimilar to what I remember seeing in Iraq post-2003, when Paul Bremer decided they would disband the army, disband this Baathist Iraqi army.

  And you basically put hundreds of thousands of military-trained young men without jobs out on the street. And you have got to turn to something. You have got to make money. You have got to put food on the table.

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  Aamer Madhani, USA Today reporter, thanks for coming.

• AAMER MADHANI:

  Thanks for having me.