Chicago attracted a lot of investment over the past decade, but how well its economy serves residents depends a lot on where they live. Between 2010 and 2020, neighborhoods where most residents are Black received a fraction of the overall investment recorded in mostly white neighborhoods, according to a new study from the Urban Institute.
The city’s glittering downtown expanded in all directions over the decade, with new apartment and office towers sprouting up in surrounding neighborhoods, but areas such as Englewood and many others across the South and West sides fared poorly, researchers from the Washington, D.C.-based think tank found. And there’s no easy explanation for why this happened, and no easy solutions, said Brett Theodos, the lead researcher.
“It’s the sum total of all the small and large decisions, personal, corporate and public, that have been made over the years,” he said. “It’s everything all rolled together.”
