Segregation in America's most segregated city, revealed through its funding flow
Home to a population of 2.6 million (2023), Chicago makes itself known as the largest city in the Midwest, boasting of opportunities, diversity, and big-city glamour. However, while its reputation for high crime rate is equally matched, Chicago's deeply rooted history of segregation is much lesser known but to dwellers of the city, yet plays an important role in shaping its economic and development landscape. Using data from the Urban Institute, the article seeks to address this issue by means of presenting investment flow in different communities or neighborhoods in Chicago, thus highlighting how this plays out as the most fundamental cause to the city's persisting racial and ethnic disparities.
Investment data used in this analysis was collected from 2010-2020 and reflects much of the city's efforts in community development through various aspects, such as enabling affordable housing, invigorating economic growth, and promoting equitable development. Notably, the data was the product of extensive research and was scaled by direct beneficiaries of the investment at the tract level, thus enabling sound comparisons across cities and neighborhoods. Details of each investment category are discussed in the Urban Institute's data catalog, though it would be helpful to familiarize ourselves with some of the types before moving forward:
In terms of overall investment per household, Chicago on average ranked 40th out of US's top 100 big cities by population size and 2nd in the Midwest (losing to Wisconsin's capital Madison). Based from this sample, there seems to be an inverse relationship between a city's poverty percentage and the investment in development it receives. Interestingly, cities in the West received on average more investment per household than their counterparts in other regions of the US.
Interacting with the visuals:
Hover over colored bubbles to see details of city.
Drag mouse across the graph to observe an area by the x-axis and see corresponding regional count in the histogram.Click once on the graph (outside of gray area) to cancel area selection.
Click on the region in the legend to filter data. Click once in the aera under the legend to reset filters.
Select radio buttons to see different investment categories.
Purchase loans for single-family housing units and non-residential make up the majority of Chicago's total development capital in the 10-year period 2010-2020.
Interacting with the visuals:
Hover over colored regions to see details of investment category.
All investment categories saw an upward trajectory, increasing at a remarkable rate especially in 2010-2013 period that marked the US's recovery from the Great Recession. While more money went in non-residential development cause on aggregate, residents of single-family units benefitted significantly when scaled by direct beneficiary.
Interacting with the visuals:
Click anywhere on the graph to see data for a specific year.
Hover over the dots once the vertical line appears to see details of the investment.
The graph shows average scaled investment for communities with a race majority presence. A notable pattern in overall investment is how investment decreased the more a community comprises largely of Blacks or Latinos. Community development funds is an exception to this observation, though it is worth noting that this is the investment category with the lowest amount received by beneficiary.
The data also explores investment across poverty categories. With the exception of a few categories where no significant differences could be seen, it appears that communities with lower rate of poverty were receiving more investment money on average during the 10 years period studied.
The map aggregates data on investment at the tract level. Beside showing the racial and poverty disparities in capital flow in Chicago in a different format from that presented above, the map also illustrates this segregation on a geographic level—how the loop and north/west side of Chicago was much more heavily invested than the lower south where we see a much higher rate of poverty and concentration of people of color neighborhoods.
Interacting with the visuals:
Hover over each tract on the map to see tract details.
Click on the tract to see the neighborhood it belongs to. Click anywhere once on the map (outside of the tracts) to cancel selection.
Select radio buttons to see different investment categories.
Select items on dropdown menu to filter by tract's race majority, poverty level, or both.