The Story Behind Chicago's Second Ghetto
The formation of “the second ghetto” began with The Second Great Migration, in which approximately 2000 new black residents arrived to the city every week. The increase in the black population resulted in a housing shortage, thus beginning the “building boom” which took place from 1945 to 1960. This building boom, however, was not to accommodate the growing number of African Americans moving into the city, it was to accommodate and encourage the growing number of the White middle class moving out of the city. Over the course of this building boom, 75% of the 688,000 new homes constructed were single family suburban homes; these homes accompanied the 270,000 Whites that had left the city.
Initially, the mass migration of Blacks went relatively smoothly; however, once Black war veterans began encroaching on predominantly white neighborhoods, things turned violent. Race riots were the result as violence became common along the edge of Chicago’s “black belt”. Police remained inactive throughout most of these riots in which working class Whites attacked Blacks simply because of where they were living. The reason for the White working class’ assault on Blacks was that they did not want their neighborhoods to become a buffer between the better off Whites and the rest of the Blacks.
As the Black population became increasingly dense, Businessmen began to devise plans to deal with the situation while at the same time benefiting Whites. This process was known as “urban renewal” and it consisted of large businesses buying slum property and turning it into profitable middle class high rises. These actions were essentially authorized by the Blighted Areas Redevelopment and Relocation Act, which provided the funds to clear out city slums. Over the course of this project, approximately 26,000 families were displaced (or “relocated”); and with no additional housing being built for these displaced families, more Blacks were forced deeper into the ghettos. Public housing also made a significant contribution to Chicago’s tireless efforts to remain racially segregated. Beginning in 1951 the CHA (Chicago Housing Authority) began making conditions in the ghetto worse through their site and tenant selection. Many of the tenant selection issues were due to the 1937 Housing Act which made public Housing only available to the poor. Site selection issues were due to the strong presence of racism which allowed Chicago’s white residents to dictate where new housing projects should be built. Ultimately, vacant land was used for the expansion of white neighborhoods while more buildings were being built for blacks within their already overcrowded ghettos. The CHA’s solution to this problem of there not being enough space within the already overcrowded ghettos was to construct high rises that held a high number of poor people while using up a relatively small amount of horizontal space. By the mid 1960’s the ghetto was deemed complete, and allowed for the maximization of racial segregation. The Ghetto began to further decline from 1966-1967, a period in which less money was being spent on the maintenance of projects, the ratio children per adult was on the rise, diminishing employment opportunities, and the “white flight” all began to impact the ghetto in a negative way. The end result was a less dense and less diverse population; where only poor the black lived.
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