- Jessica Koscielniak/Sun-Times Media
- Seventh Ward alderman Natashia Holmes says city job cuts have a “dramatic impact” on struggling black neighborhoods.
Even in job losses, there are two Chicagos.
In a city as segregated as Chicago, that adds up to a serious blow to black and Latino communities already struggling with disinvestment and crime.
These public-sector jobs formed the economic base of middle-class neighborhoods that are now imperiled, especially on the south and southwest sides. In 2012 and 2013, 826 homes went into foreclosure in the Seventh Ward, one of the highest totals in the city, according to the nonprofit Woodstock Institute. Other wards that have lost hundreds of city jobs over the last three years—including the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, 18th, and 34th—also ranked in the top ten in foreclosures.
Holmes says her goal is to make her ward more attractive for investors. “We have all this opportunity in neighborhoods that were once vibrant. We have the infrastructure. We’re close to the lake and to transportation networks.”
