There's a compelling question at the heart of a report released this week by the Metropolitan Planning Council: If more people — especially educated professional white Americans — knew exactly how they are harmed by the country's pervasive racial segregation, would they be moved to try to decrease it?
Researchers from the MPC, a Chicago-based nonprofit, and from the Washington-based Urban Institute tried to create a workable formula for estimating the cost, collectively and individually, of the persistent problem in their report, "The Cost of Segregation: Lost income. Lost lives. Lost potential. The steep costs all of us in the Chicago region pay by living so separately from each other."
The researchers analyzed segregation patterns in the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country and found that if Chicago — the fifth most racially and economically segregated city in the country — were to lower its level of segregation to the national median of those 100 cities, it would have a profound impact on the entire Chicago region, including raising the region's gross domestic product, raising incomes and lowering the homicide rate.
"Segregation is not only an issue in low-income communities or communities of color," the report says. "Economic and racial segregation has strangled opportunities for millions of people. Disinvestment has devastated entire city neighborhoods and suburban villages, towns and cities. Lack of diversity also hurts affluent communities, where limited housing options often mean that young people cannot afford to return when starting their own families, retirees cannot afford to stay and valued employees are priced out. Add it up, and it's clear that segregation holds back the entire region's economy and potential —and whether we realize it or not, it's costing all of us."
Amanda E. Lewis, director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy at the University of Illinois-Chicago, called the MPC report "very important."
"The findings are pretty stark," Lewis said. "They're hard to ignore."
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9 comments:
I wouldn't want to live there with people that don't care about themselves or their brothers!
Bad enough here!
What a load of BS . This diversity crap is garbage. Why does this idiot wonder why white people won't shop in black neighborhoods? If she can't figure that out then she needs a different line of work.
People surround themselves with like-minded people. It's human nature. The more "Diversity" is forced on any one group, the more tensions arise. Vive Chinatown and Little Havana!
Democrats created segregation and now have created a movement to return to segregation by tricking minorities into thinking it's their idea...LOL it is brilliant but devious.
Whites don't want to live with blacks, and blacks don't want to live with whites. Blacks want their own colleges, and black students don't want to eat with white kids in cafeterias. Segregation is a preference and a choice. It is not a forced thing. Not anymore, so don't try to blame segregation on whites, or the government. It is a natural human preference to want to live within your own tribe. There is nothing wrong with that, It the tribe wants to fix what wrong within the tribe, then let THEM fix it. It is not for the other tribes to fix it for them.
Actually Black people seem to seek out white people, Just look at places like Ocean city which is predominately a white city but blacks go there in the summer to be around them.
How about more segregation? I'm all for it. Let's divide the country into halves. All white people in one half, and all persons of color in the other half. Perhaps we could enhance the situation even further by sending all snowflakes and liberals to the half inhabited by the persons of color.
Divide it based on percentages.
Separate but equal works, we need to go back to it fast!
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