 |
 |
 |
 |
|
World City/Regional City: by Margaret Villanueva, Brian Erdman and Larry
Howlett Working Paper No. 46 September 2000
About the Authors: Margaret A. Villanueva holds a doctorate in Sociology
from University of California-Santa Cruz and is currently an assistant
professor of Community Studies at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota.
She taught classes on Latinos/as in the U.S., Mesoamerican peoples,
Popular Culture of the Americas, and Women’s Studies at Northern
Illinois University, and has published in Latin American Perspectives,
Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Women and Language, Studies
in Latin American Popular Culture, and Discourse: Theoretical Studies
in Culture and Media. She is currently investigating the new transnational
migration between tropical Veracruz and the Midwest, as well as undertaking
a major research project on 100 years of Mexican settlement and community
building in Sterling, Ill. Her website <http://AdelanteSterling.tripod.com>
highlights a major historical mural, community organizations, and
events in that city. Larry Howlett, Ed.D., is an adjunct assistant
professor of Adult and Continuing Education at Kansas State University,
having completed his doctorate in adult continuing education from
Northern Illinois University in 1998. His research and writing interests
are in the application of adult continuing education in community
development, philosophy, theory, and practice in teaching adults,
adult learning, and adult continuing education in the social context.
He has over 15 years of practitioner-based experience in community
organizing, economic development, and public administration having
served as an executive deputy director of a large Latino multi-service
community organization, program officer for two nationally acclaimed
foundations, and as a community and organizational development consultant
to several Midwestern and Southern non-profits. Fluent in Spanish,
with a working knowledge of French, Italian, and Portuguese, he has
extensive international experience and multi-cultural sensitivity
given his African American and Latino heritage. His courses focus
on community education development, social foundations of adult education,
and multicultural adult continuing education. Brian Erdman is the Associate Director of Policy
Studies for the Illinois Community College Board, Springfield, Ill.,
collecting and analyzing data on Community Colleges for distribution
throughout the state college system. He has taught Psychology and
Statistics courses at Roosevelt University in Schaumburg, Ill., and
worked as a Resource Specialist at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn,
Ill. He holds a doctorate in Cognitive Psychology from Northern Illinois
University and created the statistical tables for this JSRI publication
as a graduate research assistant with the Center for Latino and Latin
American Studies at NIU. SUGGESTED CITATION Villanueva, Margaret, Brian Erdman, and Larry Howlett.
“World City/Regional City: Latinos and African-Americans in Chicago
and St. Louis,” JSRI Working Paper #46, The Julian Samora Research
Institute, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, 2000. ABSTRACT In the mid-1990’s, the congressional Republican
majority and Gov. Pete Wilson of California placed the blame for a
falling standard of living on Latino immigrants, urban African-Americans,
and so-called “welfare abuse.” Although a booming economy
and low unemployment rates lessened the political pressure to blame
immigrants and the working poor for social problems, it remains unlikely
that the benefits of economic expansion will accrue to lower income
households in the long term. This working paper examines income, education,
and household/family organization for 1980 to 1990, with special focus
on Latinos and African-Americans in Chicago and Kansas City. It suggests
areas for further research when comparing how ethnic groups fare in
“World Cities” such as Chicago in relation to smaller, less
“globalized” towns and cities in the Midwest. The paper
also provides ample bibliographical references regarding Latinos in
the Midwest, an increasingly important research area where much work
remains undone about past, present, and future Latino communities
and neighborhoods. Once the U.S. Census for 2000 has been completed
and published, will we find that a strong economy and “welfare
reform” has improved conditions for African-Americans and Latinos?
The authors believe that a better understanding of the insertion of
each group into its specific urban socioeconomic context is crucial
to developing collaborative strategies and policies to unite, rather
than divide, the African-American and Latino communities of Midwestern
cities. As the perpetual bottom of the American labor market,
Blacks, Hispanics and other people of color have traditionally been
caught in a never-ending economic vise – the last hired during
economic upturns, and the first fired during cyclical recession. Freedom
for Black working people must mean the guarantee of a job as an absolute
human right. – Manning Marable, 1991. World City/Regional City: Introduction This paper paints a brief statistical portrait of Chicago
and its Metropolitan Area from 1980 to 1990, including a comparison
with other Midwestern regions, particularly Kansas City. It analyzes
broad demographic trends to understand how African-American and Latino
individuals, households, and neighborhoods are faring in an age of
restructuring and, many have suggested, growing racism. While not
attempting to directly provide economic or political strategies for
coalition-building, we hope that this comparative portrait of the
socioeconomic conditions in Latino and African-American urban communities
contributes to strategies that unite, rather than divide us. Global economic restructuring over recent decades has been associated in the Midwest and Northeast with deindustrialization, the relocation of jobs to “developing” countries where workers are paid less than $1 an hour, and an expansion of the service sector. A general decline in unionized blue-collar, mid-level jobs, and middle-class income has reduced upward mobility for all but a fortunate few. In the northern U.S. “Rustbelt,” blue-collar employment in heavy industry has been replaced by unstable jobs in the service sector or so-called “light manufacturing” (often a euphemism for old-fashioned sweatshops). Between 1967 and 1982, Chicago lost 46% of its manufacturing jobs, affecting a quarter-million workers (Abu-Lughod, 1999). Globalization devastated established African-American and Latino neighborhoods formerly dependent upon unionized industrial work (Wilson, 1987; Massey and Eggers, 1990; Massey and Denton, 1993; Moore and Pinderhughes, 1993). Urban poverty and unemployment increased steadily since 1970. While the effects of the ongoing economic boom of the late 1990’s for lower income workers and households are not yet determined, the authors predict an expansion of low-wage service employment has meant more jobs with no improvement in minority income. Any increase in household income would likely be attributable to crowding more hourly workers, many holding more than one low-paid part-time job, into each housing unit. Despite deindustrialization, Chicago Latinos still maintain a higher ratio of industrial employment than Latinos at the national level (Table 1). Statistics indicate a high general employment rate for Latino men, which researchers note at both regional and national levels (Tables 4 and 14).
Rapid growth in urban “minority” and immigrant
populations has accompanied economic restructuring. In the popular media,
changes brought about by global economic forces are often confused with
the demographic growth of ethnic and racial minority populations; that
is, while minority residents and newcomers are most negatively affected
by global restructuring, they are held responsible by the media and
conservative politicians for high unemployment rates and increase in
poverty levels. At the national level, the number of Asians more than
doubled in the 1980’s, the Latino population grew from 14.6 to
22.4 million, while African-Americans increased from 16.5 to 30 million
(Baca Zinn, 1994). In the Midwest Region, the White population has actually
decreased over the past decade, while over 50% of the region’s
demographic expansion is accounted for by growing numbers of Latinos
(Aponte, 1994; Table 2).
These statistical profiles demonstrate that in the 1980’s,
median household incomes declined for all groups in the Midwestern
region: at $30,000 per year in 1989, White household income remained
higher than Latino household income of $26,000; and the African-American
median household income of $20,000 was lower than any other group. As Table 3 indicates, the African-American median household
income suffered the sharpest declines from 1980 to 1990. Another sign
of deindustrialization is rising male unemployment rates; White and
Latino male unemployment fell slightly between 1980 and 1990, African-American
male unemployment increased markedly. In the Midwest, finding work has
become more difficult for African-American men over 16 than for either
White or Latino men in the region (Table 4). As we point out below,
increased educational levels have not resulted in higher employment
levels among African-American men.
Another global problem with local ramifications is “the
feminization of poverty.” Before the 1970’s, it appeared that
U.S. family income distribution was moving slowly toward greater equality,
but since 1970, the trend has reversed towards greater income inequality.
Low incomes for women combined with increasing numbers of woman-headed
households explains some of this raising inequality. In the late 1980’s,
there were twice the number of poor, female-headed households in the
nation than in 1960 (Treviño, Treviño, Stroup, and Ray,
1988). At national, regional, and local levels, Latinas have lower individual
incomes than any other demographic group. In the Midwest, we see the
effects of low incomes for Latinas and a sharp increase in Latina-headed
households (Tables 5 and 6).
While conservative politicians blame immigrants or the
urban “underclass” for declining wages and rising unemployment,
our hypothesis is that global migration, the feminization of poverty,
and attacks on the welfare state are all effects of global restructuring.
Conservative, racialized ideologies, however, seem to have convinced
White working-class voters to turn against their own economic interests
and to support “capital’s agenda of restructuring the U.S.
economy at the expense of the working class, including the White working
class” (Kushnick, 1992, emphasis in original; Roediger, 1991).
Mainstream research has not examined the relationship
between declining income of African-Americans and Latinos, but, rather,
has focused on the competition between long-time urban residents and
the more recent Latino migrants. For example, investigators ask whether
migrants depress wage scales and working conditions for other minority
groups by their willingness to work for less than the legal minimum
wage (Commission for the Study of International Migration and Cooperative
Economic Development, 1990; See critique by Bonilla and Morales, 1993).
Moore and Penderhughes (1993), on the other hand, suggest that although
conditions of concentrated poverty worsened in African-American neighborhoods
as a result of global restructuring, Latino neighborhoods experienced
a lesser, albeit relatively high, level of poverty concentration.
A principal difference in Latino districts may be the continuous flow
of new immigration which helps “to revitalize and stabilize impoverished
Latino communities” (1993), but it also brings down Latino income
levels due to low wages paid to recent immigrants. Local communities attempt to mitigate negative effects of restructuring through grassroots efforts. Both Latinas and African-American women are strongly motivated to engage in community development work because of their commitment to their cultural group (Gutierrez and Lewis, 1994; Hardy-Fanta, 1993). In Chicago, ethnic solidarity and community organizing in the primarily Mexican neighborhoods of Pilson and Little Village (La Villita) have brought about some improvement of public services and development of the 26th Street commercial zone. While politicians point to these accomplishments, they seldom mention the growing “feminization of poverty” that affects Latinas as well as African-American women in Chicago. For example, the median family income in 1990 for single Latina-headed households was $12,000, a figure substantially lower than the median incomes of $25,000 for all Latino households and $26,000 for single White female-headed households (Chicago Urban League, Latino Institute and Northern Illinois University, 1994). In fact, Latinas in the Chicago metropolitan area constitute the only group for whom “the wage gap widened during the last decade, falling to less than 43¢ for every dollar earned by White males” (Women Employed Institute and Office for Social Policy Research and Northern Illinois University, 1994; Santos, 1989; Tienda, 1985). In Chicago, African-American households have lower income levels than other groups, but among woman-headed households, those headed by Latinas have lowest income. Tables 7, 8 and 9 illustrate that, when taking gender into account, socioeconomic differences along lines of class, race, and ethnicity become more complex.
Chicago’s statistical profile is distinct from that
of other Midwestern cities, too. It is clearly not a “typical”
city, but rather a “World City.” Along with New York and Los
Angeles, Chicago takes on certain indispensible functions in global
networks of economic restructuring. “World Cities” are characterized
by: Does the “World City” concept help to explain
why Chicago’s socioeconomic, ethnic and gender configuration differs
from that of other Midwestern cities? Macro-sociologists argue that
the characteristics of World Cities – their specific insertion
into the global economy – has the effect of increasing socioeconomic
inequalities between the higher- and lower-income groups in such cities
(Abu-Lughod, 1995). The comparative profiles on Chicago, Kansas City,
and the Midwest region reveal particularly strong income gaps in Chicago
– income inequalities that are sharply divided along racial and
ethnic lines. Compared to a medium-sized Midwestern city like Kansas
City, Chicago’s profile shows unusually high income levels for
White urban residents contrasted with low incomes, or high poverty rates,
for African-Americans and Latinos (Tables 8 and 10).
If we compare Chicago with Kansas City, for example,
it looks much more like Los Angeles or New York, with a “majority
of minority” residents. Kansas City is predominantly White and
household incomes are more evenly distributed across ethnic groups
(Tables 10 and 11). Table 10 shows a lower overall income level for
White residents of the Kansas City metropolitan, slightly higher income
levels for Blacks, and slightly lower for Latinos when compared with
the Chicago metropolitan.
African-Americans comprise the largest minority group
in Kansas City’s 10-county Metropolitan Area (13%), while in 1990
Latinos became the largest minority in three counties and 10 neighborhoods.
Both groups are concentrated in older spaces of the city, a pattern
reproduced throughout the Midwest. Local data on the socioeconomic status
of the Latinos in Kansas City, compiled by the Guadalupe Center in 1992,
indicates that in the predominantly Latino Westside neighborhood, poverty
rates rose from 35% to 45% from 1980 to 1990 (Lopez et al, 1992). This
seems to support the hypothesis that for Latinos, as for African-Americans,
poverty rates tend to be higher in neighborhoods with concentrated ethnic-racial
populations (Enchautegui, 1995).
World Cities extend their boundaries beyond the urban
centers into the suburbs. The distribution of incomes across ethnic
groups of the Chicago Metropolitan area differs when we compare areas
within the city limits to the entire metropolitan area that includes
the suburbs (Table 17 and 18). High income earners may live in the city
or they may relocate their residences closer to expanding high-tech
and corporate headquarters of the expanding suburban rim. Latinos, African-Americans,
and Asians living in the suburbs have higher incomes than their urban
counterparts. However, only Asian-Americans are evenly distributed across
the urban-suburban divide. A recent demographic analysis by Janet Abu-Lughod
(1999) indicates that in 1990, Whites made up only 38% of Chicago’s
urban population and nearly 67% of Chicago’s metropolitan area
population, but 82% of surrounding suburban populations. On the other
hand, African-Americans comprised over 38% of the urban population and
19% of the metropolitan area population, but less than 8% of the suburban
county population. The smaller, but growing, Latino population made
up close to 20% of urban dwellers and 11% of metropolitan Chicago’s
area population, but only 6.6% of suburbanites. Far less numerous, but
more evenly distributed, are Asian-Americans who comprised about 3%
of the population in each of the three zones. Close attention to socioeconomic profiles from the Midwest
region and the Chicago area help to discredit certain popular myths:
1) The profiles show that relatively high unemployment
rates, low income, and low rates of labor force participation among
African-Americans, especially men, cannot be directly correlated with
lack of educational attainment, because Latinos over 25 have lower
educational levels, yet higher labor participation and less unemployment
(Tables 13, 14, and 15).
2) Profiles indicate that citizenship status may be an
insignificant determinant of income level. Puerto Ricans, U.S. citizens
since 1917, have the lowest incomes and highest unemployment among the
region’s Latino groups. The citizenship status of other Latinos,
U.S.-born, naturalized, temporary or permanent residents, or undocumented
workers, is diverse. The socioeconomic status of Puerto Rican residents
of the Midwest is closer to that of African-Americans than to other
Latinos (Table 16).
3) Profiles call into question the assumption that Asian Americans hold stronger socioeconomic positions than the White population; the statistics for Asian Americans vary greatly across urban and suburban location, and Asian American incomes in Chicago, for example, declined between 1980 and 1990, possibly reflecting new immigration (Table 17).
4) Comparisons between Chicago and Kansas City suggest
a need for more attention to medium-sized cities across regions. If
New York is compared with smaller East Coast cities, Los Angeles with
other California urban zones, would lower levels of unequalities across
ethnic and racial lines in mid-sized cities be found than in the “World
Cities”?
Tracing the effects of economic restructuring through
comparative socioeconomic profiles marks only the beginning of the research
task. This project raises more questions than answers. What further
research questions do the statistical profiles suggest? How can we use
such data to conduct local ethnographic studies with policy implications?
What is the best strategy for confronting negative media images and
conservative political policies that blame the victims and remove the
few remaining social programs? Will the 2000 Census indicate a change
in the socioeconomic status of Latino and African-American individuals
and households after a period of economic growth? How might community groups utilize such information to
confront public policies that disadvantage Latinos, African-Americans
and other people of color? How could participatory research projects
that involve neighborhood people contribute to solving the problem of
growing inequalities? References Abu-Lughod, Janet L. 1999. New York, Chicago, Los Angeles:
America’s Global Cities. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press.
|
|
|
 |
For more information, contact: |
