ABSTRACT
The previous chapter outlined the recent history of both Englewood and North Lawndale. It presented a story of two neighborhoods that had been relatively stable middle-class communities during the 1930s but had experienced radical racial change, disinvestment, and decline in the years following World War II. By the late 1980s, the two neighborhoods had become some of the most economically and socially troubled urban communities in the country. Well over two-fifths of their residents lived in poverty. Their rates of violent crime were among the highest in Chicago. The private sector routinely shunned the areas as potential sites for investment capital. The Chicago Tribune used North Lawndale as a case study for its “American Millstone” series, but it just as easily could have used Englewood.
