How did it get so bad?

[Jerry white 1977]

Harvey is the worst example of the back undertow, a once thriving suburb blighted by crime. White flight is real, no one wants to live and invest in a community being decimated by minorities. They built a beautiful new mall there in the mid 60s and it was closed 12 years later after a rash of violent crimes and murders perpetrated by black youths. They were spending a million dollars a year in the early 70s on security for customers and still couldn't guarantee shoppers safety. The death of the mall was when a 13 year old girl was shopping and robbed of her purse she followed the thieves to an apartment close to the mall and was strangled to death. No one felt safe shopping at a place over run with poor blacks with no regard for anything including themselves. Truly a sad story.

[chet everett]

The sort of behavior that is now firmly entrenched as something tied to race / skin color was once attributed to people immigrating from Ireland or Italy, as well as folks of certain religious / ethnic heritage. It was wrong then and today contrasts sharply with the experience of racial minorities that go to excellent schools and end up in the right kind of profession, like law, becoming POTUS.

I'm not saying that merely going to the Ivy League is any recipe to ensure a successful life, but to ignore the terrible burden that 'scapegoating' puts on kids is folly -- Racial Scapegoating: An American Past Time

The fact is that growing up in even an area known to be pretty open-minded to race has a whole lot of pitfalls, but getting into a good college and having a nice job as a graphic designer is much more of possibility if one starts in Naperville instead of Harvey -- The story behind Naperville man's viral Facebook post - Chicago Tribune

[TheSunshineKid]

Originally Posted by JerichoHW

White flight, it has happened throughout the South Suburbs.

A middle income African American family would move to a white suburb, and the residents would flip out and move to "greener pastures". There was no need to, it was pointless racial hysteria. When you couple that with heavy industry crashing in the area, that is how these neighborhoods went downhill. People were fleeing to the farther out suburbs, and many neighborhoods were left nearly vacant. Home prices fell, crime increased and areas became blighted.

The cycle then repeats itself, middle income african americans move out to the far suburbs like Matteson and the white people flee to the exurbs. It's so ridiculous. This cycle is vicious and destroys neighborhoods, and communities.

I believe the premise of it but the blame, I feel, have been over exaggerated. I will do the unthinkable: maybe it has to with the culture that has live and is currently living there.

It has been pounded into the sand that it was white flight and red lining that doomed the AA community in Chicago and the South Suburbs. Maybe. But I'm slowly thinking otherwise.

[Avondalist]

Originally Posted by TheSunshineKid

I believe the premise of it but the blame, I feel, have been over exaggerated. I will do the unthinkable: maybe it has to with the culture that has live and is currently living there.

It has been pounded into the sand that it was white flight and red lining that doomed the AA community in Chicago and the South Suburbs. Maybe. But I'm slowly thinking otherwise.

Whites get blamed for everything because there is no blowback when you bad mouth whites. People take the easy way out and blame whites for the failures in black culture instead of risking opprobrium and bad mouthing black culture. It's a silly game we play with ourselves, speaking in code when everyone knows what's up. If you were a white homeowner in Harvey in 1968, would you have stayed?

[usamathman]

Originally Posted by Avondalist

Whites get blamed for everything because there is no blowback when you bad mouth whites. People take the easy way out and blame whites for the failures in black culture instead of risking opprobrium and bad mouthing black culture. It's a silly game we play with ourselves, speaking in code when everyone knows what's up. If you were a white homeowner in Harvey in 1968, would you have stayed?

Dumbest shat i have heard in a while. Go to sleep.

[Larry Siegel]

Originally Posted by steeps

Well I think in ethnic make-up, Yes every neighborhood ethnically did change. BUT IN LOOKS.... many I say where the homes are themselves, many not much. Like the 360°s streetviews I posted , from the address of the Grandfathers Childhood neighborhood in Pilsen. Then Czechoslovakian then. Now Mexican. https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8551...0QZFpXVWcw!2e0
Though gentrification has been moving in, is displacing Mexicans at its eastern side. The old homestead is EXACTLY THE SAME. As most homes on the block appear? But for the next door one with siding. Most are original brick. Chicago's vast Bungalow belt 1910 to the 1940s. 1/3 of the city.

The HOMES BEING BRICK LOOK THE SAME? as built about the 1920S Bungalows
EXAMPLE https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9377...5ewA3soyiw!2e0

The old Cottage homes. Many remain about the same here?
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9013...zZLRYQPAwA!2e0

Old Ukrainian Village area. Did they change in some gentrification? New windows maybe.
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9010...zEAkaWNlFw!2e0

Old Wicker Park Shopping intersection. It would be recognized by someone front 70 years ago.
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9104...mlD_YQim6Q!2e0

This Jefferson Park neighborhood is the same. 50s homes one side, early 60s 2-flats the other side
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9684...1rwQVsed6A!2e0

These are great examples of how well a city can be preserved and enhanced when people care about their surroundings and can afford to keep them up. Harvey is the opposite. Gentrification and historic preservation are good.

[williepotatoes]

White flight was also very much enhanced by personal income gains. Most people here in the 1950s thru 1970s. were on the forefront of Americas middle class explosion and the lure of "glorious suburbia" was too powerful.

They traded in their Chicago two flats and bungalows for modern construction, sprawling lawns, pools and multicar garages with driveways. Better schools too.

[TheSunshineKid]

Originally Posted by usamathman

Dumbest shat i have heard in a while. Go to sleep.

Be an individual they say. Don't follow the herd they say. But don't question the narrative of racism & demographic failure they say.

[Robert Keag]

Originally Posted by urza216

I was just passing through Harvey! You might get better responses in the Chicago Suburbs forum. You might even get a fiery debate that lasts for ten pages!

Maywood is another Suburb with serious problems