Where to hell do the poor people live now? Or work?

I live in a near western suburb of Chicago, due west of downtown. Although I work in a northern suburb that requires me to drive my four-cylinder car that gets good mileage to the office, today I attended a conference downtown and so avoided the killer traffic and took the train.

New condos extend far west of downtown where once houses, apartments and factories used to be. Then, as the train goes farther west and away from downtown, there are the deserted industrial buildings and the vacant lots. It was a damn interesting insight. As yet, I have no idea what to make of it.

I've seen an influx of church sponsered help programs... they have been paying for hotel rooms in droves... but it doesn't last. I assume that when things get really bad a lot of people are moving back home. I think that you will see a lot more generations living within one household again in the future. I know that if I was closer to my sister that we would invest in a home and live together with our families as we gained equity and shared the burden of a mortgage.. she's a teacher and I am a scientist unable to use a degree--so I work a menial job that pays the bills and has nothing to do with the years I spent learning calculus, biology, chemistry, physics etc.

or they get a box and a shopping cart.

or something in-between.

I just moved to the western suburbs two months ago today from the far north side. Haven't worked downtown in more than 11 years and then I took the Metra/Union Pacific North Line downtown. Today, I was on the Union Pacific/West line. Whole world of difference.

I saw condos in areas that to me would be unthinkable to live a few years ago that undoubtedly cost lots more than my condo in a divese suburb with low taxes. As I said, very eye opening. And sad, because people's jobs and housing are disappearing.

Then I heard on the news tonight that the Mars plant on Oak Park Avenue has been shut down because of (I guess) rat shit being found in the plant. I pass by that place when I drive to work. The lawn looks like a damn golf course, but the inside of the plant has filth? Where are people's priorities???

I know you don't know the answers, but thanks for letting me rant. :)

old campers that no longer run and are rusting apart, trailers out on public land with no water, no power, no plumbing, no sewers, just a derelict hulk that was so awful no park would take it, abandoned and now occupied, shacks made of old signs, bits of lumber, and tarps out in the woods.

That's what they live in around here. We have areas around this town that rival the worst I've seen in Mexico.

This is sin, evil at its worst. This is what the rich have done to us as they've grabbed more and more wealth away from people who work to create it.

Poverty is the worst WMD known to man, and it's being wielded more and more effectively worldwide by a few rich families.

"Poverty is the worst WMD known to man"

My brother lived in those new condos you mentioned , this was in 2000 before he passed away . The people who used to live in the older houses and apartments that used to be there were mainly black and many of these people moved out to a suburb named hoffman estates which when I went to school during the 50's and 60's and lived between Roselle and Schaumburg in an area called sunset hills , hoffman estates was the home of middle class white folk .

I suppose people who have lost their jobs as many have in the last few years are either hopefully back home if one exists or on the street . If things remain as bad as they are i will be one of them soon enough and if I still have a computer connected I will let you know where I end up .

it's a very difficult time for so many that not long ago had a good job with at least paid bills but now this is rapidly becoming impossible .

I see people living two of three families to one home and sharing one car if they have a car at all .

Even an indication of another change is the railroad buy out . It was Chicago and North Western but Union Pacific owns just about all the other rail roads now . Big corporate take over .

Everything has either changed or completely gone to hell lately and I don't see this slowing down . Employees are a form of paid slave now , you can't rock the boat or look the wrong way becuase right behind you is a line waiting for that job and the employers know it .

issue but, we were wrong. The new slavery is even more favorable for the "masters" than during the 19th Century. Now the masters don't have to worry about housing, food , health or clothing. The "slaves" are required to pay for those things out of the slave wages. What a racket.

These people's stories are NEVER told.

Imagine the MSM actually focusing on the truth about millions of Americans' existence. Instead, they advertise shit only the top 5% wage-exploitationers can get or live.

It's fucking disgusting!!!

AT LEAST tens of millions of Americans live on the very edge of existence,...and they are left behind, unacknowledged,...demeaned, demonized, diminished by the richest and most powerful.

EW!!!!

It is rare you see the poor in the news even years ago . During RFK's election campaign RFK brough the poor into the light and since they have been ignored unless it was some sort of cheap cop show like that insane show called cops and this makes all the poor seem as if they are drug users or seedy murderers . This is far from reality and the blame goes to the news and tv sensationalism . All to sell the products that few can afford on their high profile commercials with over paid actors or sports figures as it's always been .

People are willing to ignore what they don't have to deal with and this is a real shame . We have come to a time however where there will be these people who looked down on the poor and now they will realize just what these people had to endure .

If anyone found themselves with a minimum wage job tomarrow they would be forced to live in the cheaper run down areas there would be no choice just as the poor before them had none .

I think the way things are now in the next 3 years when the layoffs or the closed plant workers like those who are loosing their GM jobs and the 100,000 payoff runs out they too will be living in the gettos . Not that they deserve this , it's just the way things seem to be going now for many . Now the filthy rich CEO'S should be facing this fate but they never will .

and workable city with acceptable bus, train and trolley service. There are commute gridlock problems here too, but not on the scale of New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Chicago.

Portland had avoided sprawl with the Urban Growth Boundary (a builder can't take over farm land, and build on it without the Metro commission's blessing). It may not be the same in the future due to public votes and political pressure, but we're enjoying it right now.

http://www.trimet.org

...and African Americans (using this term deliberately to denote a cultural identity) are losing their whole cultural center to the DINKS that have flocked to Portland in recent years? (DINK = double income no kids)

Yes, many many people are enjoying the assets of Portland, but many are being harmed in this demographic shift. Property values and rents have been driven up. Schools are suffering mightily. Yesterday's Willamette Week has an article quoting DINKs who complain that they won't be able to raise children here because the schools are hurting. Hello! Who is it that keeps voting down school bonds?

children and grandchildren. We are retired. We travel a lot, and I volunteer at Oregon Public Broadcasting in Macadam Boulevard in Portland, as well as the Good Neighbor Center in Tigard, a group that supports families transitioning from difficult circumstances to real housing in Washington County. We are not poor, but I am sensitive to the fact that there are many people hurting here.

I must admit I have no real association with North Portland.

However, we did vote for the recent Beaverton school levy issue, which was defeated.

It has some problems with assimilation of immigrants from other countries. But it is not facing the same kinds of problems that Portland faces. The original poster asked "Where do the poor people live?" Not in Beaverton, much.

And, increasingly, not in Portland neighborhoods that once provided respectable housing at reasonable cost. The house across the street from me is for sale for $580,000. Another house on this street with a mere 880 square feet (!!!!) sold for almost $300,000. My grandmother lived on this street; her five bedroom 1914 craftsman house sold a couple of decades ago for $37,000.

It's a societal problem and it will ultimately affect us all. My sister lives in Beaverton. The idea of poor folk coming there wouldn't occur to her or be welcome.

I lived in N. Portland for 3 years, moved in right as the Max line was being installed. Next thing I knew, the fixerup house down the street sold for $289,000! and yes, DINKs bought it. Foofoo shops and fancy eating establishments are going up everywhere. it's disgusting.

but there are nearly 8 million people in the metropolitan area, not to mention businesspeople and vacationers from out of town coming into the city for the Taste of Chicago and holiday weekend. As a result, a lot of people also drive.

What are your feelings on gentrification of increasingly large parts of the cities? Where do the poor people live and work in Portland?

live in homeless shelters, their cars, RV's, tents etc. The poor are definitely getting poorer.

County Clerk's office and find out who owns what property. So if you are interested in a certain property they have to show you the records and list of owners going back as far as there were first records recorded. I know that as a working person you can't scope out all of Chicago, but try just one property and find out all you can about it going back to perhaps the turn of the last century. I think you will find it very informative.

...the data could be very informative.

Fining landlords when tenants have 3 or more police contacts at thier residence in 12 months. On it's face it seems fair, but the stereotypes about poor people will make landlords even more unwilling to rent to them...and then where will they go?

they recently decided to tear down a decent-sized apartment complex that's been there for years. It's not a slum, and it's not fancy. It's just decent apartments built over a creek, on a decent greenbelt. Lots of people have been living there for a long time.

Affordable housing being ripped down because of the gentrification. There will most likely be a Wal-Mart there by next fall or winter.

For any Dallasites who don't know, it's Timbercreek at NW Hwy and Skillman.

(Northern Virginia -- an area I avoid like the plague except for Alexandria and Arlington) where developers spent all this money building palatial McMansions that fill the lots and huge shopping malls, but a lot of the malls are having to close down because they can't find workers, because nobody who works in the mall can afford to live out there, and the busses don't run. C'est la vie.

And that's basically part of "public choice" theory. Cities compete to attract the "best" residents (e.g. the rich) so that they can have a solid tax base. The argument is essentially that if you have a bunch of poor people in your jurisdiction, the taxes of the rich will be diverted to pay for services for the poor, and the rich will just "vote with their feet" and leave for another city. So why would anyone want to build low income housing under that logic? Cities want to attract the rich and shove the poor and working class out.

It's very frustrating stuff to read. When I took the class I assumed that scholars would be interested in solving urban problems. Instead it seems to be more about showing cities how to pursue their own self-interest (one that is delinked from the interest of its citizens) by making poverty something that is no longer "their problem." And all this happens at the same time the federal government wants to devolve responsibility to states and localities for social welfare. It's all bullshit. They know this will result in a race to the bottom and they welcome that. To me, the whole thing highlights the importance of federal policy to prevent that race to the bottom from happening.

are making it these days, trying to live on minimum wage must be a nightmare. We aren't poverty stricken, but we're far from comfortable, and more and more find that's there are too many days in between paydays, the costs of everything keep going up, food, gas, now our electric company is seeking a 22% rate increase, they won't get that much, more likely 10% but I think that's what they're shooting for anyway.
We can live half ass cheap here, but, there really isn't any work, most people drive to stink town 15 miles south of here. It wouldn't pay to drive there for five bucks an hour, even with an economics car it would be too expensive.
The homeless and marginal are drawn there because there is some work, recently they've been targeting the homeless and the camps they live in because the city put a river walk in and people who use the walk are afraid of the homeless.
Most of the affordable housing there has been torn down, there are vacant lots where cheap apartments and houses once stood. I just don't know how low income people live these days, they've had a real hardon against people on welfare here, cutting medical, housing, food assistance.
I guess that it would make people happy if they all just died out.