Chicago
By MILTON RAKOVE

A black/ Latino city

AS THE City of Chicago moves into the ninth decade of the 20th century and approaches the 150th anniversary of the city's founding in 1983, it has become clear that the massive demographic changes which have taken place in the city's population since World War II are not only evolutionary, but are on the way to becoming revolutionary and permanent.

The great demographic changes in the city's population were brought about by the great migration into the city of blacks from the South and Latinos from Mexico and Puerto Rico, and the massive exodus of middle-class and working-class whites to the suburbs. Those migrations altered the cultural, social and economic character of the city and have a significant impact on the internal politics of the Democratic machine which has governed Chicago for a half-century.

The power base of the machine was localized in the white ethnic areas of the city in the earlier years of the machine under Tony Cermak, Ed Kelly and Pat Nash. During the Daley era, the power base shifted from the ethnic wards to the black wards on the South and West sides. Race replaced ethnicity as the bottom line of Chicago politics, and the city changed from a community of ethnic neighborhoods to a city made up of great racial areas — black, brown and white.

For years, during the Daley era, the great hope of the white ethnic machine politicians was that the exodus to the suburbs could be halted. They hoped that those whites who had fled the city could be lured back from the suburbs after their children had attended those better schools. They also hoped that the growth of black political power in the city could be appeased and contained until the return of the white ethnic natives to their true home in the city could be achieved.

Daley's last years and the Bilandic's subsequent mayoralty were marked by a significant political development within the machine — a decline of black political power and a resurgence of white ethnic power. The black population of the city was expanding at the same time the white ethnics were retreating to the Southwest and Northwest sides. But the numbers of blacks who registered and voted in the old bulwark black wards of the South and West sides declined significantly, while the white ethnic vote on the Southwest and Northwest sides increased substantially. During the past few years the power base of the machine has shifted back from the black wards to the white ethnic areas of the city, despite the growth of the black population. What counts in politics is not the number of people living in a community, but the number of people who register and vote. In Chicago today, blacks are just not registering and voting in proportion to their population, as the white ethnics are.

The reasons for this development are complex and difficult to determine. They are related to the physical character of the two constituencies: stable residential homeowning areas v. a floating population in physically deteriorating areas. There are economic factors: nonvoting poor people v. a politically mature and sensitive middle class. And there are organization differences: generally deteriorating black ward organizations v. a new generation of able, well-educated, pragmatic young white ward committeemen on the Southwest and Northwest sides.

However, time is not necessarily on the side of the beleaguered whites, despite their temporary political renascence as the dominant voting bloc in the machine. Sooner or later many of the conditions which, at present, have led to a decline of black political power in the machine and a retrenchment of white power will be altered. A new generation of black politicians less beholden to the traditional demands and practices of the machine will come to power; a more politically sophisticated black working class and middle class will evolve; and the power balance within the machine between its black and white constituencies will shift back to the blacks. But the relationship will not be the same as it was in the Daley years.

The projected results of the 1980 census for Chicago have made it clear that the hopes of the machine's white ethnic politicians will not be realized. The whites who left the city for the suburbs are not returning.

From 1940 until 1970, the City of Chicago lost approximately 100,000 people each decade, according to the census. The city went from about 3,600,000 to 3,500,000 between 1940 and 1950, to about 3,400,000 in 1960, and to about 3,300,000 in 1970. But the projected figures for the 1980 census are expected to show a massive decline of about 400,000 people in the city's population; that, over the last decade, would put the city's population at about 2,900,000. Given the black and Latino increases in the city's population in that same decade, it is likely that about 600,000 whites left the city in that period. It is clear that the exodus is not diminishing, but is rather increasing, and the white suburbanites are never coming back.

The long-range impact on the city's politics, as well as on its cultural, social and economic life, is clear and predictable. Chicago is becoming a black/Latino city, with a steadily decreasing white population. Since viable political and governmental institutions must reflect the cultural patterns of community, Chicago's politics and public policies will have to adjust to and respond to the realities of demographics if the city is to be governed effectively. The change in politics may be gradual, not revolutionary. But those kinds of changes are the most lasting and conform to what British Fabian Socialists Sidney and Beatrice Webb once called "the inevitability of gradualness." That inevitable gradualness is taking place in Chicago.

32/July 1980/Illinois Issues