A View from Chicago                                                       

Families are not at the top of anyone's list in the city

Some parents are reluctant emigrants, bolting for the burbs because they believe it's their duty to trek across the border

By JAMES YLISELA JR.

Do we stay or do we go? That's the question confronting many Chicagoans with children.

Go, of course, means go to the suburbs, where families seek refuge after failing to find enough good reasons to stay. Some leave Chicago because they've always planned it that way: a few, fun-filled years in the city, followed by children and a yearning for quieter streets and public schools still supported by the public. Others are more reluctant emigrants, bolting for the burbs because they believe it is their parental duty to make the inevitable trek across the border.

Chicago is growing increasingly anti-family. To stay in town with kids, you have to be rich enough to buy education and security; poor enough to have no real options; or in-between enough to be forever searching for that safer neighborhood and better school. Those of us in this third category are like the base stealer in a close ball game: one foot on the carpet, leaning toward second, ready to take off at the first opportunity.

After five years of living in the same Chicago apartment, we were ready to make a move. Our son had grown from a 5-year-old just starting school to a strapping fourth-grader. Now what?

For the first time, we seriously thought about leaving. The sociologists used to call this white flight, since it was thought to afflict only the white middle class. But the phenomenon has spread to all races and to a broader economic spectrum. Today it's more like a one-way rainbow highway, transporting blacks, Latinos and Asian Americans to the land of the 708 area code.

The 1990 Census found that Chicago lost about 255,000 white people in the 1980s, along with about 112,000 blacks. In the '90s, the city's white population has begun to level off, but many minorities continue to move out.

They are changing the face of suburbia, integrating some towns and villages and resegregating many others. Blacks are reaching majority status in many of the villages of southern Cook County; Latinos head west to the older burbs of Franklin Park and Cicero, and to the satellite cities of Aurora and Elgin. Asian Americans form a northwest corridor that leads to Skokie, Lincolnwood and other towns.

Whites just keep going, beyond Cook County to the still-homogeneous hamlets of the far North Shore or to the country-like environs of DuPage and Kane counties and beyond.

In Chicago, that leaves the wealthy; the city's newest arrivals, particularly Latino and Asian immigrants; and PWCs (People Without Children). This last group includes singles and young couples (we still call them yuppies if they're white; buppies if they're black), and they are among the first to leave once they have children. Gays and lesbians also are part of this mix, having carved out a cohesive political enclave, largely on the north lakefront.

Those who move to the suburbs go for essentially the same reasons: less crime, bigger homes, better schools, more space. They leave because of their kids.

Education is the most obvious cause. Many white, black and Latino working-class families already send their kids to the Catholic schools. What's left for the public schools are poor, immigrant and minority families, along with a handful of whites who cling to a few good neighborhood schools or engage in that ritual, frenzied square dance to grab a spot in one of the precious magnet programs. ("Swing your child round and round, use some clout and set him down.")

And just because Republican lawmakers handed Mayor Richard Daley the keys to the Board of Education, don't think we're all breathing easier. Most parents who already have opted out of the school system aren't about to make their kids urban guinea pigs just because the mayor gets to pick new people to run the show.

42/August 1995/Illinois Issues

Crime drives out many families. Anybody with kids is scared to death about leaving them untended. This issue really got to us, not because we have been victims of crime, but because of the fear of crime, and the anger that our son does not have the same freedom of movement we experienced as children or that we believe children in the suburbs enjoy.

And there are other forces at work to suggest that families are not at the top of anyone's list in Chicago. Topping the city's economic development wish list is still a very adult casino. The deal has been billed as a family entertainment complex, but if this project ever flies, we'll be lucky to cram a video arcade and a Chuckie Cheese in between the blackjack tables, the slot machines and the nightclubs.

The Chicago Park District, once a mainstay for city kids all over town, may be moving away from its longstanding tradition of direct sports competition. Many park programs have been exposed as underfunded, inadequate and discriminatory, but the kids will be worse off if the district abandons team sports in favor of a less expensive, but more passive approach to park recreation.

This sounds pretty critical of Chicago and its leadership, because it is. But I'm not anti-city as much as I am pro-choice. We choose to live in Chicago because we love what it offers. But even more important, we love the promise of the city, not just what it has been but what it still can be. And since we have decided to stay, that also gives us the right to carp about it as loud and as often as we like.

That's right, we didn't leave. We couldn't afford to buy in a city neighborhood we liked, and we weren't ready to move to the suburbs. So we did what many of our friends thought was crazy. We moved closer to the lake and downtown. We rented an apartment across the street from our son's magnet school, a block away from a large park. Our rent doubled. We'll have to save longer for a down payment on a house. But our son will be able to ride his bike down the street. And we're happy. For now.

James Ylisela Jr. teaches urban reporting at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. He's the consulting editor of The, Chicago Reporter, an investigative monthly that focuses on race, poverty and urban problems.