{"id":60269,"date":"2014-11-17T12:53:04","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T20:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=60269"},"modified":"2014-11-17T12:57:26","modified_gmt":"2014-11-17T20:57:26","slug":"why-is-whole-foods-moving-into-a-poor-chicago-neighborhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=60269","title":{"rendered":"Why Is Whole Foods Moving Into A Poor Chicago Neighborhood?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Post reports<\/a>: <\/p>\n

CHICAGO\u2014The center of Englewood has been vacant for so long that many people in the neighborhood can\u2019t quite recall when it became that way. Thirty years ago? Forty? It was after blockbusting began on the South Side, after white flight was well underway, after the big Sears Roebuck, with the Hillman\u2019s Pure Foods in the basement, closed in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

Sometime around then, the small businesses at 63rd and Halsted closed, too, and the buildings that housed them were razed. And so one of the busiest shopping corridors in Chicago was reduced to a desolate stretch of city: 13 acres of crabgrass and concrete with aging streetlights…<\/p>\n

At the time, in the 1930s, Englewood was 99 percent white. Today, it is 99 percent black. Once, 160,000 people lived here; now, 60,000 do. A third of the households live below the poverty line, and a quarter of adults are unemployed. Crime rates are among the highest in the city…<\/p>\n

After the groundbreaking over the summer, the Chicago Tribune called the Whole Foods a \u201csocioeconomic experiment,\u201d a phrase that made Mayor Rahm Emanuel and another local alderman, JoAnn Thompson, bristle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not an experiment. African American people are not an experiment,\u201d Thompson says. \u201cPeople need to stop thinking like that, that we cannot afford the things that people in other communities have.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wonder what is going on here. Perhaps this could be the harbinger of a new age for black Americans? Why shouldn’t they enjoy the good things of life, just like white folks?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Post reports: CHICAGO\u2014The center of Englewood has been vacant for so long that many people in the neighborhood can\u2019t quite recall when it became that way. Thirty years ago? Forty? It was after blockbusting began on the South … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blacks"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t