With a per capita income of less than $7,500 and an unemployment rate at 40 percent, the Riverdale community area on Chicago’s southern edge has the most economic hardship in the city.
That’s according to a ranking of Chicago’s 77 community areas released this week by the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, which used 2010 to 2014 five-year estimates from the American Community Survey to measure hardship based on a number of indicators, including education level and poverty rate.
The patchwork of local area hardship, concentrated on the South and West sides, is no surprise, but the map illustrating the disparate conditions across the city is no less striking.
“I look at this data all the time, and it still shocks me that we have these sprawling areas that are experiencing pretty extreme economic hardship,” said Matthew Wilson, economic development planner at the Great Cities Institute.
Riverdale, whose small population averaged 7,190 during that five-year period, topped the list with a hardship score of 82.7. It was followed by a cluster of community areas with large populations: South Lawndale on the West Side; Gage Park on the Southwest Side; and New City and Englewood on the mid-South Side.
At the other end of the spectrum, the community areas with the least hardship lined the lakefront downtown and on the North Side. The Loop’s hardship score was lowest, at 8.6, thanks in part to a per capita income of more than $62,000 and unemployment rate of 5.2 percent. It was followed by the Near North Side, Lakeview, Lincoln Park and the Near South Side, which includes the South Loop.
The hardship index takes into account six variables to get a fuller picture of a community’s economic condition than a single indicator, such as unemployment, can provide.
In addition to per capita income and unemployment, the index measures the share of the population below the federal poverty line; the share of people over age 25 without a high school diploma; the amount of crowded housing, or housing units with more than one person per room; and amount of dependency, which is the share of the population that is under 18 or over 64.
In South Lawndale, 54 percent of the over-25 population has no high school diploma. In the Near North Side, which includes neighborhoods like River North, it’s 2.4 percent.
The index, developed by Brookings Institution researchers in the 1970s to compare the nation’s largest cities, was used by the city of Chicago several years ago to measure hardship in the community areas based on 2008 to 2012 five-year averages. Those findings shouldn’t be compared with the new ranking because of overlapping time frames, said Wilson, citing guidelines from the American Community Survey.
Wilson said he wanted to produce a ranking with the most recent data available, and to offer deeper insight into local conditions.
“When we can combine all those things we get a much better understanding of the conditions and the needs,” he said.
aelejalderuiz@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @alexiaer
