Chicago community area populations 1950 vs. 2010

[Centropolis]

For some reason I've always been drawn to Hyde Park (and the Woodlawn Tap). I've always noticed how spare 55th looked for a Chicago commercial drag.

[Thundertubs]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

For some reason I've always been drawn to Hyde Park (and the Woodlawn Tap). I've always noticed how spare 55th looked for a Chicago commercial drag.

Yea, that used to be the main drag, and a really urban one. 53rd, which was then a secondary street, is now kind of the main drag (and a pretty cool street).

[CCs77]

As always, GE offers a great tool to help understand some things.

Here some images of Grand Boulevard from 2012 and 1999 (the oldest available)
You can see how there are a lot of empty lots scattered all around the area, taht we can suppose that were demolished progressively since the 1960'. The biggest change between the two dates is the desaparition of big housing projects in the western side. (along the strip between S State St. and the freeway) In other areas it seems like some houses are gone but some other constructed. For example in the area between E41rd St. - E41st St. and E Cottage Grove Ave. - Drexell Blvd. mostly empty lots in 1999, now the area is fill with new housing

Grand Boulevard (north) 2012



Grand Boulevard (north) 1999



Grand Boulevard (south) 2012




Grand Boulevard (south) 1999




Douglas, another district just north of Grand Boulevard, also suffer a huge loss of population, from 78745 in 1950 to 18238 in 2010. Here the change between the two images is more dramatic, with many housing projects wiped out. Some of them were redeveloped later, presumible by lower density housing, other remain as empty lots. I suppose that those projects were steadly losing population for many years until they were torn down: That, along with the loss of smaller apartment buildings or individual houses, helps to explain the decline of population in those areas.

Douglas 2012



Douglas 1999

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by Chicago103

irregardless

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by Ch.G, Ch.G

Fixed.

Originally Posted by CCs77

As always, GE offers a great tool to help understand some things.

Here some images of Grand Boulevard from 2012 and 1999 (the oldest available)
You can see how there are a lot of empty lots scattered all around the area, taht we can suppose that were demolished progressively since the 1960'. The biggest change between the two dates is the desaparition of big housing projects in the western side. (along the strip between S State St. and the freeway) In other areas it seems like some houses are gone but some other constructed. For example in the area between E41rd St. - E41st St. and E Cottage Grove Ave. - Drexell Blvd. mostly empty lots in 1999, now the area is fill with new housing

Douglas, another district just north of Grand Boulevard, also suffer a huge loss of population, from 78745 in 1950 to 18238 in 2010. Here the change between the two images is more dramatic, with many housing projects wiped out. Some of them were redeveloped later, presumible by lower density housing, other remain as empty lots. I suppose that those projects were steadly losing population for many years until they were torn down: That, along with the loss of smaller apartment buildings or individual houses, helps to explain the decline of population in those areas.

Decade by decade populations of Grand Boulevard can give us a clue:

1950 114,557 10.9%
1960 80,036 −30.1%
1970 80,166 0.2%
1980 53,741 −33.0%
1990 35,897 −33.2%
2000 28,006 −22.0%
2010 21,929 −21.7%

The 1960's was when the Robert Taylor Homes were built which were mostly in the western part of the Grand Boulevard neighborhood near the Dan Ryan. That is no doubt why the population stayed pretty much the same from 1960-1970 after a 30% decline 1950-1960. The projects were no doubt in part a way to stop the population decline from people fleeing overcrowded housing by building new affordable housing nearby. I imagine in the 1960's people still abandoned the more traditional housing stock in mass and moved to the projects so on paper there was no population decline but the traditional fabric was being destroyed for the more monotonous which in turn lead to decline in both the old and the new housing. The decline in the 2000's was in no doubt due to the final demolition of the projects and if anything in the future it is setting itself up for gentrification and growth as evidenced by the new housing being planned and built nearby.

[10023]

What Chicago (and other cities need) is that kind of Victorian era development where someone came in and built a whole neighborhood of rowhouses or terrace houses or whatever (like Brooklyn, much of London, etc). It's not much different than today's greenfield subdivisions really, except denser and much better build quality.

That's a much faster way to revitalize those bombed out neighborhoods that actually have sought after locations (near transit, etc), as it doesn't require people to be "pioneers" in a dangerous area. Of course the question is whether developers would be interested and what happens to the existing residents.

[CCs77]

Hopefully, that degradation could be reversed, maybe it is already.
The South Bronx in NYC suffered a similar problem during the seventies and eighties, with the famous phrase "the Bronx is burning". I am not sufficiently sure on how Chicago and NYC are different, but it suffered similar problems as Chicago and now somehow rebound. Maybe in New York, the economy is stronger to let that happen, the population of the city of New York is increasing while the population of the city of Chicago is decreasing, but my point is, that similar "bombed out neighborhoods" like the South Bronx managed to rebirth, aparently with both large developments ans smaller infill developments of small apartment buildings or individual houses. And if that happened there, it could happen in Chicago as well.

It is a pitty, to say the less, that those areas of the city, near downtown and with good transit connections remain in such decay.

I want to post some images of the South Bronx with the inverse phenomenon, the repopulation of a neighborhood, in just a decade.

South Bronx 2001




South Bronx 2011

[nei]

This is recent infill of abandonded:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Bronx...,0,-24.27&z=17

ditto with the attached houses to the left

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by CCs77

Hopefully, that degradation could be reversed, maybe it is already.
The South Bronx in NYC suffered a similar problem during the seventies and eighties, with the famous phrase "the Bronx is burning". I am not sufficiently sure on how Chicago and NYC are different, but it suffered similar problems as Chicago and now somehow rebound. Maybe in New York, the economy is stronger to let that happen, the population of the city of New York is increasing while the population of the city of Chicago is decreasing, but my point is, that similar "bombed out neighborhoods" like the South Bronx managed to rebirth, aparently with both large developments ans smaller infill developments of small apartment buildings or individual houses. And if that happened there, it could happen in Chicago as well.

It is a pitty, to say the less, that those areas of the city, near downtown and with good transit connections remain in such decay.

I want to post some images of the South Bronx with the inverse phenomenon, the repopulation of a neighborhood, in just a decade.

Well I think there are key differences between the New York City of the 1970's and the Chicago of today. For one thing I get the impression the ills of NYC in the 1970's was felt more evenly by everyone living in the city, I mean obviously it was worst in the South Bronx but the crime seemed to be an issue nearly everywhere and the city was literally virtually bankrupt in 1975. With revival of NYC in the 1980's and 1990's it really raised all boats and all boroughs to the point where the South Bronx may still be working class but it appears quite stable at least. When thugs and gang bangers are priced out or incarcerated they are often replaced by more responsible working class people, new immigrants, etc., which at the very least which is better than being replaced by no one.

Chicago on the other hand has much more than NYC been a "tale of two cities" in how it recovered from the low period of American urbanism in the 1970's. In the 1970's Chicago was known as "the city that works" under Richard J. Daley, compared to NYC it's finances were in relative good shape and while the rate of population decline was virtually the same as NYC in Chicago it seemed like a more managed population decline. The 1980's if anything saw more problems at a municipal level with the council wars and all as well as some financial problems. When Chicago revitalized in the 1990's and 2000's some neighborhoods benefited tremendously while others continued to decline. There are parts of Chicago that are as economically revitalized as the choice neighborhoods of New York City and offer a much cheaper cost of living to boot. Then there are other parts of Chicago that are just as badly off as the South Bronx in the 1970's or from a built environment point of view resemble Detroit. Those are the two Chicagos out there and that is why there is such a fierce debate at times about what the current state of Chicago is because both sides are right because aside from both being inside the same city limits they are essentially two different cities.

[ardecila]

Fair point. Chicago is not the immigrant destination that it once was, and certainly doesn't receive New York-like levels of immigration. We have very small Caribbean, African, and Asian communities (Chinese excepted). There are various reasons for this, but the two solutions are A) increasing immigration overall via Federal policy and B) attracting new immigrants to Chicago.

As 10023 mentioned - at first it seemed naive, but I thought again - what needs to happen is a concentration of resources. The city right now is using TIF districts to fund isolated housing projects. Really, the city should be abolishing TIF and then spending funds in a concentrated way, working to revitalize neighborhoods one at a time instead of spreading resources thinly over the whole city.

The Oakwood Shores project is a perfect example. Because of the architectural goal of gaining variety, CHA broke up the site into a patchwork quilt of lots and gave sets to different developers. The result is a patchwork neighborhood that doesn't feel much more established than the ghettos that surround it. Site choices also created a massive dead space between the new buildings and older neighborhoods west of King Drive. If CHA had the ability to concentrate funding here and complete the build-out, it would really kickstart the whole area. Instead CHA's resources are being spent in hundreds of places around the city with no critical mass. I see less reason to spend money on housing in Pilsen or Little Village, where neighborhoods are still largely intact, green, and leafy. This could tie nicely into broader city goals - concentrating population along transit lines, or bringing populations within walking distance of park space.

[10023]

Originally Posted by ardecila

As 10023 mentioned - at first it seemed naive, but I thought again - what needs to happen is a concentration of resources. The city right now is using TIF districts to fund isolated housing projects. Really, the city should be abolishing TIF and then spending funds in a concentrated way, working to revitalize neighborhoods one at a time instead of spreading resources thinly over the whole city.

Yes, this is exactly what I mean.

You'll always have natural, organic, "free market" gentrification in neighborhoods that are adjacent to currently vibrant ones where rents are rising, as people take a chance and go one L stop further to fit their budget. But it's going to take a long time for this phenomenon to radiate outwards all the way from the West Loop or South Loop to some depopulated areas of the West and South Sides (if it ever does).

But what if you concentrated a ton of resources in specific areas that are currently too beaten down for people to take a chance on them, but have enough inherent advantages to be turned around? Two places that come to mind are around the United Center, and the areas immediately south and west of Hyde Park. You've got the Green and Blue lines flanking the first and the Green and Red lines just west of Washington Park (plus the Eisenhower and Dan Ryan, respectively), so these are transit dense areas.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Fair point. Chicago is not the immigrant destination that it once was, and certainly doesn't receive New York-like levels of immigration. We have very small Caribbean, African, and Asian communities (Chinese excepted). There are various reasons for this, but the two solutions are A) increasing immigration overall via Federal policy and B) attracting new immigrants to Chicago.

As 10023 mentioned - at first it seemed naive, but I thought again - what needs to happen is a concentration of resources. The city right now is using TIF districts to fund isolated housing projects. Really, the city should be abolishing TIF and then spending funds in a concentrated way, working to revitalize neighborhoods one at a time instead of spreading resources thinly over the whole city.

The Oakwood Shores project is a perfect example. Because of the architectural goal of gaining variety, CHA broke up the site into a patchwork quilt of lots and gave sets to different developers. The result is a patchwork neighborhood that doesn't feel much more established than the ghettos that surround it. Site choices also created a massive dead space between the new buildings and older neighborhoods west of King Drive. If CHA had the ability to concentrate funding here and complete the build-out, it would really kickstart the whole area. Instead CHA's resources are being spent in hundreds of places around the city with no critical mass. I see less reason to spend money on housing in Pilsen or Little Village, where neighborhoods are still largely intact, green, and leafy. This could tie nicely into broader city goals - concentrating population along transit lines, or bringing populations within walking distance of park space.

^ My problem with the CHA policy in general is that it has essentially become black housing.

Immigrants come to a neighborhood, pay rent in existing housing, and slowly make the neighborhood their own. This has happened all over the country as well as elsewhere in Chicago. Problem is, this process can't take place if there's no housing to begin with.

Widespread demolition on the west and south sides has made those areas inhospitable to pretty much anybody other than the CHA, which has the resources to build housing for poor black people (and pretty much nobody else) on these sites. Hence those areas of the south and west sides are the least diverse areas of the city, while immigrants have concentrated on the southwest, far north, and northwest sides where the housing supply is mostly intact.

My solution is even more radical: relax the building code in the most troubled areas of the south and west sides, make it easier to build market-rate cheap housing, sell of CHA lots to private investors and let the private landlords build what they think the market demands. Get rid of the worthless CHA, and just let the city develop organically like it did in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Of course, that would get rid of the delusion of the "black mecca" that those people who, still stuck in their nostalgic 1950's dream world, want to revive--but lets move on. Besides, there can still be a "black mecca" of Africans or people from the Carribean, but I doubt they would want to live in CHA housing. There really is no reason why these groups should be moving to New York instead of Chicago--most immigrants care about jobs and opportunities and that's pretty much it.

[nei]

Originally Posted by Chicago103

Well I think there are key differences between the New York City of the 1970's and the Chicago of today. For one thing I get the impression the ills of NYC in the 1970's was felt more evenly by everyone living in the city, I mean obviously it was worst in the South Bronx but the crime seemed to be an issue nearly everywhere and the city was literally virtually bankrupt in 1975. With revival of NYC in the 1980's and 1990's it really raised all boats and all boroughs to the point where the South Bronx may still be working class but it appears quite stable at least. When thugs and gang bangers are priced out or incarcerated they are often replaced by more responsible working class people, new immigrants, etc., which at the very least which is better than being replaced by no one.

Much of the South Bronx is similar income-wise to the poorest areas of Chicago. Prices have increased but the poor haven't seem to have left, at least yet. New York State incarcerates less than people than 20 years ago. Some of the poorest neighborhoods got poorer.

I suspect if you did say, a murder rate breakdown of New York City, you'd see as a wide disparity as Chicago back then (though different than Chicago today). NYC spent $5 billion rehabilitating and creating new housing in badly damaged districts in the 80s. The NYCHA increased its holdings slightly by taking over rundown tenements and renovating, but mostly it was through other agencies.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...l?ref=nyregion

Until the last decade, NYC had a very high outmigration rate, mostly immigrants replaced those leaving. Most of the South Bronx has a median income < $25k/year.

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ My problem with the CHA policy in general is that it has essentially become black housing.

Immigrants come to a neighborhood, pay rent in existing housing, and slowly make the neighborhood their own. This has happened all over the country as well as elsewhere in Chicago. Problem is, this process can't take place if there's no housing to begin with.

Widespread demolition on the west and south sides has made those areas inhospitable to pretty much anybody other than the CHA, which has the resources to build housing for poor black people (and pretty much nobody else) on these sites. Hence those areas of the south and west sides are the least diverse areas of the city, while immigrants have concentrated on the southwest, far north, and northwest sides where the housing supply is mostly intact.

My solution is even more radical: relax the building code in the most troubled areas of the south and west sides, make it easier to build market-rate cheap housing, sell of CHA lots to private investors and let the private landlords build what they think the market demands. Get rid of the worthless CHA, and just let the city develop organically like it did in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Of course, that would get rid of the delusion of the "black mecca" that those people who, still stuck in their nostalgic 1950's dream world, want to revive--but lets move on. Besides, there can still be a "black mecca" of Africans or people from the Carribean, but I doubt they would want to live in CHA housing. There really is no reason why these groups should be moving to New York instead of Chicago--most immigrants care about jobs and opportunities and that's pretty much it.

I agree with this. The failure of public housing in Chicago was due to the fact that the vast majority of the people living there were on welfare and it was basically 100% black and poor people of other races and ethnic groups typically just lived in cheap market housing and/or lived in large households as evidenced in many hispanic neighborhoods like Pilsen/Little Village and other parts of older SW side neighborhoods. Unemployment in these areas is still above the city average but oftentimes at least one person in a household is employed in a working class job. The working class blacks also in general avoided the projects and just lived in cheaper market rate housing.

Originally Posted by nei

Much of the South Bronx is similar income-wise to the poorest areas of Chicago. Prices have increased but the poor haven't seem to have left, at least yet. New York State incarcerates less than people than 20 years ago. Some of the poorest neighborhoods got poorer.

I suspect if you did say, a murder rate breakdown of New York City, you'd see as a wide disparity as Chicago back then (though different than Chicago today). NYC spent $5 billion rehabilitating and creating new housing in badly damaged districts in the 80s. The NYCHA increased its holdings slightly by taking over rundown tenements and renovating, but mostly it was through other agencies.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...l?ref=nyregion

Until the last decade, NYC had a very high outmigration rate, mostly immigrants replaced those leaving. Most of the South Bronx has a median income < $25k/year.

I actually wonder if the fact that Chicago's cost of living is so much less than NYC's is another reason that public housing failed here. In NYC there are many working class and lower middle class people living in public housing and while I am not saying that public housing in NYC is a "good" place to live it at least seems like a decent alternative to people with limited options and not truly dismal. The South Bronx is low income but from what I have seen on google earth it at least looks alive even if it is a bit gritty, part of it is the uber density but also I think it is the mix of working class and poor. Maybe I am being a bit naive but I can see a poor transplant renting a small tenement apartment in the South Bronx and at least living a decent life whereas no person in their right mind would move to Englewood or North Lawndale of their own free will. High density poverty that we see in NYC is better than the bombed out ghetto poverty you see in Chicago. CHA highrises were high density in a vacuum because they were either surrounded by bombed out neighborhoods or right next to areas with totally different socioeconomics (Cabrini Green and Streeterville/Gold Coast). It seems NYC is much better at mixing projects with stable urban neighborhoods.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Immigrants come to a neighborhood, pay rent in existing housing, and slowly make the neighborhood their own. This has happened all over the country as well as elsewhere in Chicago. Problem is, this process can't take place if there's no housing to begin with.

This is exactly what black migrants did. A variety of racial covenants, redlining, and other harmful policies kept blacks restricted between the Rock Island and the lakeshore, in pre-existing buildings. Without the resources to increase the housing supply, density in Bronzeville, Douglas, etc rose to 90000 ppsm by 1940, not much less than Manhattan's peak density of 100k in 1910. The pent-up demand was enormous, which is why blacks basically took over the South and West Sides after Shelly vs. Kraemer.

The CHA was formed precisely to deal with this problem; it's always been about providing housing for blacks. We now have a wide array of tools to encourage the provision of housing in low-income neighborhoods, in the form of tax credits and subsidies, including Section 8. Latino communities have been pretty effective at marshaling these funds to build special-purpose housing. Direct public housing like the CHA developments is only the tip of the iceberg.

[Chase Unperson]

It always seemed counterintuitive that Chicago could be losing population when things seemed to be booming and people were flooding to neighborhoods like bucktown, Lincoln square, Andersonville, etc... But one thing I took away from an article is that any growth in population around the loop or trendy neighborhoods was dwarfed by the emptying of the working class neighborhoods as manufacturing, steel factories, etc..moved out of Chicago.


I am a little surprised though to see that so many north side neighborhoods are down quite a bit from 1950. It is probably partly explained by change in family size and standards for living spaces that people have in 2010. However it is worth noting that the same changes would have occurred in NYC, sf, and Los Angeles which are all at historic highs for population and affluence (at least affluence for manhattan, Brooklyn and sf, don't know if la is more affluent than in 1950).

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Chase Unperson

I am a little surprised though to see that so many north side neighborhoods are down quite a bit from 1950. It is probably partly explained by change in family size and standards for living spaces that people have in 2010. However it is worth noting that the same changes would have occurred in NYC, sf, and Los Angeles which are all at historic highs for population and affluence (at least affluence for manhattan, Brooklyn and sf, don't know if la is more affluent than in 1950).

^ That's because you may not be making the right comparisons.

While NYC's total population is at an all time high, its richest borough (Manhattan) is not even close to it. Much of that is due to the same process that has happened in Chicago's north side affluent neighborhoods.

What is offsetting Manhattan's lower than peak population is the soaring populations in the outer boroughs. Unfortunately, Chicago's non-gentrified neighborhoods for the most part are not soaring in population. Its most impoverished neighborhoods have lost a lot of population, while a few immigrant hoods are gaining while others are stagnant or even slowly losing. The only portion that is booming is the central core of the city. All in all, though, that is not enough to offset the losses so the city continues to see stagnation or a slow population loss.

Having said all that, I thought we all long ago came to the realization that city boundaries when marking a region's population were pretty irrelevant. The Bay Area has its "south side of Chicago" full of guns and gang bangers (I co-own an apartment building in a neighborhood Stockton that has had its share of druggies, gun killings, and otherwise seedy happenings) but because Stockton is not in San Francisco, it does not affect that city's statistics. Newark doesn't bring down NYC's statistics, etc etc. Chicago just happens to have some of its poorest and most crime ridden areas within the city boundaries, along with some of its wealthiest areas.

[Chase Unperson]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ That's because you may not be making the right comparisons.

While NYC's total population is at an all time high, its richest borough (Manhattan) is not even close to it. Much of that is due to the same process that has happened in Chicago's north side affluent neighborhoods.

What is offsetting Manhattan's lower than peak population is the soaring populations in the outer boroughs. Unfortunately, Chicago's non-gentrified neighborhoods for the most part are not soaring in population. Its most impoverished neighborhoods have lost a lot of population, while a few immigrant hoods are gaining while others are stagnant or even slowly losing. The only portion that is booming is the central core of the city. All in all, though, that is not enough to offset the losses so the city continues to see stagnation or a slow population loss.

Well nevertheless, SF, NY and LA face manh of the same cultural changes as Chicago (rise of the suburbs, Declining family size, different standards for size of living space) and all are at historic highs. So I would say the comparison is still fair.

And I would say SF has surged in affluence and continues to pack more people in so maybe that is a better comparison.

[10023]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

While NYC's total population is at an all time high, its richest borough (Manhattan) is not even close to it. Much of that is due to the same process that has happened in Chicago's north side affluent neighborhoods.

What is offsetting Manhattan's lower than peak population is the soaring populations in the outer boroughs. Unfortunately, Chicago's non-gentrified neighborhoods for the most part are not soaring in population. Its most impoverished neighborhoods have lost a lot of population, while a few immigrant hoods are gaining while others are stagnant or even slowly losing. The only portion that is booming is the central core of the city. All in all, though, that is not enough to offset the losses so the city continues to see stagnation or a slow population loss.

And part of that is the same de-industrialization that's happened across all US cities (all Western cities, really). But in New York, instead of the areas around former factories emptying out, they've been redeveloped as fairly high density residential neighborhood because demand is so high.

And something you do notice in New York, not to sound like a traitor to where I grew up, but the whole city just seems healthier than cities in the Midwest. Obviously places like Detroit and Cleveland are much maligned, but as shown in this thread there are even vast swaths of Chicago that are empty, beaten down, crumbling, with little hope of recovery in the foreseeable future. There are big swaths of the city with a generally "run down" feel. That doesn't exist to any great extent in New York. Even NYC's low income neighborhoods are hubs of economic activity by comparison.

[nei]

Originally Posted by Chicago103

I actually wonder if the fact that Chicago's cost of living is so much less than NYC's is another reason that public housing failed here.

I'd guess that makes a big difference.

In NYC there are many working class and lower middle class people living in public housing and while I am not saying that public housing in NYC is a "good" place to live it at least seems like a decent alternative to people with limited options and not truly dismal.

Don't know as much about Chicago public housing, but currently public housing projects have very low median incomes; checking a map, census tracts composed mainly of public housing have median incomes $15-19k/year. Turning the worst times of the South Bronx's decay, the projects were probably preferable to market housing and in better condition.

The South Bronx is low income but from what I have seen on google earth it at least looks alive even if it is a bit gritty, part of it is the uber density but also I think it is the mix of working class and poor. Maybe I am being a bit naive but I can see a poor transplant renting a small tenement apartment in the South Bronx and at least living a decent life whereas no person in their right mind would move to Englewood or North Lawndale of their own free will.

Few white transplants move, if that's what you mean by transplants. It's still has plenty of quality of life issues, but I'm not familiar with Englewood and Lawndale to make comparisons. The South Bronx gets a lot of transplants if Latin American immigrants count. Checking the demographics of Englewood, it's very different from the South Bronx, which is majority hispanic. As the part of the city with the cheapest rent, it also got people who couldn't afford elsewhere and became a bit of a dumping round for Section 8 tenants. Here's population numbers for two hard-hit South Bronx neighborhoods:

Bronx District 1 (Melrose/Mott Haven):

1970: 138,557
1980: 78,441 -43%
1990: 77,214 -2%
2000: 82,159 +6%
2010: 91,497 +11%

Area is 2.2 square miles

Community District 3 (Morsiania, Croton Park East)

1970: 150,636
1980: 53,635 -64%
1990: 57,162 +7%
2000: 68,574 +20%
2010: 79,762 +16%

Area is 1.6 square miles

So, the South Bronx had more decline at once than Chicago but then grew back somewhat. The growth since 1990 has been all from an increase in the hispanic population, black population is stable and white population is negligible. Pre-white flight, the neighborhood was heavily Jewish.

CHA highrises were high density in a vacuum because they were either surrounded by bombed out neighborhoods or right next to areas with totally different socioeconomics (Cabrini Green and Streeterville/Gold Coast). It seems NYC is much better at mixing projects with stable urban neighborhoods.

From views I've seen, CHA high-rises often didn't seem surrounded by much, but that may be because of decay (?) NYC has a number of projects next to rich blocks, mostly in Manhattan. Usually, but not always it's because of gentrification. The most extreme one I've found is the Alfred E. Smith Houses (unusually for projects, it has an Asian majority) at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, a short walk away is a Tribeca census tract with a median income of $210k / year, about 15x higher.