By Kiljoong Kim
In August 2005, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell posed the question, “Where do poor white people live?” While the question may sound simple, it leads to complex issues about race, class, and how we think about social space. For many decades, being poor in a metropolitan area has been synonymous with being black, just as being poor in a rural areas has mostly meant being white. Of course, this cannot be wholly true. Poor blacks live in the country, too. Rich blacks live in the city. Rich whites live in the country. Mitchell’s question is perhaps the most obscure of these combinations: Where do poor white people in the Chicago area live?
Posted on September 11, 2006