Change has come to Chatham neighborhood - Chicago Sun-Times

http://www.suntimes.com/news/mitchell/5433721-452/change-has-come-to-chatham-neighborhood.html

"From 1990 to 2009, Chatham lost 5,751 people — 15.6 percent of its population, census data show.

Chatham today is a much different community than it was in 1986. Back then, the Chicago Sun-Times ran a series of stories called “The Chatham Story” about the “upwardly mobile blacks” who had settled in the neighborhood, building a “community of excellence” in which people kept up their homes and had a “ruthless” passion for making sure their kids got a good education.

But even then, things were beginning to change. Chatham was in transition as many of its residents, people who’d lived there much or all of their lives, got old.

Now, a quarter-century later, I went in search of the new Chatham. I wanted to see just how much, and how, Chatham has changed.

What I found reflects the impact of the city’s public housing high-rises having been torn down and also the meltdown in the housing market. It’s not just the crime. Mixed in among the well-kept homes with their manicured lawns, there are untended yards and houses left empty as a result of the tattered economy. Chatham isno longerthehaven forthe black middle class that it was not so long ago.

But I also found that the spirit that gave birth to Chatham — a belief that black people can successfully raise their families and maintain their community — has been passed along to a new generation of educated, hard-working people."

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