The New York Times continues its morbid fascination with Chicago's South Side with a look at tenuous times in Chatham, a traditional middle class outpost that has recently seen waves of foreclosures and transplants from demolished housing projects. A shocking 2010 murder threatened to derail the proud neighborhood, but strong social ties prevailed. As criminologists see it, Chatham has "ecological advantages" in its small single-family housing stock— more familiarity among neighbors, less blight from vacant lots. Dennis Rodkin recently put Chatham atop a list of neighborhoods with housing on the rebound. And new businesses are cropping up. Will the trend hold? Not even the mighty Times can say. [NYT, previously]
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