[VivaLFuego]

As a resident of the Chicago Southland, I'm glad that at least someone is writing about this and that someone posted it.

I now get angry when I hear about "disinvestment" in the south and west sides of the city, while millions pour in each year in transportation and education infrastructure and a well-funded police, fire, and sanitation force. Go to Robbins and Dolton. Harvey isn't even that bad, it has a growing Latino and Pakistani population and actually still has a modest commercial tax base including a major CN railroad facility, a steel mill, a regional hospital partnered with the University of Chicago, and some others.

I get angry and doubt the motives of people expressing concern about inequities within the city limits because anyone who would spend time in the areas that are actually in a spiral of disinvestment would know that the true Illinois fiscal justice issue is the lack of sales tax revenue sharing - unlike income tax collections, a portion of which are distributed to municipalities on a per capita population basis, sales tax stays entirely within the jurisdication of the sale. This creates absurd disparities and involuntary transfers between jurisdictions - when you witness the fact that Robbins (nearly 100% black) residents need to shop and work at the Wal-mart in Crestwood (90% White) and thus pay for Crestwood's government while their own town crumbles and has no retail other than 2 gas stations and a dollar store, you get a new perspective on entrenched and systemic racism and recognize that the Chicago city SJWs are at best, sheltered and ignorant and full of shit.

And anyone who spent time in these areas would see what happens when manufacturing folds up shop to move to Indiana (self-inflicted labor/enviro/tax regs by Chicago politicians), or often to Mexico or Asia - which is absolutely a thing that happened in dramatic fashion from roughly 2000 through 2012, and had nothing to do with the BS we're fed about how manufacturing job losses are only about automation, or something, and everything to do with trade policy. The whole "manufacturing job loss was just automation bro" is a stupid trope on it's face considering that the developed nations that have retained the most manufacturing employment (such as South Korea and Germany) have also invested the most in manufacturing automation... maybe the explanation held water for 1980s manufacturing job reductions but not for the past 20 years.