April 29, 2015

By Jim Nowlan
Outside Columnist

I travel the state a lot. On Amtrak, from western Illinois into Chicago’s Loop, I pass from left-behind rural towns and through new middle-class housing tracts on the suburban fringe.
Next come older, wealthy suburbs like Hinsdale and farther on the mostly Hispanic towns like Cicero and Berwyn. After that it is the mean streets of poor, black and Hispanic Chicago before reaching the golden, gleaming city center on the lake.
These varied worlds don’t communicate much with one another. Few in tony Hinsdale have in their world view the poor, often violent black neighborhoods not far to the east.
When I was a child after World War II, there were more vibrant farm market towns and small cities and fewer suburbs than today.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.