Amazing Graphic Shows Chicago’s Middle Class Disappear Before Your Eyes

The graphic that you are about to see is sobering, perhaps depressing, and you can’t take your eyes off it. We have the exhaustive work of Daniel Kay Hertz, a masters student at the University Of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, to thank for that.

At the risk of sounding like an old carnival barker, step right up and watch the middle class of Chicago vanish before your eyes. However, this is no side-show. It shows the demise of the foundation of an American city.

Watch as the grey squares, which illustrate the middle class that dominated the most of the city’s neighborhoods in 1970s, quickly vanish over 40 years. The poor, represented by the orange and red colors, explode across the map.