Changes in Demographics of Chicago Suburbs

This week I saw an article in the Chicago SunTimes showing how dozens of Chicago suburbs have shifted to majority nonwhite over the past 36 years. That article is now on the WBEZ site, too.  It includes three interactive maps that show changes since 1990.

Read the article and view the maps at this link.

I've followed this shift for many years.  In 2007 we held our Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in the South Suburbs and created this map and blog article.

Since then I've updated these articles and these articles on the MappingforJustice blog, as I've found new research showing demographic changes in the Chicago suburbs and in other cities around the USA.  

When we held the 2007 conference in Olympia Fields one of our goals was to find partners who would help us learn about any volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs already operating in the suburbs, and who would use the ideas shared at the conferences and on our website to build new programs were needed.

I still have not found anyone collecting and sharing this information. 

The map below shows locations of volunteer-based tutor, mentor programs in my database.  Visit this site and find a link to the interactive map and to my lists of Chicago area programs, which is organized by sections of the city and suburbs.

While the WBEZ map shows the demographic mix in the suburbs it does not show the economic diversity.  I've seen that on other maps, but can't find one right now.  Without an overlay that shows where poverty is most concentrated, by zip code, it's difficult to know where long-term volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs are needed.

If you've a map that shows this please share the link in the comments. 

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Black Families Fleeing Chicago - Ending in Segregated Suburbs

An article in the current Chicago Reporter shows how thousands of Black families are leaving Chicago, but only are ending up in the suburbs, with some of the segregation and problems of poorly performing schools that they are trying to escape.

The map at the left was created in 2007 when we held a Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in the South Suburbs at the Olympia Fields Country Club.  This article shows our goals then were to find leaders who would adopt Tutor/Mentor Connection strategies and help non-school, volunteer-based tutoring, mentoring and learning programs grow in these areas.

Had leaders stepped forward to take this role the areas kids are moving to might have more support systems in place than they have now.  If leaders step forward in 2018, perhaps the systems of support available in 2018 will be much stronger.

It does not happen over night. There are no quick fixes.

Visit MappingforJustice blog and find additional articles about poverty moving to suburbs. click here

Update - 10/23/2019 - article in The Economist titled "American poverty is moving from the city to the suburbs".  This article says "there are now more poor people in Chicago’s southern suburbs than in the city itself." and "Unlike urban poverty, which has long been associated with destitute blacks, suburban poverty is more pronounced among poor whites and Hispanics." click here to read

Update - 6/18/2020 - #PovertyNarrative conference (on-line) hosted by University of Michigan includes researcher talking about poverty in the suburbs. In this Tweet I point to her research.

Just learned that a 2017 article Bernadette Hanlon and I authored was the 5th most cited article this year. Check it out below: https://t.co/FRb2xu8Akf

— Glennon Sweeney (@glennon_s) April 26, 2019

Using Maps to Lead Community and Corporate Involvement

"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country", would be a great strategy, if a map were used to point to the places where help is needed, not just for one or two days, or even a year, but for many years.



I've watched the first two debates and I think back to the 1992 election when Ross Perot was holding up charts to illustrate his ideas. I wish one of our 2008 candidates would hold up maps like the one shown on this page, to demonstrate their vision for solving some of the problems they will face in the next four years.

This map shows poverty concentrations as well as locations of poorly performing schools in the Chicago region. In addition, it shows a list of Fortune 500/1000 companies.

Notice that many companies are located in the Chicago Loop area, and many are located in the Lake County area (North suburbs) or the DuPage County area (West Suburbs) but none are located in the South Suburbs (that may change if the new airport gets built).

Thousands of people coming and going to and from work in these companies pass through high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago and the inner ring of suburbs everyday. Leadership from elected officials, faith leaders, corporate CEOs and even kids in high school service learning programs, could show many of these people ways to stop for a couple of hours on their way home, to be a volunteer or leader at a neighborhood tutor/mentor program working to help kids in these neighborhoods come to school each day better prepared to learn.

The same leadership could encourage people to make donations to programs they pass each day. It can also draw together teams of people, as we will do at the November 21 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, to learn ways to be involved, and ways to help tutor/mentor programs be available to kids around every poorly performing school in the city and suburbs.

This next conference will be hosted by the Chicago Field Museum, 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive, and will include discussions aimed at connecting Chicago museums and cultural institutions with tutor/mentor programs and at-risk kids.

During the June 2008 National Conference on Volunteering and Service, I attended several workshops providing information on business volunteering, with research provided by companies like Deloitte and Accenture, showing the benefits to business and employees from such involvement. I posted links to some of that research here, and encourage companies shown on this map to use this as a starting point for beefing up their own involvement.

Many companies already have extensive volunteer and philanthropic involvement. My hope is that they will begin to use maps, like these, to plot where they are involved, creating layers of information for each focus area (health, education, workforce development, etc.) so they can better understand the distribution of their involvement, and look for ways to use their resources strategically so they have a growing impact on corporate and community goals.


This is a map of Lutheran Churches. To learn if there are any tutoring and/or mentoring programs in the area of specific churches, use this zip code map.

For more ideas on mapping visit

Mapping for Justice Blog of Tutor/Mentor Connection

Poverty and Crime Mapping Links in Tutor/Mentor Links Library

Geographic Information Systems Links in Tutor/Mentor Links Library

If you're the Mayor of Chicago, this map shows that you need to find ways to create a regional business support strategy to help draw more volunteers to schools and tutor/mentor programs in the city. If you're in Waukegan, Elgin, Aurora or Joliet, you need to find ways to draw volunteers and donors to programs that help youth in your own communities.

And if you're one of those scattered schools on this map that seem isolated from all others, your students can help you call for help from local and regional companies, so tutor/mentor programs and other learning activities are available to help your students, too.

Tutor/Mentor On-Line Network - Social Problem Solving

We're holding the next tutor/mentor conference next week in the South Suburbs of Chicago. The map shows that within a 12 mile radius of the Olympia Fields Conference site there are many areas of high poverty where tutor/mentor programs are needed.

We hope leaders of programs that already operate in this region, and in other parts of the Chicago region, will attend. But we also want other leaders to attend.

Our goal is to create a convergence, of business, health care, universities, faith groups, k-12 educators, social workers, lawyers, etc., ... all focused on expanding the learning and mentoring network for k-12 kids living in poverty, with the idea that volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring programs can be a more important strategy to business, hospitals, faith and university leaders.

While we expect leaders of some tutor/mentor programs to attend (see the attendee list), we're not yet getting leaders of business and health care organizations to participate. We know some CEOs understand how volunteerism can be a valuable form of workforce development, and how some health care leaders understand mentoring as a workforce development strategy, however, getting these people into an on-going conversation that turns them into leaders of the Tutor/Mentor Connection's strategy, is not yet happening.

Part of the problem is that most business people don't even know the Tutor/Mentor Connection exists. Those that do are too busy to attend our conferences, or to far from Chicago to attend. This is true for tutor/mentor program leaders, too.

Thus, we've been working to move this networking to the Internet. In the past year more and more social network spaces have become available, which enable people who care about a cause, to connect with others who care about the same cause. We've created discussion forums on the T/MC site. But we also have space on LinkedIn and Facebook. In addition I participate in forums hosted by others, such as the Learning to Finish Wiki, and the Classroom 2.0 community. At MyHealthCareer.net we've started a new outreach with health care professionals.

Each of these communities connects the T/MC to a growing network of others who care about kids just as much as we do. If we can turn this network into a network of purpose, we can solve problems facing non profits, and do more to help kids.

Building collaborations and partnerships and focusing them on long-term goals is a difficult process, in the best of circumstances. I've been building this network for the past 30 years, informally at first, with limited support from foundations, or government. Yet over time we've helped many people build tutor/mentor programs, and many volunteers connect with kids. Here's a timeline that illustrates this growth.

Some where in America, today's papers will report stories of kids being killed, schools that perform poorly, poverty, and other social injustices. If you read one of these, I encourage you to join us in one of the forums I've listed, so you can learn ways you can be part of the solution, or that you can connect your network so they can be part of a solution.

We can become angry about a problem, and hope someone else solves it. Or we can begin to learn more about the problem and become a catalyst who helps make it go away.