There are so so many problems on the south side of Chicago. The rents are comparatively cheap because nobody but the most desperate would choose to live there. The buildings are run down and lead filled. Infrastructure is long neglected. Local businesses are virtually non-existent. Dilapidated and collapsing buildings are all over. It is virtually unchanged geographically and demographically from the days of legal segregation. East of State Street on the south side was the black neighborhood even before expressways physically segregated the area. The people there more or less serve as a cheap servant class to the rich people of the city.

All that being said, a quantum computing mecca might actually help some of the black families escape. The ones that own their homes wouldn’t mind their property values going up from the pittance they are now. There are empty lots that the city literally gives away now because they are so worthless. Give that property to long time residents and let them sell it to gentrifiers. There are ways to make this work for the people of this area. We just have to push past the entrenched racism…