Program Overview
Ken Davis is joined by the BGA’s Casey Toner and WBEZ’s Miles Bryan to discuss an American Suburb2018: Dolton Illinois. In their joint reporting, they chronicled the rapid decline of that south suburb over the past 20 years as thousands of jobs evaporated and people who didn’t have the resources to move away got stuck with financially underwater houses, the inability to pay property taxes and the increasing number of shallow-rooted renters occupying formerly abandoned housing units.
Toner and Bryan tell heartbreaking stories of schools that can’t maintain academic standards, a police department that can barely staff its shifts, unpaid municipal water bills and a town council that’s deteriorated into shouting matches and recrimination. Although the story is about Dolton, it can easily be about a number of Chicago suburbs, they tell us, because for the first time last year, poverty in American suburbs has eclipsed that in cities. This program was produced by Chicago Access Network Television (CAN TV).