Reddit reviews Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago

Deindustrialization and Suburbanization. Vast numbers of immigrants, both internal (African-Americans from the south) and external (Latin Americans, Eastern Europeans) had moved to cities across the country in search of the bountiful factory work provided both by the WW2 defense industry and the vast consumer boom of the 1950s. As Asia and Europe rebuilt from the war, technology advanced, and America suburbanized, factory jobs moved out of major cities. The factory jobs "went" three places: 1) Overseas 2) Replaced by increasing automation 3) The suburbs, where land and water were cheaper and which the new Interstates had put within reach of the newly forming class of suburban commuters. See this recent atlantic article outlining Detroit's depopulation, including the tidbit that even the "Big Three" automakers had only 27,000 jobs within the city limits in 2011, compared to 296,000 in 1950.

As the jobs evaporated, tensions rose. People had left their lives behind in pursuit of jobs which no longer existed, and now they had nothing to do to provide for themselves or their families. They also had nowhere to go. Even blue-collar, affordable suburbs were off-limits due to persistent racism both on the part of real estate developers and neighbors, who would sometimes violently convince African-Americans trying to move in that they weren't going to stand for it. This story did play out differently in every city in the country; a really good description of how it operated in Chicago can be found in Boss by Mike Royko.

People with nothing to do and nowhere to go tend to turn to crime. The race riots, crime wave, huge growth of gangs, crack epidemic--I would argue they all had the same root cause, which was the economic desolation of the inner city. Many leftist scholars act like it was some huge conspiracy, but I'd reject that completely. It was just people and companies doing what they thought was best for themselves, and leaving others out in the cold... which is what people, generally, do (though, I guess to be fair to leftists, their basic assertion is that people only "generally" do this under a capitalist system, which they regard as a huge conspiracy unto itself).

I think social and economic factors do a much better job explaining why working class neighborhoods became ghettos than acting as though arresting more prospectless people would have suddenly made them upstanding citizens. The police are hardly "handcuffed" today--vast numbers of inner city youths have their prospects destroyed by a trip through the justice system for nonviolent drug offenses--yet (while we haven't had major race riots in about a decade) inner city crime and violence remains at shockingly high levels.

A good start is to read Boss.

You should read The Boss about how the Daley's ran the city. Excellent read

https://www.amazon.com/Boss-Richard-J-Daley-Chicago/dp/0452261678

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What I've found the more I've read about Illinois machine history is that, going back to the beginning years of the machine, the thing they fear most is a republican AG who isn't afraid to start digging into the party patronage system. So if you want to crack the Machine's power over Illinois politics then an aggressive Republican AG is the best way to go.

Black Hawk Down. Very accessible and well written book (although popular, so he may have already reddit). It also has some Air Force PJs in the book.


Boss by Mike Royko is about long time Chicago mayor Richard Daley. Great history of the most successful political machine in the history of one of our most corrupt cities.

>ultimately that's where the power is.

Exactly. There is a book by Robert Dahl called Who Governs?. It's a case study on a small town in Connecticut (IIRC) and he at first believed the wealthy had all the power. But what he found was that when the people actually got together and voted, their will trumped the will of the wealthy. The problem, as seen in Chicago, is that voter turnout is low, sometimes single digits.



> the book on corruption would be written here

Funny you say that. Don't Make No Waves...Don't Back No Losers and the book Boss talk a lot of the Machine politics that ran/run Chicago. (The argument is that Rahm runs a modified "Machine Politics" platform perfected by Daley). But these books hint at patronage and corruption that was so prevalent in keeping Daley and his cronies elected. It talks about how they worked with Republicans in keeping Democrats in office during that time period. There are stories of Republican opponents setting up offices, but when the author went to check them out they either didn't exist or no one was ever working there. They're interesting books you should check out.

The notion, according to the authors of both books was that Daley didn't care what type of corruption you did, as long as you didn't make any noise. "Hear no evil" type of deal. It also touches on how politicians prefer low voter turnout (hence don't make no waves) because it almost always benefits the incumbent.

If you're really interesting in what I'm talking about in regards to party association not mattering in Illinois. You can focus on Chicago/Cook County. Since a bulk of anything newsworthy is from this area.

In University, we studied these two books One, Two

I can't remember which one, but an author works along side politicians in Chicago during the 60's/70's. He talks about how political positions are cut out depending on your political association as well as ethnicity (Irish were favored, while blacks/Hispanics got the shitty positions). For example Chicago is typically Democrat, while the County itself is predominantly Republican. But both groups "share" roles within the city and the County. He mentions during a campaign for alderman, he went go to a Republican alderman office, only to find it pretty much abandoned. He later found out there is/was and unwritten rule that Democrats get certain positions, and Republicans get others, so they typically didn't compete.

Yes, I have a point, please try to bear with me. The implication of your comment is that the law was passed when sufficient money was donated, but in fact the law was passed when a majority of voters were persuaded to vote for it.

One of the basic tenets of liberalism and one of the core principles on which democracies operate is that human beings possess sentience, and are capable of analysing information they receive and coming to reasoned conclusions based on that analysis. People can pay to advertise to voters, but they can't pay to pass a law. They can only hope to persuade voters. While there are ways to circumvent this process (like the voter intimidation that was practiced after emancipation in the South, or the large-scale vote rigging that you can read about in Mike Royko's classic Boss), simply buying ad space still relies on persuasive argument.

This is a complicated question with many factors in play. Let me take a stab at it. The policies of Daley's father. I would suggest reading this. https://www.amazon.com/Boss-Richard-J-Daley-Chicago/dp/0452261678

Decades ago, Blacks and other minorities attempted to move into those areas facing great resistance. Whites fled, businesses fled with them. Riots happened after King's death. Flood of cheap drugs in the 80's. The building of giant public housing complexes. Horner/Stateway/Rockwell Gardens. The power of gangs in those areas. Things are slowly changing. Back in the late 80's you wouldn't dream of going near Chicago Stadium, now the United Center. Now it's different. Humbolt Park out West used to known as a really bad area..now it's improving in increments

I'd also suggest reading this. https://www.amazon.com/There-Are-No-Children-Here/dp/0385265565

Chicago is one of the most segregated cities in America and it always has been. Read the book Boss by Mike Royko for a good glimpse into how Chicago has been historically low-key racist/segregated.