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FORTUNE.COM// JA N.1 .19Ourneighborhoodsarefailingus.Dying business corridors hurt the middle class.
many residents, its
emptiness is a dual
affront: It’s a symbol
of the hollowing-out
of the local middle
class and an obstacle
to working people
struggling to get
ahead.
“ This has always
been a ‘first house’
neighborhood,”
says Carlo Rotella,
a Boston College
professor and South3,000 South Shore
residents lost factory
jobs in the 1960s and
1970s. And the Great
Recession hammered
the area’s teachers,
managers, and ser-
vice workers, leaving
many upside-down
on their mortgages.
As families left
town or slipped down
the economic ladder,
household income
in South Shore
dropped; it’s now
about 40% below the
national average.
That helps explain
why Jeffery Plaza
is the only one of 11
former Dominick’s inShore native whose
history of the area,
The World Is Always
Coming to an End, will
be published in April.
Its orderly brick bun-
galows were financial
cornerstones for
thousands of middle-
income families—in-
cluding those of Or-
acle cofounder Larry
Ellison and Michelle
Obama. But Rotella
estimates thatTHE SOUTH
Shore neigh-
borhood
boasts a lakeside park
with commanding
views of Chicago’s
skyline. It’s only a
25-minute com-
mute by train from
the downtown Loop.
It features stately
brick homes that sell
for $500,000 and up,
magnets for profes-
sors and doctors.What South Shore
doesn’t have, howev-
er, is a supermarket.
It hasn’t had one since
2013, when grocery
giant Safeway shut-
tered its Dominick’s
subsidiary and closed
all its stores. More
than five years later,
the hulking storefront
at Jeffery Plaza that
neighbors still call
“the Dominick’s”
remains vacant. ForSECTION 2: HOW WE GOT HERE AND WHYSPECIAL REPORT2
HOW WE
GOT HERE
AND WHY
DISSECTINGTHEFORCESBEHIND
THEGROWINGINCOMEGAP