Gangs in the Urban Crisis Era

References for Gangs in the Urban Crisis Era

This is the map of the concentration of urban poverty in Chicago in 1970 from the Chicago Area Fact Book.

In the urban Crisis Era, poverty was becoming concentrated in the Black Belt and west side ghettoes, where the majority of gangs arose.

In Lawndale just west of what is now UIC, the Vice Lords began as a local baseball team and became the most powerful organization in the area.

In the south, near the University of Chicago's Hyde Park, the Blackstone Rangers and the Disciples and other gangs of young people formed.

The history of these gangs is a focus of our history project.

Click here to view how Chicago changed between 1970 and 1980, which was the topic of William Julius Wilson's The Truly Disadvantaged.

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