Chicago on the Make: Power and Inequality in a Modern City

For the last two decades, scholars from a wide range of disciplines have analyzed the ascent of neoliberalism. Much of the work on this topic takes a top-down approach, describing how shifts in international finance and transnational markets fueled inequality, undermined social justice, and gutted social-welfare institutions. Focusing on twentieth-century Chicago, Diamond explores the rise of neoliberalism from the bottom up and from the middle out. Rather than highlighting the role of global economic forces, he emphasizes local political culture, especially the ways in which two mayors—Richard J. Daley and his son, Richard M. Daley—exploited racial divisions in Chicago, vanquished opponents, and embraced a pro-growth, business-first agenda that ceded political power and decision-making authority from grassroots organizations to the city’s corporate elite. Such a shift redefined public policy in the city, privileging the interests of the business community over the needs of ordinary Chicagoans. In the process, the rich grew...