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Want to make friends from a different economic class? Try your local Applebee’s

Oct 20, 2023
Full-service chain restaurants attract people from different income brackets and represent a way to break down class barriers, research shows.
James Williams enjoys a lunch date with his wife at an Applebee's near Chicago. A recent working paper titled "Rubbing Shoulders" says chain restaurants are among a handful of places in the U.S. where people from high-income and low-income neighborhoods encounter one another.
Esther Yoon-Ji Kang/WBEZ

Understanding the civil rights movement as a labor and economic movement

Feb 23, 2023
Legalized segregation was an economic system that determined people’s livelihoods, says history professor Robin D.G. Kelley.
Protestors hold signs reading "Union Justice Now!" and "Honor King: End Racism!" in Memphis, Tennessee, in April 1968, days after the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In Baltimore, segregation can be felt even in your wallet

Jun 7, 2019
One journalist spent years reporting on segregation in Baltimore, Maryland. He found that segregated communities can shape our economic futures.
A mural of Freddie Gray near the location where he was arrested is pictured in Baltimore, Maryland in 2016.
Win McNamee/Getty Images

How federal policy from the 1930s continues to harm Philadelphia and other cities

Jan 11, 2018
Real estate appraisers would negatively evaluate areas if people of color lived there.
A man walks into a heroin encampment in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
DOMINICK REUTER/AFP/Getty Images

Preserving America's movie going history

Sep 21, 2017
Photographer Amy Davis talks about her photo book on the fate of historic movie theaters.
Filmgoers queueing to see Fritz Lang's film 'Man Hunt' in 1941.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Can Chicago’s recent plague of violence be cured?

Sep 16, 2016
A look at the cities’ rise in violence as a symptom of economic inequality.
A young victim of Chicago's gun violence is laid to rest. 

Why segregation lingers in Chicago and the rest of America

Apr 14, 2016
Natalie Moore on her new book “The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation”
Tim Boyle (Getty Images)

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What makes a land of opportunity

Apr 16, 2015
Dayton, Ohio can teach us a lot about mobility and the American Dream.

Economic mobility in Chicago's projects

Aug 17, 2012
Marketplace's Sylvester Monroe visits his childhood home -- a demolished public housing project in Chicago -- to see who made it out and who's moving up the economic ladder.

Income segregation rising in rapidly changing cities

Aug 1, 2012
Immigration and the migration of retirees are key factors in the growing trend of urban economic segregation.