Only three metropolitan areas in the country–New York, Los Angeles and Washington–have more black-owned businesses than Chicago. Yet the city`s black business rate, meaning the number of black businesses per 1,000 blacks in the area, ranks a dismal 43d among the 48 largest U.S. metropolitan areas. The Census Bureau counts 13,660 black businesses in metropolitan Chicago, but it also counts 1.4 million blacks. That translates into a weak black business rate of 9.6. Two areas in Alabama–Birmingham (6.9) and Mobile
(8.0)–had the nation`s worst black business rates.
The reasons for Chicago`s relatively poor showing are threefold, says American Demographics magazine: First, the recession of the early 1980s hurt the nation`s industrialized North worst; second, the local economy is dominated by manufacturing; and finally, by and large, black consumers in and around Chicago depend on wage labor in heavy industry for their livelihood.
New York, which ranked 37th in black business rate, had only 10.4 black businesses per 1,000 blacks. Los Angeles and Washington, however, were virtual boom towns.
Los Angeles boasted 23,520 black business, about 25 for every 1,000 blacks. That ranked the city top in the country. The San Francisco/Oakland area, the Houston area and the District of Columbia and its Virginia and Maryland suburbs stood second, third and fourth, respectively. Washington is a predominantly black city. But absolute numbers can deceive. Though the San Francisco/Oakland area has less than one-third the black population of Chicago, it has 9,388 black-owned businesses, or 24 per 1,000 blacks.
In explaining the higher business rate, William O`Hare, director of policy studies at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, speculates that California blacks tend to be more highly educated, many of them upscale professionals who migrated to the West Coast. Another possibility, O`Hare says, is that California may be more willing than other states to lend to minority entrepreneurs.
LIGHTENING UP
The trend toward ”light” beer and other low-calorie alcoholic beverages is really a move toward stopping drinking, the Roper Organization says. The phenomenon is similar to the advent of low-tar cigarettes, which the polling group says presaged the national decline in the number of smokers.
MORNING SICKNESS
After examining 9,000 pregnancies, the National Institutes of Health reports that women who feel nauseous at least once while pregnant are 30 percent less likely to have miscarriages than those who never get sick. Mothers-to-be with morning sickness also are 17 percent less likely to have premature babies.
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