The Young Lords transformed from a street gang into a Puerto Rican community organization. As the prison experience reified gang membership on the streets as well as behind bars and the industrial world drifted into memory, the crack epidemic created unprecedented business opportunities for the gangs. This new, lucrative business had little to do with formal education. In the recent period, gentrification , economic development, and the destruction of housing projects have displaced gangs and transformed the nature of urban space. Rather than intergrating African Americans and other minorities into the broader society, the new economy has increased segregation .
Good jobs seem further away than ever, as educational requirements rise.
Within gentrifying areas, schools are pressured to be response to a middle class clientele, while in socially isolated areas, pressure comes from a community desperate for mobility. The other city, the black ghetto, is moving south and west. Hispanics are pushed once again from areas coveted by the middle class. Chicago gangs are deeply involved with the underground economy, though political stirrings make city hall nervous.