Wine, Beer, and Lotto: Black Community Mobilization Against Liquor Stores in Chicago

Abstract

Many studies find a higher density of liquor stores in urban communities with predominantly Black and/or low-income residents. Although these business establishments tend to fill commercial voids in these neighborhoods, residents complain that liquor stores often provoke serious problems. Scholars support these claims with findings showing evidence of strong correlations between liquor stores and crime, domestic abuse, and substance abuse. The present study focuses on determining whether liquor store density continues to be higher in Chicago’s low-income and Black communities. The results of spatial cluster analysis and geographically-weighted regression analysis run counter to expectations with liquor stores concentrated in wealthier areas and predominantly white communities. Further analysis show that low-income and Black communities mobilized to vote for local moratoriums on the establishments. These results (a) provide evidence of civic engagement and citizen-based political mobilization in low-income and Black communities as well as (b) reinforce the idea that “place matters” with the same institutions playing drastically different roles in different communities. The inequality of spaces perpetuates a system in which the same establishments trigger varying outcomes, thus reactions, according to neighborhood attributes.