I recently noted a Brookings Institution report about how zoning contributes to differences in academic achievement. Looking further at this data, Chicago shows that Chicago doesn’t do well among metro areas:

* In Chicago, the “housing cost gap” is large: costs (a combination of renting and buying) are over twice as high in neighborhoods near high-scoring elementary schools than in low ones. In context, the metro area has the 32nd biggest gap out of the 100 largest metros.

* The area does worse on the “test score gap”: 24th in the country, with a 26-point gap between middle/high-income schools and low-income schools.

* The authors pinpointed zoning as a driver of these inequalities, because of the relationship between restrictive zoning, low density, and high prices, but on that the area does best, the 70th most restrictive out of 100.

* On economic segregation? As a measure of how many low-income students would have to move to achieve equal distribution (a measurement similar to how racial diversity is measured), Chicago is second-worst in the country, behind Bridgeport, Connecticut, 61 to 58 percent.

Whet Moser argues that this economic segregation doesn’t bode well in a city that is also known for racial segregation. Of course, racial and economic inequality is linked so perhaps this shouldn’t be too surprising.

To solve this issue, you would need to find some way for students of different backgrounds to mix in schools. Of course, this has a long history in the United States. The Coleman Report suggested this back in the 1960s. In response, the government promoted busing but this proved unpopular. Today, Chicago claims to deal with this by allowing kids to attend other schools throughout the city but of course there are not enough spots in these high-performing schools and the poor performing schools still need help.