Chicago News Coop: Black Chicagoans Fuel Growth of South Suburbs

And here's the why:

But many left despite having good jobs in the city. Although the census data does not indicate where those who left Chicago ended up, the new population figures show that Matteson recorded the largest numerical increase in blacks of any city in the Chicago area.

Statistics obtained by the Chicago News Cooperative reveal rising income levels in parts of Matteson and other south suburbs where the black population grew rapidly in the last decade, suggesting that high wage earners factored prominently in the movement from the city to the southern periphery of Cook County.

The trend of blacks’ leaving Chicago in the past decade apparently included all economic levels, said Alec Brownlow, a geography professor at DePaul University. Spiking foreclosure rates in South Side and West Side neighborhoods increased the already high number of vacant and abandoned homes, making those areas less popular with middle-income blacks, Mr. Brownlow said.

“I would imagine that the wave of out-migrants displaced by the teardown of public housing units is supplementing the middle classes moved by the foreclosure crisis,” he said.

Then there's also this:

But whatever their income level, the newcomers say they feel more at ease after leaving the city. James Turner, an engineer at the University of Chicago, said he and his wife moved to Newbury Estates in 2005 because “there is too much chaos” in Englewood, where they used to live. Mr. Turner, 58, recalled his old neighborhood as he worked in the front yard of his 3,000-square-foot home.

“You can’t trust the city,” Mr. Turner said. “You can’t trust it to have peace unless you are somewhere on the North Side, next to the lake. Maybe Rahm Emanuel can do something and put the police where they should be.”

Foreclosures and concerns over safety to name a couple I've been able to excerpt. What if some of the ills they hoped to escape came out to Matteson with these individuals?

Also mentioned in this article CHA transplants from the many now demolished and revitalized housing projects around the city.