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Chicago’s most toxic zip codes, according to 1993 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency toxics-release-inventory data compiled by Citizens for a Better Environment: 60622, 60612, 60608, 60623, 60609, 60632, and 60638 (near-west and southwest sides heading down the Stevenson), and 60627, 60628, and 60633 (southeast side). In a class by itself is zip code 60617 on the far southeast side, with over 43 million pounds of toxic chemical releases or transfers, more than three times greater than the next worst zip code.
If they admit it, it must be true. In its 1996 “Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors,” the libertarian Cato Institute acknowledges that “Illinois is a low-tax-and-spend state–relative to personal income.” (That didn’t stop the doctrinaire free-marketeers from giving Jim Edgar a grade of D because “the state now spends roughly $700 more per family than in 1991.”)
