The Sun-Times and Tribune editorial boards covered plenty of ground in the questionnaires they put to mayoral candidates—but there was a key omission. They inquired about pensions, TIFs, taxes, crime, and economic development. And they raised other, more specific issues: Should Chicago have a casino? An elected school board? Traffic cameras? A smaller city council? A legislative inspector general? A Lucas museum on the lakefront?

See our related story: “Mayoral candidates speak up about Chicago’s segregation”

The two dailies aren’t alone in ignoring racial segregation as an issue in this mayoral campaign. “That hasn’t been on any of the questionnaires, and I’ve filled out about 20 of them,” said William “Dock” Walls, one of the five mayoral candidates.

Given the magnitude of the problem, small wonder that we look the other way.

Latinos are clustered in community areas on the northwest and southwest sides, the census estimates show, but these neighborhoods aren’t nearly as segregated as the city’s African-American neighborhoods. Latinos are a buffer group, often living with whites or African-Americans, and the poverty rates in their neighborhoods are significantly lower than in predominately African-American ones.

On the other hand, ten community areas have poverty rates of 40 percent and higher. They’re all on the south and west sides; they range from 92 to 99 percent black.

Hannah-Jones, a ProPublica reporter who’s written extensively about racial segregation, says mayors “could do some fairly simple things and see change”—starting with cracking down on landlords and real estate agents who discriminate against minorities seeking to move into white neighborhoods.”We know that housing discrimination is still rampant and plays a big role in ongoing segregation,” she says. “Yet most cities never test for it, do not fund the organizations that do, and spend almost no time or money on enforcing the law—because it’s not popular politically” or with builders, landlords, and bankers, she says. “Currently, landlords in most cities have nothing to fear.”