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I hesitate to introduce this topic as I am becoming more and more convinced that the Chicago sub forum has become an incredibly toxic place where negativity is the rule (perhaps more so than any other sub forum on City-Data) and Chicago bashing is the blood sport of choice, but I'll still give it a stab…
These are hardly the best of times in Chicago, the city we love. The litany of ills….corrupt and inefficient government, poor schools, astounding murder rate, gangs, guns, rogue cops, a world class and third world city mixed into one, etc…….are real and debilitating.
But Chicago has been down before, many times, and it seems always to bounce back. Like the timex watch of yore that takes a licking, but keeps on ticking or the Energizer Bunny who keeps going and going and going, you can't keep Chicago down.
Truthfully, all cities have their ups and downs. I can remember times when NYC and SF were in serious trouble, but look at them today.
Question is: do you believe that Chicago has another "golden age" in front of it, that we can get past our present problems and build on the incredible strength that is hard wired into this very much world class and alpha city.
Our advantages far out way our negatives: we have so much going for us.
Obviously I've made my opinion clear here; no mystery on how I feel.
But how about the rest of you? Yes, times are tough and we've been on the wrong track and have taken a hit. But……...Do you see Chicago bouncing back? And, if so, what do you think would be the factors that would generate this comeback city?
I would respond to this thread honestly, but the entire thing is going to end up as bait for a few people and will no doubt be closed in a matter of a few days. It will be full of mainly negative remarks no matter what.
In another thread there was some mention of the success that NYC has seen under leaders like Bloomberg and Giuliani. Although neither was perfect, the reasons that they did get elected and the reasons that they were successful are important lessons for Chicago.
Giuliani gained public attention as a FEDERAL prosecutor that won big cases against organized crime AND Wall Street insiders like Michael Milken & Ivan Boesky. His term of office as mayor was similarly focused on rooting out the kinds of crime, large and small, that were making NYC unlivable. He was not a "hard core" Conservative, but somebody that got the support of gay voters, folks fed up with the insiders and wanting change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Giuliani
A similar set of voter "fusion" also helped Bloomberg win office and continue many of the same policies that improved quality of life for MOST New Yorkers, not just the elite NOR those that depend on hand-outs or insiders. The election laws and term limits have also contributed greatly toward getting a coalition type candidate -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michae...berg#Elections
The lesson is pretty clear: If Chicago continues to allow insiders to essentially put in 'their guy' the odds of continued decline are all but certain.
Despite some posters' beliefs, I do think that Chicago is a lovely city. The success of Daley's efforts to spruce up the center of the city and even given more identity to places like Boystown have mostly been a good thing. The shiny new residential high rises office towers are attractive to rubes that went to schools in the Midwest or grew up in beige towns and seem ideally suited to idiotic foreign investors that see Chicago as "NY on the cheap" and ignore the looming fiscal catastrophe caused by insiders diverting funds to their pals instead of addressing the real issues that Chicago faces.
Laws need to be changed. It is utterly incomprehensible that guys like Burke and Madigan get rich representing the owners of expensive commercial real estate and actively shift the property tax burden onto the individual home owners. These same politicians control massive war chests of campaign funds to have an army of supporters. That is almost certainly a more glaring reason for the financial ruin of Illinois / Chicago than even the much maligned unions.
The fools that are quick to defend Chicago's miserably school inequality despite evidence that it is not a function of low income, or champion the the hideous overbuilding of some of the most attractive parts of Chicago or even try to spin the obvious declines as some kind of statistical anomaly are perhaps the most destructive barrier to real reform. Their pig headed promotion of Chicago as some kind of wonderland for jetsetters will come to a crashing halt and they'll quietly sling away to wherever they choose while real Chicagoans are stuck with the a city in ruins.
If there are real reforms, ideally led by someone the knowledge and backing of a coalition of otherwise mismatched voters, things might improve. If not the insiders will continue to find ways to shift the blame and reap the benefits for their pals...
Last edited by chet everett; 12-12-2015 at 10:20 AM..
"The fools that are quite to defend Chicago or even try to spin the obvious declines as some kind of statistical anomaly are perhaps the most destructive barrier to real reform. Their pig headed promotion of Chicago as some kind of wonderland for jetsetters will come to a crashing halt and they'll quietly sling away to wherever they choose while real Chicagoans are stuck with the a city in ruins."
The fools that are quite to defend Chicago or even try to spin the obvious declines as some kind of statistical anomaly are perhaps the most destructive barrier to real reform. Their pig headed promotion of Chicago as some kind of wonderland for jetsetters will come to a crashing halt and they'll quietly sling away to wherever they choose while real Chicagoans are stuck with the a city in ruins.
I know this is an indirect stab at me, Chet, but I wish you could know that even I don't believe what you just said in here. I'm very glad you think you know everything about me and a few others on this forum by a few things we've said, but you would be in for a big surprise overall. "Wonderland for jetsetters" - while certainly not the worst in the country, Chicago is not even in the top 5 cities in the US that I would personally describe as that. It is, however, getting better but that's another point and still far behind the likes of NYC, Miami, etc in that regard alone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chet everett
The shiny new residential high rises office towers are attractive to rubes that went to schools in the Midwest or grew up in beige towns and seem ideally suited to idiotic foreign investors that see Chicago as "NY on the cheap" and ignore the looming fiscal catastrophe caused by insiders diverting funds to their pals instead of addressing the real issues that Chicago faces.
I don't agree with this. Personally, I've had a number of friends from NYC who aren't from the Midwest come to Chicago this summer to visit me. Most of them actually liked the glass boxes quite a bit. I also "hosted" a handful of people who traveled here from Paris and Milan a few months ago for a weekend who had the same reaction - though stronger than my friends from NYC. They were in love with downtown and loved how modern it looked. The ones from Milan told me numerous times how they wished Milan would get some more modern, glass high rises like they were seeing in Chicago.
A few years ago, a poster from Amsterdam posted on here that she had a big group of people from Amsterdam traveling to Chicago who needed someone to show them around for a few days. I met up with her and her group, made friends with many and am still friends with many of those people. They had the same reaction when I took them around downtown - they liked other parts of Chicago more, like Pilsen, but that was because of the character of the areas and the people in them. Funny enough, when I took them around North Center one of the guys remarked "why the hell does everything look the same in this neighborhood?" All of them were photographers and came to Chicago as part of a big photography project. A lot of them differed in what their subjects were - some had to do with transportation, some had to do with live music, but they were constantly still taking pictures of all the modern glass high rises no matter if their project's topic was about it or not.
As a resident of downtown, I am outside walking around quite a bit. In the summer when tourism is at its peak, you can see tons of people taking pictures of the modern glass boxes and trust me, there's many non midwesterners taking pictures constantly.
Last edited by marothisu; 12-12-2015 at 10:21 AM..
I personally think that the "good" parts of Chicago are doing fine and they have already comeback and are getting better every year. It's the "bad" and "ignored" parts of the city that need a comeback and more focus. All the new construction and buildings downtown and other parts of the city are nice, but I would rather see that investment go into the parts of the city where there has been crime and high violence for decades. Maybe use that money for additional investment/manpower in strategy to reduce crime.
As the OP put it "a world class and third world city mixed into one." The troubles of the "third world" part have seeped into the city, and everything from high weekly killing rates, a reputation for violence, and police brutality have become an identity that is part of Chicago, which is why you hear a lot of negative spin.
So an increased focus on the often ignored, violent areas I think would do a lot to help the city as a whole. I think now is a good opportunity to do that, given the strong national spotlight on the city for some of these ills. I think citizens and higher ups all are ready to address some of these issues, so I think that through voting/ political pressure, these can be fixed. Many other cities have done it before. Fixing the financial health of the city would help a lot for the city too (although the financial health of the state also needs to be fixed).
It's a great city and definitely has all of the necessary resources for huge success.
I personally think that the "good" parts of Chicago are doing fine and they have already comeback and are getting better every year. It's the "bad" and "ignored" parts of the city that need a comeback and more focus. All the new construction and buildings downtown and other parts of the city are nice, but I would rather see that investment go into the parts of the city where there has been crime and high violence for decades. Maybe use that money for additional investment/manpower in strategy to reduce crime.
100% agreed with you on this. I alluded to this in another thread but apparently the construction permit process is actually hurting a few of these parts too. I guess there are some nice projects which are in the middle of the process and have been for months on end with no end in sight that could pump some investment back into them. According to one developer I know, Chicago could be seeing over 2X the amount of construction it is currently if not for this crappy process.
And then you have other things - Chicago is finally getting a Blues museum. Instead of putting it in an area like Bronzeville, they're going to put it at Navy Pier which IMO is ridiculous (though I can understand the developers' attraction to the site from a tourism perspective). In the press release for this a week or two ago, they essentially stated that it's going there because the South Side has too many vacant properties for them to do it. I know for a fact that some of the donors fought very hard to get this thing on the south side but ultimately lost that battle. It's a cop out so that's another problem. Some areas on the south side have been getting investment though. Bronzeville in some parts is one of them where they've actually had a fair amount of new construction go up there since the beginning of 2014. There is still a number of vacant lots there, but at the same time there's been a number that have been gobbled up. There's also been some new restaurants and shops to open there in the same time period.
I am pretty impressed by all the investment and redevelopment going on, considering the financial situation of state and local governments. I take it as a good sign that the market is not spooked by the government's financial situation.
I am pretty impressed by all the investment and redevelopment going on, considering the financial situation of state and local governments. I take it as a good sign that the market is not spooked by the government's financial situation.
Chicago is arguably a Top 3 U.S. city (at absolute worst Top 5 or so) but is more Top 15 in terms of residential construction activity, trailing much smaller metros like Nashville and Charlotte and Tampa. NYC and LA have vastly greater construction activity, multiples greater. Just 10 years ago, Chicago had somewhat comparable construction activity as NYC and LA. So there has been a relative decline, even in terms of redevelopment.
So it isn't necessarily a contradiction to have a healthy core and a troubled region. What city doesn't have downtown redevelopment? And even the core isn't really booming compared to other top American cities.
But, Chicago is so big, and the core so strong, and the city so dominant regionally, that Chicagoland can weather some weakness. Chicago will still be a top U.S. city, even if there is a relatively stagnant local economy and population. It would take a long and severe downturn to really threaten the region.
I hesitate to introduce this topic as I am becoming more and more convinced that the Chicago sub forum has become an incredibly toxic place where negativity is the rule (perhaps more so than any other sub forum on City-Data) and Chicago bashing is the blood sport of choice, but I'll still give it a stab…
These are hardly the best of times in Chicago, the city we love. The litany of ills….corrupt and inefficient government, poor schools, astounding murder rate, gangs, guns, rogue cops, a world class and third world city mixed into one, etc…….are real and debilitating.
But Chicago has been down before, many times, and it seems always to bounce back. Like the timex watch of yore that takes a licking, but keeps on ticking or the Energizer Bunny who keeps going and going and going, you can't keep Chicago down.
Truthfully, all cities have their ups and downs. I can remember times when NYC and SF were in serious trouble, but look at them today.
Question is: do you believe that Chicago has another "golden age" in front of it, that we can get past our present problems and build on the incredible strength that is hard wired into this very much world class and alpha city.
Our advantages far out way our negatives: we have so much going for us.
Obviously I've made my opinion clear here; no mystery on how I feel.
But how about the rest of you? Yes, times are tough and we've been on the wrong track and have taken a hit. But……...Do you see Chicago bouncing back? And, if so, what do you think would, be the factors that would generate this comeback city?
The litany of Chicago's woes you cite have been issues for at least 50+ years so I'm not sure exactly when Chicago has had many ups and downs considering the population is at a 1910 threshold. In other words, Chicago as a city has been on the down since the 1950s, population wise. Other than a blip ''up'' in the 1990s, the population gain then evaporated in the 2000s and then some. The middle class remains outbound, in Chicago and in shear numbers nationally.
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