“I don’t see a slowdown in demand,” one realtor said looking toward the winter. “I do believe we’re starting to see a strong winter season.”

The city must pass legislation to approve tax incentives, which are championed as a vital tool for economic development. But the tax breaks themselves ultimately are awarded by the Cook County Board of Commissioners. The Board allows individual municipalities to create their own mechanism to revoke the incentives.

The pharmacy chain said 70 of its 118 city locations sustained damage in recent weeks amid unrest connected to national anger over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Walgreens competitor CVS reported that all 31 of its Chicago sites that sustained damage during the looting have been repaired and reopened.

“Those restaurant workers are not the ones with the big bank accounts. They’re not able to say, ‘oh, we can weather the storm for six months or so,’” restaurateur Rick Bayless said. “These are people that mostly work paycheck to paycheck.”

In Chicago, just over half of parents surveyed reported serious challenges looking after their children. Melissa Hernandez’s oldest son, 16-year-old Jimmy Angel Melendez, reached out to his school counselor recently because he said he couldn’t take it anymore: “It’s really not motivating and, to be honest, is kind of depressing.”

He would bring to Cook County experience running hospitals in the largest public health system in the U.S., in a city rocked by COVID-19. The NYC public health system has 11 hospitals, compared to Cook County’s two medical centers, as well as a group of community health centers, long-term care facilities and a health insurance plan.

In recognition of the impact of racism, Dr. Horton said, Evanston schools would give students from marginalized groups first priority for seats for in-person learning and all other students would be taught remotely. Dr. Horton said he wouldn’t hire a teacher who didn’t support the district’s antiracist agenda and said he doesn’t believe teachers should be licensed by the state if they aren’t trained in antiracism. “If you’re not antiracist, we can’t have you in front of our students,” he said.

Chicago’s neighbor to the north, Wisconsin, already was placed back on the quarantine list two weeks ago, the second time that state was a problem area for Chicago’s quarantine order.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot cast a dark vision of the city budget plan she will present to aldermen later this month, saying it might be the toughest vote City Council members will ever have to take because of its potential to disrupt workers’ lives if she resorts to wide-scale layoffs or other labor cuts.

Chicago ranked as the weakest for the third consecutive year in a rating of the housing market in 25 major cities around the world.
Of the 25 cities covered by this year’s which attempts to determine where housing markets are overinflated and risk a downturn, Chicago is the only city whose homes UBS rates as undervalued.

The bulk of the grants — $5.3 million — will come from the city’s 2020 budget, which added $9.3 million to the Chicago Department of Public Health’s budget for mental health services to expand care at 15 federally funded clinics and five city-run clinics. The remaining $2.7 million will come from federal funds designed to help the city cover the cost of responding to the coronavirus pandemic.

“I feel like I’m not truly learning,” said Barrington High School senior Ingrid Riepe. “I’m just sitting in front of screen all day.” Added her father, “Kids have been back in colleges for several months now. I don’t see the hospitals filling up. I don’t see the morgues filling up, so let’s look at the situation.”

The restaurant industry is the largest private sector employer in the state of Illinois, employing more than 594,000 people before the pandemic. “I’ve personally guaranteed every single thing, me and my husband. I have three kids. This is our future, this is our present,” said Beverly Kim, whose Michelin-starred dining room hasn’t seated a customer in nearly seven months. “We are very proud people and we don’t like to ask for help. And we’re asking for help.”

An attorney specializing in zoning, Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson noted that industrial uses are “the hottest market in Chicago” right now. “To create a special use will only delay the process, create uncertainty and thus, deter developers and industrial users from coming in.”