Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer
April 22, 2026
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Summary and audio linked here.
-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
To stop what Planning and Development Commissioner Maurice Cox calls “the bleeding of Black and Brown families” leaving Chicago, the plan calls for “in-fill development” on 5,600 city-owned vacant lots in Invest South/West communities. “How do we grow equitably? How do we do it inclusively without displacement? You do it very incrementally,” Cox said.
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Audio and summary Illinois bill would override local law to allow homeless living in all public parks – Wirepoints
April 14, 2026
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If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer: Chicago Fiscal Crisis Worse Than Pre-Bankruptcy Detroit, HIV Surge and Public Health Threat From Open Borders Goes Unreported
April 10, 2026
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Summary and audio linked here.
Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer: Chicago pension buyout plan mostly shifts debt rather than eliminating it, property tax surge doubles inflation over three decades
April 3, 2026
9 Comments
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
They want to sell houses at these mortgage rates? In neighborhoods that are not safe? With schools that suck? And they expect someone to open “corner stores” there too? Good luck. Those corner stores are gonna need a good supply of bullet proof glass, security cameras and armed owners. But its nice that these lefties finally admit that 1950’s bungalow neighborhood life was actually pretty good, because thats exactly what they’re describing. 1950’s An Era the lefties usually bash as racist, sexist, etc.
Yes, a bunch of those lots were victims of the 1968 riots. And another interesting twist on all those empty lots is the number of registered voters still on the rolls at addresses that have no structures on them. In the 1980’s and into the 90’s the Republicans spent some money cleaning up the voter registration rolls in Chicago and East St. Louis. Even Phil Rock, the Democrat President of the Senate, supported that effort. But no one has touched them in the last 20 years, so you can imagine what a shambles the rolls are now.
There was an effort to clean up voter rolls. Off duty officers reported empty lots to investigators who checked voter rolls and found thousands of registered voters in those empty lots. The powers to be in the city administration launched an investigation to find those officers and fire them. I don’t know if they were successful but it was a big deal among the CPD crowd. What happened? No voters were removed, city and county officials refused to accept the evidence.
article doesn’t state this is another program for affordable housing(low income housing)? So, with this program, is city now subsidizing loans based on racial preferences for S&W sides for middle to upper-middle income black & brown folks? What could go wrong!!!
I realize cc’s not the same as chicago, but meanwhile pappas just announced 45,000 cc properties going on scavenger sale & cc leads nation in foreclosure rate!!!
CHI-EXIT/IL-EXIT UPDATE: PEOPLE UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT: City Trying To Get Former Chicago Residents To Move Back To The Crime Infested Neighborhoods They Fled
Why arent the Italians, Poles, Czechs, Greeks, Irish, Germans, Dutch, Swedes, Latvians, Romanians, Albanians, Turks, Syrians, etc being asked to come home?
No one in those neighborhood is doing anything to build up their own community. It would take five neighborhood guys to say, hey, let’s start a construction company, banks will bend over backwards to give them loans, they’d get tax credits, and preferrential government contracts, and locals would buy their homes. I know guys in other communities, primarily middle eastern, that pool their money together to develop homes in their immediate community and resell the homes to local community members. They make a lot of money although with the new market things are a little slow. The average developer I… Read more »
I don’t understand how this program will work. It seems that the first analytic strain to examine why so many people left. High crime, poor schools, high taxes and a poor business environment come to mind. If those exist, subsidies for housing or small shopping areas will not be effective.
And the real problem for a developer is how do you make any money doing that. Do you want to take the risk that someone with money will actually want to move into those neighborhoods? If a buyer has some financial wherewithal, why would you?
Because of the example they’ll set.
Any intelligent person will ask “Why are there so many vacant lots?” Unless you have been in a coma for the last ten years, you will know the answer already.
Ten? Try 50
I saw an article once that linked today’s blight directly to the 1968 riots. The rioters burned their own community down. The half burned out/abandoned buildings became blighted drug dens and crime havens, so the city had a policy to tear them down. The resulting vacant lots are still vacant today. The article went block by block showing buildings in the community pre-riot and then showed the vacant lots today. And no one in the community in 50 years has bothered to hustle or entrepreneur themselves into a developer. Banks will bend over backward to lend in these communities so… Read more »
Yep, Detroit has thousands of vacant lots too. There are some blocks with only two or three houses still standing.
Just look at Detroit so many empty homes and lots.