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Summary and audio linked here.
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.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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Folks, take it from an ex-Detroiter. You ain’t seen nothing yet. Think abandoned house for a dollar.
Yep, the bitter fruit of progressive governance.
This already exists in some south side neighborhoods. Englewood had a population of around 100,000 in 1960 but has fewer than 25,000 today. It’s a question of how many neighborhoods will turn into Englewoods. The hispanic population is the only demographic keeping the city alive, and as residents flee the city again, hispanics may end up getting good deals on homes in Lincoln Park just like the Puerto Ricans did in the mid-20th century when LP was one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.
Well on the bright side San Francisco now has a few more empty hotels
Even the bulidings are getting depressed in Frisco, lol… San Francisco’s own Tower of Pisa: Millennium Tower San Francisco’s highest and most luxurious residential skyscraper is sinking https://www.webuildvalue.com/en/infrastructure/millennium-tower-san-francisco.html San Francisco’s tallest and most expensive residential tower is sinking – and bending — just like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and at a fairly alarming rate. In 2021 the building tilted 7 centimetres (2.7 inches) in both the north and west directions. An unhappy fate for what was supposed to be the flagship of San Francisco’s financial district when it was opened in 2009. The two buildings were designed by Handel… Read more »
This article is typical Crain’s real estate cheerleading fluffing and only reports one-half the real estate story. a. It’s not just the perception of crime, crime is all over the city. There were two muggings in broad daylight in Lincoln Park yesterday. Go grocery shopping, get violently mugged walking back to your car. The 16th & 17th District Chicago Police Scanner twitter @CPD1617Scanner details violent crime and serious property all over the city. I used to live on the far northwest side, in what seems like eons ago, and there’s regularly gang bangers shooting at each other in the streets,… Read more »
I respectfully disagree. I thought the column was very clear that crime, city-wide, is the main culprit. I think the Crain’s real estate section is particularly good and they do their best to keep partisan politics out of it. My only complaint on this article is that it uses realtors’ average prices, which I don’t think is a good index. Averages get artificially distort by whether the top end or low end is churning at a particular point.
I think the article tries to walk a very fine line trying to blame crime without actual blaming crime. The author quotes some relitter/used home saleswoman opining that people form their own narratives about crime and now the narrartive is that crime everywhere. The author doesn’t bother to cite any actual crime statistics to prove or disprove the narrative, and instead, tries to blame a broader national market, citing Redfin’s Market Insights showing that five other cherry-picked cities have a similar situation of the suburbs holding steady while the city tanks. The author says that the crime narrative is seemingly… Read more »