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30 No. LaSalle Street. "The complaint highlights the historic wave of financial pain for properties along the vacancy-ridden thoroughfare, where the rise of remote work and weakened office demand devastated landlords that were grappling with an exodus of big banking tenants before the pandemic."
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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Skyscrapers are obsolete, there is no longer a need for people who do their work on computers to be next to each other. In fact they don’t even have to be in the same country. If the state of Illinois and Chicago are all upset about people WFH. Then they need to lead the way by absolutely requiring all government employees to physically report to the office for no less than 40 hours a week. C’mon Illinois and Chicago, lead the way, demand right now that all gov employees and contractors report to the office or be fired. Start auditing… Read more »
Interesting that you point out Chicago should set an example. I think the City of Chicago was one of the big tenants that moved out of this building.
Non paywall article.
https://localtoday.news/il/the-owner-of-30-n-lasalle-street-has-been-hit-with-a-foreclosure-lawsuit-109926.html
Why cry over this? This is what the voters of Chicago want. I’m not wasting my breath or time contemplating ‘what could have been’ in Chicago.
Cry over it because Chicago and a number of other major cities are dying before our eyes. That’s not inconsistent with the feeling you expressed, which is that the majority of Chicagoans are getting what they deserve.
Mark, some of us want the ultra-liberal big cities to die. For us it’s justice.
It is only going to get worse. The State of Illinois is in a sorry state. They have encouraged businesses to leave not come. This is like a cancer, only getting worse till you die. Like it or not this is going to be considered “good times” after another 5 years of government mismanagement. “Look out below”.
West Detroit has arrived courtesy of the Democratic Party. RIP.
Tie this story to the article a few items lower down in Wirepoints today regarding millennials leaving the City and and it is obvious Downtown is on the verge of collapse. Any of the traditional LaSalle Street operators will tell you one of the unique things about the Street was the irreplaceable culture of finance, law, trading and accounting that dominated the entire Midwest for a century or more. With young professionals leaving, and taking their incomes, abandoning offices and selling their condos– this is a catastrophic failure of Democrat government. And it isn’t all that complicated– crime, taxes crummy… Read more »
For many decades there was a migration pattern of midwestern high school students to Big Ten college campuses; and then from campus to Chicago. The entire lakeshore neighborhoods were basically extended college campus life. I work in the professional sphere and more often than not, my coworkers and peers are not native to Chicago. For an obvious example, even Ken Griffin and his ex-wife aren’t from Chicago. But now, that yearly pipeline of tens of thousands of grads is drying up. They aren’t coming here any more. There’s not enough people to fill the office towers. Downtown is dying even… Read more »
Spot on Debtsor,
When I was in college at Michigan State in the 70’s everybody hoped to get hired by the Big Three automakers and stay in Detroit.
The next best thing was to get hired by a Chicago based employer.
You and debtor below are dead right. That culture that we had here was special and difficult to replicate — an intangible asset of enormous value. The out-migration that will result will take a number of years to unfold, but it will be devastating.
The other issue here that goes under the radar is that Chicago’s most prevalent professional industries of accounting, law, finance, consulting are having recruiting problems. College kids aren’t graduating with these majors anymore. There are fewer lawyers and the smartest finance students want to work for big tech instead of big finance. For example, accounting is struggling hard to recruit: SNIP The American Institute of CPAs’ 2019 AICPA Trends Report, which is issued approximately every two years, says the decline occurred across the last two reports, going from nearly 45,000 in 2014 to 30,093 in 2018, with a 19 percent… Read more »
The legal profession has been declining and it attracts fewer and fewer quality candidates every year…Law School Applications Are Way Down And It’s Bad News For The Profession August 2, 2022 So law school applications being down overall may not be a big deal. But where those applications are down may be a big problem for the industry long-term. For one, the next crop of lawyers may not be as near the top of the academic crop as usual. Schools are seeing 14.2 percent fewer applicants scoring 170-180 and 13.8 percent fewer clocking in at 160-169. These dips are more… Read more »
Is the decline in law school applications partly due to many U.S. high school graduates graduating at proficiency levels less than twelfth grade? Going to law school was intimidating and unapproachable to many high school graduates even before proficiency levels started dropping. Proficiency levels of high school graduates have dropped, but the levels of work ethic and intelligence needed to become a lawyer have not.
I think the decline is directly related to the 1. high cost of attendance. 2. the relatively low pay outside of big law firms (which demand your soul); 3. there’s cooler fields for smart people to go into like tech or science. The more indirect reasons are the generally decline in the number of students attending college, almost exclusively as a result of fewer men, specifically white men, declining to pay hundreds of $$$$ to universities that hate their guts. I saw today that nationally colleges are 57% women and 43% men. Colleges today graduating a bunch of purple haired… Read more »
Ugh, I was unaware of the LSAT exam no longer being a requirement. I guess that means the LSAT is systemically racist. The dumbing down of America continues.
Debtsor, for as much as you comment here you do a great job adding facts to the discussion and avoid saying the same things. We appreciate it.
When he is not complaining about make believe voter fraud. You have yet to make a comment about that Mark. Election deniers unite.
You’re right, what’s going on in Maricopa County is totally legit.
Your welcome. Thanks for hosting the site. I hope that your site, and the lively comments section, someday leads to effective change in the state. The enlightenment was started by the brightest minds discussing new ideas late into the night at the coffee shops. Today we can have conversations on the internet. Hopefully someone influential reads your posts, and our comments, ultimately resulting in change. It’s well known that many of Tucker’s topics are sourced mostly from rightwing anon twitter. Ron Desantis reads and has posted a comment or two on Citizen Free Press. Maybe, hopefully, somebody influential here will… Read more »
The out-migration is needed. Until enough leave, change will not happen. Only when the city/state infrastructure completely falls apart (due to lack of taxpayers) will the remaining voters finally say, “Hey, maybe we should try something different.” Of course, by that point, almost everyone remaining will regret having stayed. Just a total guess, but I figure rock bottom comes in 10-20 years when another 10-20 percent of the tax dollars leave.
Has Detroit or Michigan changed? The wicked witch Gretchen wouldn’t let people buys garden seeds during coronavirus for goodness sakes, and yet, she got reelected another four years. Rarely does something get better after it becomes worse. Chicago and NY in the 00’s after decades of blight are the rare exception. It’s not clear either city will survive this newest challenge. Think Baltimore or Milwaukee. Heck Milwaukee just broke its murder rate for the third straight year. And this is after decades of decline…. Milwaukee sees record homicides, 3rd year in a row MILWAUKEE – For the third year in… Read more »
RIP LaSalle Street — Lightfoot — or whatever Marxist moron becomes mayor — will soon make it into the new Cabrini Green — and — in so doing — drive a stake through what was once the financial heart of Chicago
Because I officed there in part of the 1990s, this hurts somehow, personally.
Chicago has been losing its Financial Sector for years. New York couldn’t beat Chicago “local” traders so it did what Wall Street does best and bought them. With the CME in hand as a public company, the demise of Chicago’s Financial power was inevitable. No wonder Citadel left and I’m only guessing, but one would have to think the CME will be close behind. The south loop/ financial district will continue to decline. Just glance at South State St. it’s approaching a ghetto.
And so it begins….