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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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Nope, it won’t. But crime, not taking care of infrastructure, and terrible public schools will kill cities. Exhibit A, see Chicago.
Have two job offers in the burbs, ten minutes from home. I won’t ever be going into chicago again. It is just too dangerous. I tolerated the pains and expense of commuting for years when downtown was relatively safe. Now, you have to get past a gauntlet of wilding youths, armed robbers, carjackings, broken glass and random murders to get from the parking garage or train station to the office. No more.
That’s the thing the author misses. It’s not just the “pandemic” that has people on edge. If people perceive, rightly or wrongly, that they’re not going to be safe from violence going into Chicago or any “Big City”, you won’t get them back. Not if they’re an employee, a visitor, or a current resident with the means to move.
The response to their arrogance about the “sterility” and “boredom” of the suburbs is to reply “At least I won’t get shot, stabbed, mugged, or carjacked where I live trying to go about my day.”
More whistling pass the grave yard. Everything is fine, don’t look! The store operators knew long ago the mag mile was toast. Having the store cleaned out saved them the trouble of a weekend close out inventory and trying to dump the stuff nobody wanted. Most consolidators wouldn’t touch the junk they wouldn’t steal.
You can’t kill what is already dead.
“experiences they offer”
Like runaway high crime and taxes? No thanks
This is more like the advent of “Air Conditioning” where people left the Midwest and NE for the South and SW.
Even a new era of working from home could benefit cities. While some downtown office towers may empty out, they could be remade into more livable spaces — mixed-use structures with apartments as well as shops, restaurants and offices. First, residents are far more expensive to maintain than workers. Suburban commuters and their families don’t have to be educated. And if downtown office towers are remade into more livable spaces, they’re going to poach city residents first and foremost. Maybe it’ll make downtown living more affordable, but expect vacancies and new construction in surrounding neighborhoods to decline in this new… Read more »
Stooooooooopid author of this article compares cities’ situation to the 1918 Spanish Flu. This is the wrong comparison. The correct comparison is the late 1960’s riots. Residents haven’t fled cities primarily because of the virus. They are leaving cities because of the leadership’s failed response to the pandemic resulting in arbitrary lock downs, constant protesting, rising crime and general uneasiness with the new racial reckoning. SF and NY are nearly unrecognizable as businesses have shuttered, homelessness and drug use is rampant and rents are dropping due to decreased demand. Urban planners can’t just flip on a switch and expect all… Read more »
Nobody knows the future. But evidence shows that if work at home is successful, which it is for many, then people commuting in and out of a city daily will decrease. This will mean a glut of available office space, fewer shoppers, eaters, etc. The human need to commune with people is the big argument he makes in the article, but for most people “communing” with your fellow workers isn’t a pressing desire or a desire at all. Our corporate overlords will have to bend now on physical presence, downsizing office leases will be the real indicator in the next… Read more »
I can commute 2x per week to fulfill my need to “commune with people” while improving my sanity by not having to deal with rush hour 3x per week.
If everyone increase their WFH by 1-2 days per week as a result of COVID – which is what I expect will happen – it will kill off a lot of downtown commercial revenue.