Totaling the unsustainable tax increases and windfall revenue during Pritzker Administration – Wirepoints
May 26, 2026
23 Comments
With $162 billion more from taxpayers, couldn’t you deliver a few bond upgrades, too
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A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
Start at the top, and blame JB Pritzker. Work your way down from there.
The irony is that the ancestors of these folks moved from the Chicago neighborhoods to the suburbs in the 60’s and 70’s, and took an absolute bath on the property values, precisely because crime got so out of control in Chicago. Many suburbs exist in their present form only because of the flight from the city to the suburbs for the specific reason of avoiding crime. Violent crime exploded in Chicago the late 1960’s and 70’s and stayed elevated through the 80’s. Murders tripled in a decade as did most other violent crimes. There were many old timer holdouts in… Read more »
Interesting, my parents moved out in the late 60’s before my older brother started school. They’re not here to ask them why but my guess it was the crime. My mothers parents left as well. My fathers mother stayed but she had adult children in the area. None of my aunts/uncles with kids stayed in the city past 1970. Based on who’s moving into my neighborhood it looks like that migration is starting again.
One of my great aunts was the last of family to leave Chicago, late 60s/early 70s. Despite taking a huge loss could not sell since FHA, would not grant loan to any buyer unless massive improvements, costing more than current value of home. Not sure what she eventually did with home, had to live with daughter rest of life, since her major investment (home) was worthless.
My last relative to leave Chicago was technically two years ago, as a great aunt moved out of Lakeview for a blue city in a red state, selling at massive profit. But she’s well into her 70’s now and she moved to Lakeview around the time of gentrification. Her parents, my great-grand parents, stayed in their roughly Logan Sq. Avondale community as renters until the very end, but near the end, he was the only white man walking around an entirely hispanic neighborhood into the late 80’s. My grandmother left Chicago in the mid-60’s, as did all of her cousins… Read more »
In the deep recesses of twitter, right-wing anons have done the deep dives into the sociology and history books documenting the urban flight to the suburbs, which is now an all but verboten topic. One particular book is Left Behind in Rosedale which documents the human stories of the elderly people who chose to remain behind in neighborhoods as they rapidly, often in less than a decade, turned into crime and blight filled inner city slums. And really, BJ’s idea to build ‘migrant’ camps in the middle of middle class areas is not to different than the rapid neighborhood change… Read more »
Interesting info. They frame gentrification as bad, you are forced to sell your home for much more than you paid for it. I think the inverse is worse, the neighborhood goes bad and you sell for a big loss. For some people that’s their only savings. Our society doesn’t care about people that worked hard and accomplished something. They’re somehow considered privileged for making smart decisions and working hard.
Don’t get me started on Detroit. More people lost more money there on property values than the stock market crash of 1929.
Yup, my parents moved us out of a ring suburb of Chicago for DuPage County in 1971. Crime and the political upheavals (aka riots) in 1968 were definitely a factor in their leaving.
Why don’t you call your mayor, alderman, county prosecutor, state rep and state senator? You voted for all of them.
Are these the same citizens who demanded that the police be down funded?