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Revitalizing State Street should include improving streetscapes, adding more art and light displays, creating new programs tied to major city events and periodically closing the street to vehicle traffic, according to new recommendations from a city-commissioned panel.
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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Read the entire article hoping that I’d eventually get to something that didn’t seem to be pollyannish, “Ooo, Ooo – I know! What if…..?” wishful thinking.
Much is talked about, and none of it’s going to happen.
This isn’t a horrible plan, but it definitely sounds like they’ve given up on commercial in the north and south district. With retail struggling on Michigan Ave and being looted on Rush, this is probably the right path.
But it has to make money somehow. A bunch of non-profits doing interpretive dance routines and Columbia College students mulling about won’t make the corridor any more financially viable.
Guv Pigchop hates Illinois and doesn’t care about your opinion. He wears a man girdle to keep his massive gut under control!
Really, the same post over and over?
Chicago Office Occupancy Drops Again For Third Week In A Row — Occupancy As Low As 27 Pct On Most Weekdays, Lower Than Nearly Every Other Major City – Kastle Systems
Guv Pigchop doesn’t care about occupancy rates. He wears a man girdle to keep his massive gut under control!
Close State Street to people who have cars and want to spend money while we load LaSalle Street up with affordable housing units occupied by people who can’t afford to pay for restaurants or retail downtown. That’s a great vision– destroy two of the once great thoroughfares in the nation. Is there anyone in the Mayor’s office who ever took an urban planning class? And where are the business groups in Chicago who know what this will do? All asleep at the switch once again.
Holy tone-deaf!
This is like watching the movie Groundhog Day. How many times have the nimrods running Chicago tried to make State Street great again? It can’t be done in a pro crime world where people can work from home. Nobody is coming back to the jungle formerly known as the Loop. No chance.
Under Illinois Democrat policies, shoplifting has been decriminalized. And even if a shoplifter is arrested for stealing $10,000 of merchandise, the new Illinois Democrat SAFE T Act prevents any shoplifter from going to jail. Brick and mortar retail is over in this state.
Guv Pigchop hates Illinois and doesn’t care about Chicago. He wears a man girdle to keep his massive gut under control!
City Hall’s Moronic Plan To Fix State Street Retail Exodus? Closing The Street To Cars — Which Spectacularly Failed When That Was The Idea Behind The Former State Street Mall
I was just going to say the same thing! LOL, progressive, in every way, is actually regressive!
Virtually every pedestrian mall has been abandoned by cities that installed them to revive downtown.
Why would people pay to park downtown, when they can go to the same stores in their suburbs and park for free — or these days just shop online.
The State Street Mall’s slutty little sister — the Lake Street Mall in Oak Park — was a failure as well.
LOL, slutty little sister. I haven’t set foot in Oak Park in over 20 years, only driven through it once or twice on my way to other places…refuse to spend even a dime there, same goes for Evanston too.
Right, when brick and mortar retail was much stronger in the 80s, State Street still struggled. Back then, the Loop was much more centralized than today, so even with the pedestrian-friendly space, it still didn’t generate the business it should have.