Crudely, we can think of Chicago as five constituencies: North Side progressives, Loop business folks, Hispanics, Blacks, South Side St Patrick's Day Parade attendees

Johnson won because he was progressive and black and turnout was suppressed for his opponent. Both Vallas and Johnson has support that was broad, but quite shallow, coming out of a deep field, competitive field.

A candidate who can beat Johnson pretty easily would be 1) a black politician who appealed to the business community and who wasn't hated by progressives. 2) A hispanic politician who wasn't hated by the business community and appealed to progressives. The first candidate would split the black vote. The second candidate would get massive support from latinos. Both would turn out the anti-Johnson vote in the Loop and Jefferson Park.

Johnson would be easy to beat if the primary against him isn't too deep again. If there's rapid consolidation around any anti-Jonhson candidate, I think he's toast. If there's six black and six Latino candidates running, he'll still win the primary.

:haha:


.....and I just spit out my coffee


But seriously, that's actually a really good way to sum up that constituency

LOL


No.

Yes, please.

https://blockclubchicago.org/2024/05...ew-resolution/

CTA Boss Dorval Carter Should Resign Or Be Fired, Fed-Up Alderpeople Push In New Resolution
Ten alderpeople — including more than a third of the City Council’s transportation committee — are calling for Carter to be replaced.

What are the counter arguments? How will Chicago dig its way out if $0.40 of every dollar goes to debt servicing? Is it even possible to gradually pay down this debt so that every year, this amount reduces by one penny?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chicago...hare_permalink

There are so many things wrong in this op-ed that I wouldn't put much stock in it.

The population isn't shrinking as shown by the Census adjustments. The population is considerably wealthier than it was in the past (1 in 22 Chicagoans is a millionaire, a higher rate than NYC).

No mention of expiring TIFs and the impact on future budgets. This is an article meant to get the exact reactions provided by you and the people in the comments.

Clearly not an unbiased observer. There are certainly long-term budget issues and a need to focus on long-term debt, but this op-ed is WAY over-the-top. As for counter-arguments, each of the 3 major credit agencies has upgraded Chicago debt rating since 2022.

^ Thanks. I was aware of the biases and false assumptions he made about wealth and population growth. But it is hard to deny the current fiscal headwinds when combined with the city, county, state level. It's important we keep talking about it and not just hope everything will work out. Good point about the expiring TIFs as an obvious source of future revenues. I love the city and desperately want to see it succeed, but I also want to be realistic about what is sustainable for the future. And I want to see Chicago thrive and not merely survive.

^^ ^

First clue is that this is in the opinion section of the wsj.

WSJ is world-class reporting combined with an opinion section that is fully part of the modern right wing media ecosystem's potent and toxic brew of Earth II political operatives and disinformation. You might as well go watch Newsmax instead.

Note that this is not to dismiss very legitimate concerns about Chicago's finances. Just don't go looking to be informed by anything puked out of the wsj's opinion pages.

Yep. When Pritzker publicly says (in so many words) it's time to go.....bye.

Trip report!

The past two weeks I have gone into the office twice in the Loop. Both times and the second time was today, the Loop was looking fantastic - vibrant, clean and just pleasant to walk around.

Before anyone chastises saying I'm part of the problem being remote for work, I'm temporarily in Boston and to do that I had to be reclassified as remote from hybrid. I come back to Chicago to check on my place and umm it's where I live now for a few weeks at a time once every couple of months. And on a side note, I actually enjoy going into the office maybe once or twice a week.

Both times after work I wondered around for a couple of hours checking things out.

Last week I took the Redline back to Lakeview and it had the pre covid message of an overcrowded train and there is an immediate follower if you couldn't fit on. today I took the Brown line which was crowded too.

All in all I was very impressed at the vibrancy, cleanliness, and overall pleasant experience. Lakeview is looking great too.

hi yes, im in the loop 3 days out of the week and recently my bus commute from lakeshore east to west loop in the pm has begun to encounter pre covid gridlock.

I live in the Loop and can confirm. . . business as usual. . .

. . .

Reposting this from the highrise thread:

Update to my post above.

Back in Boston now. Got back yesterday afternoon - Friday. I purposely from the airport to downtown Boston and walked around. After the Loop and downtown area Boston felt a little sleepy in comparison. Maybe that is because I was in the Loop/Downtown area on a Wednesday, which is busier with Hybrid workers, than a Friday? I then took an Uber to the Brighton neighborhood - it just looked tired and a bit dirty but expensive as hell as is everything in Boston. Is it fair to compare Brighton neighborhood in Boston to Lakeview in Chicago? Don't know and probably not but still the contrast was striking.

Outside of the crime issue, Chicago is looking better than Boston from the limited areas I have been to since I have been back in Boston.

Hallefuckin'lujah

Pastor Criticized For No Transit Experience Withdraws From RTA Board Nomination

https://blockclubchicago.org/2024/05...rd-nomination/

West Side pastor Ira J. Acree is taking his name out of consideration for an influential transit board seat, saying those critical of his lack of professional experience for the role are “opponents of African American empowerment.”

"Rev. Ira Acree said the City Council and most agency boards should be vacated if alderpeople now want to only go off experience."

Yeah, fuck off. If not for people who know what they're doing, how would anything of consequence get done?? The unwarranted entitlement is just absolutely wild.

Yeah, this sort of crap needs to end. Nice try pulling the race card, Rev. Racial diversity should absolutely be a priority, but its just as important to put qualified people into important positions. Would this man want someone with no medical experience performing a surgical procedure on him, simply because he was African American? I would think not.

Regarding previous posts of the Loop recovering pre-pandemic activity, I’ve been coming to the office since early 2021, and I’m not that positive.

Since 2022 you can find a lot of people waking in the Loop, particularly in summer. This has been consistent in 2023 and 2024, and even though that is good, I would not say there has been a big increase in activity from year to year. I’ve experienced overcrowded trains in the Redline and CTA buses from Lakeview both in summer of 2022 and 2024. There was an important rebound after 2021, but it’s somehow stagnant at this point.

Why stagnant? It’s in the small details you can see this. The loop is much less vibrant in Monday and Fridays, this is particularly evident to anyone using Metra. Morever, foot traffic during summer is driven a lot by summer tourism but restaurants used by office workers in the Loop don’t seem to be that full anyway, retail spaces are being left abandoned for years, and this is not only evident in the apparel retail, but I’ve seen pharmacies, groceries, banks, consistently closing. It’s clear that the demand of these places was considerably reduced by the hybrid home office scheme.

The Loop needs to accelerate its transformation to a more residential neighborhood to recover the loss of office workers.

Would be good to see some of those conversions go through. But it won't make up for those buildings being filled with office workers