[Khantilever]

Let’s be careful with what we wish for. Aldermanic Privilege empowers NIMBYism in some cases, but also makes development easier in many cases. First of all, with a centralized process we run the risk of a more restrictive zoning map applied to the entire city and a much more difficult re-zoning process. Second, the highly non-compact Ward boundaries allow for Aldermen to approve developments in areas under their jurisdiction which are relatively far from their core constituencies - I think Hopkins Ward 2 is a prime example of this, and I’ve heard stories about how Luis Gutierrez intentionally focused development in such parts of his ward when he was an Alderman.

I’m a PhD candidate in economics and I have a paper where I used this feature of Chicago’s process to look at development in the city, trying to find this effect in the data. And I see it. Homeownership rates are the prime predictor of opposition to development. But what I find is that when I have two block groups with similar homeownership rates and other characteristics which only differ in terms of which Ward they’re associated with, the one in the relatively renter-dominated Ward experiences faster and larger re-zonings.

I’m currently working on a model that will allow for some counterfactual simulations where I can redraw Ward boundaries or change the number of wards or even dissolve city council. But my intuition based on my existing results is that Aldermanic Privilege May well be generally beneficial to development. In general, Aldermen probably have an incentive to approve developments, thanks to the contributions they get — perhaps an instance of what we sometimes call efficiency-improving corruption. So even though they’ll cater to NIMBYs quite often, they also play a role in redrawing wards in a way that makes future development easier. I can’t claim to be privy to the details of the last redrawing, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the North Branch got lumped with a bunch of disparate areas. Obviously the big goal was to screw Fioretti, but it also gives surrounding Aldermen political cover to allow large-scale redevelopment to occur since its outside of their control.

And then of course we have the classic Tiebout sorting view that also suggests the system is better for us overall. You want low-density neighborhoods? There’s a ward for you. You want high density? We got you. If we were to instead create one standard for the city, because of their higher incomes and political participation the preferences of NIMBY homeowners are likely to be more influential than others’.