[the urban politician]

^ I'm not seeing anything surprising here, even without much regional growth.

1. We have a ton of wealth here, and for the better part of the last 60 years, it has remained locked up in the suburbs.

2. With city living now becoming popular everywhere, Chicago is opening up tons of untapped potential, and already has the infrastructure in place to have a downtown nearly filled to the brim with skyscrapers.

Most of the boom has been residential, as evidence of this.