[the urban politician]

Nice.

There is practically nothing regrettable here. The only negative is that, if it weren't for COVID, we probably would've seen about 5 times as many construction starts in the West Loop in 2020 than we actually did.

One positive spin is that every recession (even a mandated one) inevitably leads to a rebound. So lets hope that 2022 (2021 will likely be a slow year) is like a springboard for a new wave of daring and bold projects.

The other added bonus is that construction slow downs give us time to improve and evolve designs, so that you see differing styles get built in a given neighborhood over time. If everything in one neighborhood got built within the same decade, for example, that neighborhood would kind of lack character and texture.