CHICAGO | Politics and Current Events

[Khantilever]

Originally Posted by tjp

What do you guys think of the commuter tax? I worry it would stymie the movement of jobs downtown and offset any benefit of increased tax revenue, but I really haven't thought or read much about it.

It’s really not obvious to me. We definitely don’t want to discourage employment downtown—the net fiscal benefit of every additional worker downtown is almost certainly positive. But the counter factual to a commuter tax is not necessarily the status quo. Rather, it could be a higher property tax on commercial buildings downtown, which would be even worse. The disincentive to downtown employment from a commuter tax would at least somewhat offset by some workers moving into the city, but a higher property tax downtown can only be avoided by moving jobs out.

Some very quick and very rough calculations just to put some structure on the problem: Looking at Census LODES data show about 542k workers work in Chicago and commute from the suburbs. Assuming an average income of 50k, a $100 commuter tax (I've heard that number bandied about before) would amount to a 2% pay cut. I've estimated the elasticity of commuting flows with respect to wages in Chicago in the past, showing that a 1% drop in wages would cause a 1% drop in the flow of commuters (which would vary by each workers' wages and length of commute, but let's ignore that for now). So a 2% drop in workers in the city would be about 10k workers gone. That amounts to a 0.08% drop in total employment in the city, which would have ramifications for both a lot of businesses in the city as well as wages for other workers. Consensus estimates among economists for the elasticity of wages with respect to employment is 7%, meaning a drop of employment of 0.08% causes a 0.008*0.07=0.05% drop in the average Chicago worker's income. Assuming an average income of 50k, that's a reduction in total Chicago income of $35 million. The $100 commuter tax nets $54 million. If the reduction in sales taxes and other fiscal benefits commuters brings is greater than 54-35 = 19 million, this looks like a useless tax.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

bout time

Agreed

Fucking so sick of this Machine.

Not sure if they will end up in jail, or find some sort of loophole, but can they finally just die, already? Yeah that means you too, Madigan

[Vlajos]

Seems like a great to time to seriously consider reducing the City Council by at least half, if not more.

[moorhosj]

Originally Posted by Khantilever

Assuming an average income of 50k, a $100 commuter tax (I've heard that number bandied about before) would amount to a 2% pay cut.

I'm not following the math here, $100 is 0.2% of $50k.

Also worth noting that Burke's company handles taxes on Trump Tower. Notable because Trump's largest creditor, Deutsche Bank, was also raided today. Trump's fixer also plead guilty today to lying to Congress about a rel estate deal.

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Not sure if they will end up in jail, or find some sort of loophole

if the stone faced men in black suits are showing up at your office and putting paper over the windows, its too late for "loopholes". hes going down.

[Khantilever]

Originally Posted by moorhosj

I'm not following the math here, $100 is 0.2% of $50k.

Also worth noting that Burke's company handles taxes on Trump Tower. Notable because Trump's largest creditor, Deutsche Bank, was also raided today. Trump's fixer also plead guilty today to lying to Congress about a rel estate deal.

Goddamn decimals. This is what I get for being sloppy. Okay, shift the lost wages side one decimal to the left. 3.5 million in lost wages doesn’t sound so bad actually.

However, this is obviously a huge underestimate since it depends on the concentration of workers locally. That’s something I originally ignored for simplicity to get a lower bound on the cost side. Suburban workers are a much higher percenttags of workers in the Loop, so the wage effect should be much much larger there (which matters because the distribution of wages is not uniform across the city). On the other hand if we assume these effects are very local, the rest of the city is less affected. So I’m really not sure what to conclude without going further down the rabbit hole.

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

if the stone faced men in black suits are showing up at your office and putting paper over the windows, its too late for "loopholes". hes going down.

Please don't get my hopes up.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

Seems like a great to time to seriously consider reducing the City Council by at least half, if not more.

Interesting idea: since alderman obviously don't want to vote for a 50% reduction in seats because it will cost half of them their jobs, perhaps they could set it up so seats disappear as aldermen retire, die, or are arrested?

Let's try it starting with Burke, split his ward evenly between the neighboring wards once he's in jail.

[Tom In Chicago]

Originally Posted by moorhosj

Also worth noting that Burke's company handles taxes on Trump Tower. Notable because Trump's largest creditor, Deutsche Bank, was also raided today. Trump's fixer also plead guilty today to lying to Congress about a rel estate deal.

Seems to me if this was related then they would have raided his law offices - which weren't - but it's curious for sure. . .

. . .

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

if the stone faced men in black suits are showing up at your office and putting paper over the windows, its too late for "loopholes". hes going down.

It's never too late for loopholes until the last appellate judge has ruled on the last proposed loophole.

[the urban politician]

Burke was also a total racist, a key member of the council wars against HW

Again, I know this sounds harsh, but some people just need to literally die (of old age, of course) for Chicago to move forward. All they’ve really done is help themselves at everyone else’s expense (typical Baby Boomer behavior) for far too long.

[Kenmore]

burke going down would be nice

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Chicago will start annexing suburbs again in 10-20 years as they begin to fall to the same issues that plagued Chicago in the second half of the 20th century.

I guess it’s possible, but don’t underestimate the pigheadedness of suburban residents, even in failing towns. “It might be bad here”, they’ll say, “but at least we don’t have to pay those high Chicago taxes and send our kids to CPS!”

The first round of annexations happened at a time when joining the city meant a serious step up in amenities and quality of life, not to mention access to Lake Michigan water and city sewerage. Can’t really say the same today, the suburbs will need a powerful incentive to join themselves to Chicago and I don’t know what that would be. For a more recent example you’d have to look at Indy, Louisville, or Toronto where city and county governments were merged. In Toronto that directly led to the election of suburban idiots like Rob Ford to public office.

Plus, why would the city want these failing burbs? Most have poor transit access and don’t really make sense as city neighborhoods. Cicero and Berwyn have good housing stock, but I think they’ll be fine on their own. (A Pink Line extension to Harlem could work wonders though.)

[LouisVanDerWright]

^^^ If this scenario comes about, it's likely the vast majority of Chicago itself will have been redeveloped. At some point grabbing and turning around inner ring suburbs might make sense for a city with SF or NYC like affordability issues. This probably won't take 10-20 years like I said, but probably within our lifetimes. You and I will be old men, but it's the reversion to the mean. Innercities are NEVER cheaper than surrounding areas anywhere else on earth or at any other time in human history. At some point things will revert back to normal in the US and the central core will be expensive, followed by a ring of impoverished suburbs, followed by wealth country villa types further out. That's how Paris is, that's how London is, that's how ancient Rome was, that's literally how it works. The only exception was post war America where you had the tail end of the most radical technological transformation in history combined with a economic juggernaut that had just murdered everyone on earth that disagreed with them save for the Soviet Union. That's where our unique donut hole of land values came from and it's simply not going to be sustainable as the US reverts back to a less dominant multipolar world.

[the urban politician]

^ Its already happening. The central area and Lincoln Park are increasingly usurping the North Shore as the place to be for the uber wealthy.

And we've already been observing the gentrification of all hoods near downtown. Although some criminals are going to try to rob people of their property rights in the upcoming years, I suspect, ultimately this trend is like a massive tidal wave that can't be stopped.

[Kenmore]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

^^^ If this scenario comes about, it's likely the vast majority of Chicago itself will have been redeveloped. At some point grabbing and turning around inner ring suburbs might make sense for a city with SF or NYC like affordability issues. This probably won't take 10-20 years like I said, but probably within our lifetimes. You and I will be old men, but it's the reversion to the mean. Innercities are NEVER cheaper than surrounding areas anywhere else on earth or at any other time in human history. At some point things will revert back to normal in the US and the central core will be expensive, followed by a ring of impoverished suburbs, followed by wealth country villa types further out. That's how Paris is, that's how London is, that's how ancient Rome was, that's literally how it works. The only exception was post war America where you had the tail end of the most radical technological transformation in history combined with a economic juggernaut that had just murdered everyone on earth that disagreed with them save for the Soviet Union. That's where our unique donut hole of land values came from and it's simply not going to be sustainable as the US reverts back to a less dominant multipolar world.

this is a libertarian fever dream

the midwestern suburbs are not europe, not of this is applicable

[Baronvonellis]

Yea, I don't know about all that. In Europe middle class middle age people tolerate living in small apartments in 5 story walkup buildings on top of their neighbors. Even small towns in the countryside they live mostly in dense apartments. It's kind of mind blowing to see coming from the US, that they will live in a dense apartment living next to farm fields. The US suburban tract housing never went there. It's all density and then farms. I just don't seeing the average person in the US wanting to live in dense housing ever, it's not in our DNA. Outside of a few select urban centers, most people don't want to live in a true urban environment.

[moorhosj]

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

I just don't seeing the average person in the US wanting to live in dense housing ever, it's not in our DNA. Outside of a few select urban centers, most people don't want to live in a true urban environment.

Could be that the US just has few places with a true urban environment (i.e. the "few select urban centers" you mention that people want to live).

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Its already happening. The central area and Lincoln Park are increasingly usurping the North Shore as the place to be for the uber wealthy.

And we've already been observing the gentrification of all hoods near downtown. Although some criminals are going to try to rob people of their property rights in the upcoming years, I suspect, ultimately this trend is like a massive tidal wave that can't be stopped.

Chicago is already pretty similar to Paris. The poverty of Paris suburbs is greatly overstated - rather than being a radial model with rich in the center and poor on the outskirts, it's more like the sector model where certain quadrants of the city remain wealthy whether you're in the core or out closer to the fringe. For Paris, the north is the poorest (like Chicago's Southland) while the east is middle-class and the west is wealthiest. And this is a country with one of the biggest commitments to socialized housing in the Western world. Vienna is similar.


wikipedia/Magicboost
(this is just the Petit Couronne - Paris plus inner suburbs - but the pattern holds true even at the larger scale of Ile-de-France (akin to Cook + Collar Counties

You can see the lowest income level even crosses the Peripherique expressway into central Paris, where the 19e arondissement (19th ward) is as poor as the northern suburbs.

So, even if we switch to an urban pattern closer to Paris, I don't think the North Shore is going anywhere as a seat of wealth. It's actually pretty similar to wealthy suburbs outside Paris, walkable, good schools, oriented around train stations with strong town centers. Same goes for portions of western suburbia along UP-W, BNSF lines.

London is actually closer to the inverted donut model with rich in the center (and only the center) but I think that might be a consequence of their strict greenbelt policies. Ironically, from an architectural perspective, wealthy English people have always wanted to distance themselves from commercial activity and live in single-family townhouses, while the French wealthy were totally fine living in a fancy apartment above a shop... but they're the ones who have suburbanized their wealth to a greater extent.

[Baronvonellis]

Originally Posted by moorhosj

Could be that the US just has few places with a true urban environment (i.e. the "few select urban centers" you mention that people want to live).

Well I think it has such few urban environments, because few people in the US desire to live on top of their neighbors or shops. If there was such a demand for that housing it would be built more. Look at Florida the population is booming there, and almost everything built there is anti-urban other than the core of Miami due to the property values there. Entire new cities are built there, but none of them are even close to the density of a French or British suburb.