CHICAGO | Politics and Current Events

[left of center]

Sources: Federal agents raid powerful Chicago Ald. Ed Burke's City Hall office
Source: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...129-story.html

Federal agents raided the City Hall office of longtime powerful Chicago Ald. Ed Burke Thursday morning, sources familiar with the development confirmed.

Agents arrived at the office early Thursday morning, told employees to leave and papered over the glass windows at the office’s entrance to conceal the investigation going on inside, a source confirmed. A woman who left the office and did not identify herself said FBI agents were inside.

Burke’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Burke is the longtime chairman of the City Council’s Finance Committee, where he controls much of the legislative purse strings at City Hall. He has held office since 1969 and is running for re-election to a record 14th term.

[Via Chicago]

bout time

[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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Vlajos]

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

[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

[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.

[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.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by ardecila

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.

OK great, except it's not really accurate. The area inside of the "Peripherique" is roughly the size of the Loop all the way out to Oak Park:



https://www.timeout.com/chicago/blog...o-other-cities

That same area in Chicago doesn't have "the lowest income crossing into" the central area, it's almost entirely the lowest income including East and West Garfield, North Lawndale, and Austin. The poverty in these areas doesn't even slightly compare to whats going on in Paris, it's like a warzone compared to the tiny infringement of poverty on Paris' core.

Furthermore, a city like Paris is on an entirely different scale than Chicago. The North Shore of Chicago wouldn't even be an inner ring suburb of Paris. Places like Lakeview and further north would lie beyond Siene St Denis, again not even comparable. If you are going to compare Chicago to Paris then you need to scale down distances in Chicago to account for the fact that Paris is crammed into 40 Sq Mi and Chicago is 235. If you do that even slightly then pretty much everything South and West of the Seine in Paris would have to be abject poverty as everything South of I-55 excluding Bridgeport is in Chicago.

[moorhosj]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

If you do that even slightly then pretty much everything South and West of the Seine in Paris would have to be abject poverty as everything South of I-55 excluding Bridgeport is in Chicago.

Someone should notify the people of Kenwood, Hyde Park, Beverly, Mt Greenwood, Morgan Park, Garfield Ridge, Clearing, etc.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by moorhosj

Someone should notify the people of Kenwood, Hyde Park, Beverly, Mt Greenwood, Morgan Park, Garfield Ridge, Clearing, etc.

Yeah yeah yeah, and Beverly/Mt Greenwood isn't actually a part of the city by the remotest European standard. There's a freaking Coopers Hawk winery across the road from Mt. Greenwood for cripes stake...

And yes, I'm generalizing, but a few pockets of wealth does not distract from the rule that nearly everything in that quadrant of the city is in dire straits...

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

That same area in Chicago doesn't have "the lowest income crossing into" the central area, it's almost entirely the lowest income including East and West Garfield, North Lawndale, and Austin. The poverty in these areas doesn't even slightly compare to whats going on in Paris, it's like a warzone compared to the tiny infringement of poverty on Paris' core.

It's not perfect rings, though... that's my point. We will probably never see a future when all 235 square miles of Chicago are gentrified and all the suburbs are like a Mad Max zone. There will always be a less-favored quadrant of Chicago, just like there is in Paris, where poverty persists... and there will always be portions of the suburbs that stay wealthy.

[Kngkyle]

Originally Posted by Stockerzzz

https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/pr...elections-cps/

What a nightmare.

"The Chicago Public Schools have 150,000 more seats than students."

Hah.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by Kngkyle

What a nightmare.

"The Chicago Public Schools have 150,000 more seats than students."

Hah.

Prekwinkle needs to lose. No school closings for 4 years? We need to close about 100 right now.

[tjp]

A city income tax? Jesus.

[emathias]

The idea of a "Lasalle Street tax" terrifies me. Few things would make me leave Chicago, but that might necessitate me leaving. Few things could put the entire state at risk, but that's one of them. Few things could so quickly and directly destroy one of the city's most important industries, but that's one.

I can't even understand how anyone is still even talking about that tax. It would cause massive departure of the trading industry players and, as they leave, the tax would stop collecting revenue. So not only would you kill one of your golden geese, you wouldn't even get anything in return!