CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[IrishIllini]

How’d the emails end up in the media’s hands to begin with? I can’t imagine the city would want them leaked unless they were feeling confident. I don’t know anyone at Amazon would leak them.

[rgolch]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

How’d the emails end up in the media’s hands to begin with? I can’t imagine the city would want them leaked unless they were feeling confident. I don’t know anyone at Amazon would leak them.

Some freedom of information act. The article almost seemed upset over the apparent closeness of the exec and Emanuel. Like something unfair was going on. But given that they knew each other before, it's not surprising.

[the urban politician]

Why Chicago is shaping up to be a Crypto hub:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...tocurrency-hub

[marothisu]

The Amazon email thing is interesting. I mean it's not non news but it doesn't mean a ton. It's positive but non deterministic. Someone I think might have assumed that everyone got that type of message, but I highly doubt it. In these types of things, the most you'll usually get is a "Thanks for your submission" type of message. I think you can take what was said positively. The "Whose your daddy" thing was mildly funny but also semi embarrassing. Key point is that they know each other and are possibly "friends." Hopefully there's no harm done in all of this. I am a big open data type of person but don't believe everything should be. I find it weird that the Tribune is so big into his personal emails, but that's just me.

Oh and also, Aaron Renn of all people set Greg Hinz straight and he updated his article with a blurb at the end noting how there was a revision. Without that revision, the story could have easily been "Chicago gains 11,000 people from last year."

[sixo1]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Nice. Why those birth years? Is it because that's basically the closest to how the census reported the data aligning with the notion of millenial? I think Chicago fairs decently well. NYC is not surprising at all. Living here I can tell you this place is crawling with young/young-ish people. Houston is a little surprising but maybe not much.

I like that Chicago beats LA a little in this regard. Am curious as to what downtown Chicago is as well as downtown + surrounding areas. I'll bet it's more than that...

Not surprised by Boston but that's only because of my other studies in which Boston scores surprisingly low lately in a number of categories.

Yes, those birth years (1982-1995) are aligned closer to Millennials and prevents the inclusion of other generations. Pew Research Center defines Millennials as those born between 1981 and 1996.

[sixo1]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

The "rust belt" is over in reality for much of the Upper Midwest. There may still be a few cities stagnating or hung over further East like Detroit or Buffalo, but Milwaukee, Chicago, Pittsburgh, etc have all embarked on a new leg upwards in their histories. Chicago, save for the ancient rail infrastructure and landmark highrises, is virtually unrecognizable even from when I moved here 10 years ago. I was just driving down Belmont over by Schuba's and was like "wtf, where am I". That area used to be mostly vacant lots and Schuba's was the only place around. Now it's wall to wall 3-4 floor buildings and Schuba's has built an absolutely dank modern addition on to the South.



I mean just from a law of large numbers perspective, what percentage of the population is Millenial? If 250,000 African Americans have left, odds are about a quarter of them fell into that age range meaning that's probably another 50-60k Millenials Chicago would have but no longer does. I have a feeling that of that 250,000 exodus, it's probably skewed heavily younger as people want to GTFO while they still can. You probably have a lot of grannies living in the house they grew up in who are left behind.

According to the 2016 5-year US Census ACS, Chicago has 703,277 Millennials. So you and The Urban Politician might be right.

[rgolch]

Originally Posted by marothisu

The Amazon email thing is interesting. I mean it's not non news but it doesn't mean a ton. It's positive but non deterministic. Someone I think might have assumed that everyone got that type of message, but I highly doubt it. In these types of things, the most you'll usually get is a "Thanks for your submission" type of message. I think you can take what was said positively. The "Whose your daddy" thing was mildly funny but also semi embarrassing. Key point is that they know each other and are possibly "friends." Hopefully there's no harm done in all of this. I am a big open data type of person but don't believe everything should be. I find it weird that the Tribune is so big into his personal emails, but that's just me.

Oh and also, Aaron Renn of all people set Greg Hinz straight and he updated his article with a blurb at the end noting how there was a revision. Without that revision, the story could have easily been "Chicago gains 11,000 people from last year."

Rahm is a known quantity, so I don't think the "who's your daddy thing is as embarrassing as everyone thinks. Everyone know's he thinks of himself as an ass kicker.

And Greg Hinz... haha, I bet it kills him to have to reverse his beloved negative news on Chicago.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by rgolch

Rahm is a known quantity, so I don't think the "who's your daddy thing is as embarrassing as everyone thinks. Everyone know's he thinks of himself as an ass kicker.

And Greg Hinz... haha, I bet it kills him to have to reverse his beloved negative news on Chicago.

Yeah and he actually kept with that theme by saying that "it's still a loss." I mean that's true, but the Census could have easily not revised the 2016 totals and the headline would have been instead "Chicago gains 11,000 people" (which was more than NYC and LA I think...)

[the urban politician]

^ Plus the "3 years of loss in a row", which is glaringly false, remains as headline.

And journalists wonder why their profession is dying... Perhaps it's because you guys are more interested in baiting readers than in telling an accurate story

[ardecila]

I hate getting this worked up over yearly ACS estimates. Even the best sampling techniques still run into problems capturing changes of small magnitude. The argument over gain vs loss is totally stupid on a year-to-year basis when the Census Bureau repeatedly has to issue revisions and essentially admits that their data is full of holes.

I don't blame the media for trying to push ACS estimates as news when so many people now are looking for information, from citizens to politicians to real estate investors and business owners, but the Census Bureau really should be the adult in the room here and emphasize that ACS estimates are highly flawed.

Sorry guys, I think we'll just have to wait until 2022 to get the real story about Chicago's population change in the 2010s... clearly the magnitude of the change, whether it's a gain or loss, is small enough that it can't be measured reliably by the ACS. The overall popuolation is basically stagnant or very slow growth/loss, even though the words "stagnant" and "slow" don't really capture the fact that we do have large inflows and outflows, they just happen to be roughly equal.

[marothisu]

These aren't actually the ACS estimates. These are something called Population Estimates (I think called PEP for short). ACS and PEP kind of align in some ways but not perfect in any way. I also take these things with a grain of salt - not because I want Chicago to be gaining people in them but because of what I know in how they operate. I agree to find out what the deal is in a small handful of years.

[the urban politician]

Another fast growing Chicago startup the will eventually end up in or around downtown:

https://www.americaninno.com/chicago...ns-for-growth/

[moorhosj]

I made a map based on the data provided to us by resident data expert marothisu. I made this using R.

The darker the red, the higher the increase in households making $100k+. There is a grey box where Fuller Park is because that community area grew by 611% which threw off my color scheme. Thought it might help to visualize in a different/new way. Also an excuse to work on my data skills at work.

[the urban politician]

^ Nice job! Would you consider changing the color scheme so that a negative (or loss) would be a different color than a gain? (Green for example)

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Nice job! Would you consider changing the color scheme so that a negative (or loss) would be a different color than a gain? (Green for example)

I was about to say the same thing. Great work though. Most of the city is pretty constant or increasing. The obvious areas that aren't are essentially responsible for the majority of the city's loss (Englewood area).

[Kenmore]

chicago came in last place in case shiller home appreciation, it's almost as if a handful of lux towers for the 1% aren't representative of a city and region on a continued decline.

https://www.spice-indices.com/idpfil...lease-0529.pdf

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Kenmore

chicago came in last place in case shiller home appreciation, it's almost as if a handful of lux towers for the 1% aren't representative of a city and region on a continued decline.

https://www.spice-indices.com/idpfil...lease-0529.pdf

First of all, you have to understand what the CSI is actually measuring. It's measuring what the change in price of properties that can be identified as "single family" are that are constant in size and quality. In other words, if I buy a place right now, what type of price change will it undergo if I just sit on it for say 4 years. I think that's pretty important, but it's not measuring what the price of EVERYTHING in the market is even though it aims to.

What they do is take all sales for that month and then find previous sales of the same property. Transfers between family members are not counted. Also, any property that underwent a property type change from its last sale isn't counted. So all of those small 2 and 3 unit multi family buildings being bought and renovated into SFH? Not counted in the index. Also, any properties that sell more than once within 6 months aren't counted in the index either.

ALSO, the CSI weights properties. So if there is a large price change from one sale to the next relative to the area, it assumes it underwent renovations and assigns it a smaller weight. Similarly, if there was a long time between sales, it assumes the same thing - small weight is assigned.


The CSI is measuring a specific thing, but if you think that it's measuring literally every property then you are wrong. That is not what the CSI does and measures.



Also, I don't know why you bring up "luxe" condos downtown as if this is the only section of town where that's happening. It's not, nor does new construction even represent all of the $1M+ market.

Here's a look at the $1M+ sales from realtor.com between 1/1/2018 and 5/29/2018:

Near North Side: 145
Lincoln Park: 128
Lakeview: 87
North Center: 69
West Town: 62
Near West Side: 48
Logan Square: 44
Near South Side: 28
Lincoln Square: 27
The Loop: 22
Uptown: 7


If you take NNS, NSS, NWS and the Loop it's 243 sales. Lincoln Park, Lakeview, and North Center together are at 284.

[Kenmore]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiJ9fy1qSFI

[the urban politician]

CSI is a very blunt and lazy way to look at real estate data, particularly for a region like Chicagoland that has so many moving parts.

Data furnished by Marothisu, parceled off into fine detail, is way more informative

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Kenmore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiJ9fy1qSFI

Great and informative post about why you think the CSI is indicative of the market for Chicago. Next time, I'll be sure to ask you for YouTube videos instead of providing your own insight.

Though I do agree that luxury places aren't indicative of Chicago as a whole, you also miss the mark in thinking the market is only downtown in the city. It's not, though the market isn't huge as far as different areas go. At the same time, $10k houses from Englewood are even less representative. The area has many moving parts and blindly posting CSI without realizing that there are tons of different properties sold in Chicago everyday regardless of how expensive, that are not counted as part of this particular is a little weird.

At the same time, too high of an increase is not a good thing nor sustainable. I know we aren't shooting for last place, but first place as far as an actual functioning city goes shouldn't necessarily be the thing to strive for imo unless the #1 spot won't lead to issues.