Chicago needs to get back to basics on economic development, not half-baked glitzy development proposals from Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
True economic development starts with safe streets, better education, and economic opportunities that result organically from putting human capital development first. Think math, reading, writing and following the law, for starters. You can’t even begin to lift all boats without them.
Yet under Mayor Lightfoot, circus attractions have come first.
She recently announced there will be a NASCAR race here in 2023 but failed to consult aldermen, in a city bedeviled by out-of-control late-night drag racing and stunt driving.
The mayor and Governor J.B. Pritzker are also pitching the Democratic National Committee to hold its 2024 party convention here. If so, we can only hope no delegates fall prey to armed robbers on the streets or on public transit.
Another marquee project Lightfoot has pushed through is a casino on the near North Side, although it could easily become a magnet for the predators who now rule Chicago’s streets.
Along similar lines, Lightfoot also wants to spend up to $2.2 billion for a Soldier Field improvement plan to keep Chicago’s pro football franchise from straying to Arlington Heights. Admittedly, no mayor could acquiesce to a franchise leaving town. But it’s another prestige play, not the foundational stuff the city really needs.
All of this sheen, this noise, is a simulation of progress, of forward movement. It’s a hologram of an economic development strategy.
The tone deafness of is stunning. Lightfoot even said of the convention bid, “We’re ready for our close-up.” Of what, Ms. Mayor? Two different CTA riders having to stab attackers in self-defense, one fatally, within less than a week?
Read the comments on the blithe mayoral Facebook posts about NASCAR, Soldier Field, and the casino. People are angry about their city’s decay and official inaction. The recurring themes commenters raise are crime; and Lightfoot’s cluelessness, misguided priorities, and incompetence.
To be fair, we’re told that current city EcDev plans will leverage neighborhood assets too. That downtown won’t get all the glory. The Mayor’s “Invest South/West” initiative is a nod in this direction.
One illustrative proposal is to transform a vacant West Side bank into a project with housing, a café, a museum, a business incubator, and a community plaza. Net positives, sure, compared to an empty building. But window dressing in the end when kids nearby can barely read, write, and compute, and keep shooting at each other.
Human capital development should be an urgent priority
Real mayoral leadership on economic development would mean always, always championing the importance of two-parent homes, parenting, and values underlying adult success in law-abiding society. In this city where young gangbangers in social media videos boast of who they’ll kill next, it would mean always talking about kids and families making the right moves from the get-go. And consistently highlighting how crucial are fathers and fatherhood, and their responsibility to their children.
It would mean acknowledging the huge bonus in median household income for those with children who become marriageable and get married. An income bonus that Census data showed is greater for black women than anyone else. Yet official Chicago – government, media, and academia – shun such subjects publicly.
The mayoral bully pulpit is also where to accentuate the changing nature of work and the demand for higher and better skills. That steel plant, that auto plant where your grandpa with little education made a good wage? It’s dwindling badly, or gone. Instead, how about enrolling in a drone pilot training program after high school? You could be earning $64,000 within a few years. Legally. After that, you can fly higher.
These sorts of careers, and ones in the construction trades, are why K-12 math and reading matter. Why persistence and punctuality matter. Why resisting street culture matters. Why engaged parenting – by two married parents – matters.
No way forward without core academic skills
Education in Illinois must come to mean, first of all, that K-12 students master the core academic skills. Yet Illinois Report Card results from the last pre-Covid year of 2019 show that across grades K-12, of Chicago students in government schools (p. 26, here) only 27 percent of those tested could clear the proficiency benchmark in English Language Arts, and only 24 percent on math. For black Chicago K-12 students in government schools, just 17 percent tested in English and 13 percent tested in math could clear the proficiency bar. This is shameful and badly hinders progress. You just can’t decouple failing city schools from economic development.
Chicago and Illinois need school vouchers so that regardless of income, families can get real help paying private school tuition. Competition in education is fruitful. Choice is supposed to be an urgent matter, right? Vouchers are now legal to implement in Illinois and nationwide. Government schools are failing dramatically in towns across Illinois, as Wirepoints recently documented. Again: economic development starts with human capital development. Illinois is squandering too much of its human capital.
A better Chicago
People see what’s going on in the city. Former Chicago Inspector General Joe Ferguson in a recent Sun-Times interview, said, “In every generation, one or two cities, because of broader circumstances, tips over to the wrong side, and goes into a period of decline. Chicago is at risk of that unless it attends to its chronic ills immediately.” Of the city’s political leadership, he said, “…competency to me is a big issue.”
Let’s unpack Ferguson’s wise words. To me, “broader circumstances” include lax parental engagement which helps to drive disparate outcomes by race. There are ways to fix that. Ways that start at home.
Ferguson also mentioned the city’s “chronic ills.” And clarified the city’s top three issues are “crime, crime, and crime.” Point taken. There is fear on the streets. There are miniscule arrest rates, escalating carjackings and rising car thefts. Add in violent misdeeds on public transit, unhinged attacks on police, trouble responding to high-priority 911 service calls and fast declining police manpower. They know nobody’s got their back. The city’s dashboard on sworn officers shows their number dropped from 13,353 in January of 2019 to 11,628 by July 1 of this year.
Lastly, and it bears repeating, he stressed the glaring need for greater competence in Chicago’s governance.
There’s another city I’m familiar with, Seattle – that has also been wracked with ugly violent crime, rampant public disorder including attacks on police, political speech codes, and an incompetent governing class. And there I noticed the yard sign of one local candidate in 2021. It said simply, “Had Enough?” She won.
I see a similar catch-phrase, maybe, for candidates who can drive Chicago out of the ditch it’s in.
Something like this: “Competence. It’s now or never.”