Northwestern’s Robert Gordon presents an intentionally provocative argument: the 19th and 20th centuries got us used to wonderful but unsustainable rates of economic growth, so don’t get used to it. And even if we do get the next new thing, economic inequality is a drag.
In his budget address, the Mayor said that in less than four years, 22 percent of the city’s budget will be consumed by pension costs. Why? That’s when a state-imposed schedule, which would get the city’s pensions 90 percent funded in 25 years, begins.
A new report shows that Chicago has followed national trends in low-wage jobs, as an increasing number of well-educated breadwinners make up the proportion of workers below the line of self-sufficiency.
The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal ventures into the local tech community and comes back with praise for the Midwest Mentality, and a look at the physical infrastructure that makes it possible.
Paul Ryan blasted Barack Obama over the closing of a GM plant in Janesville that the then-candidate spoke at in 2008, earning Ryan harsh words from fact-checkers. What actually happened to the factory in Ryan’s hometown?
The country’s going to take its time crawling out of recession, the dovish chair tells an international audience; Chicago’s in the middle of the pack in e-books; and more
After Barack Obama was elected, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told an audience of execs that “you never want a serious crisis go to waste.” New research suggests, however, that financial crises usually go to waste, resulting in polarized gridlock and a host of minor reforms instead of total reinvention.
High levels of foreclosures are often found in neighborhoods with substantial crime problems, but do empty homes encourage or increase crime, or just follow in its path?
Why was Lloyd Dobler at City Hall to sit through a wonky meeting about using eminent domain to seize underwater houses and refinance them for owners? He’s a fan.
Mayor Emanuel, Mick Dumke, and others talk about the city’s experiment in public-private investment, the concerns about profit motive, the national infrastructure stalemate, and other facets of the debate.
