Chicago missed out on the Olympics (and the rooftop missiles and rent hikes that inevitably follow). But we do get the NATO consolation prize, and we’re not missing out on the “entrepreneurial city” either.
Two decades before the Haymarket Affair, “loafers” practically shut down the city’s economy for a week with a vast general strike for the eight-hour day. It failed, but it was the first step in a process that brought us an awareness of the average workday, the Haymarket Riot, and eventually a legal eight-hour day.
Putting the Chicago Infrastructure Trust in historical perspective, from tax increment finance to the Chicago Skyway to the decline of national investment in infrastructure following the tax revolt of the 1970s.
The Infrastructure Trust ordinance, which passed City Council today easily, was presented as a correction of the previous mayor’s misadventures in privatization. But it exists, in part, because of substantial flaws in the public sector as well.
It’s hard to keep it a secret if you win the lottery, especially in Illinois. But it’s worth trying: when the story gets out, attention follows… and maybe a spending spree.
A building-materials conglomerate moves its U.S. headquarters to Illinois (but cuts back in downstate Joppa); what the city giveth to shared kitchens, it taketh away from liquor stores; and more
The Cook County Pension Fund and the Illinois Teachers Retirement System confront their futures, and they’re a lot alike. One of the biggest problems is the unfortunate fact that people are living longer than they used to.
Two Greek-Americans in Chicago—two of our most widely read political writers of different generations and ideologies—both see America’s future in Greece. What went wrong there, and what lessons can we learn?
Two new reports see Chicago’s position among world cities staying relatively stable, at least compared to our national peers; the real growth will be among China’s biggest cities. On the other hand, we’re “becoming more important geopolitically than the United States is as a country,” so we’ve got that going for us.
Karen Ho, the author of Liquidated, an outstanding ethnography of contemporary Wall Street that explains how its internal culture spills out into the American economy, discusses the mindset that can bring down a huge financial firm run by terribly bright people.
