Tax-Increment Financing | Planned Manufacturing Districts | Living Wages | Employment and Job Training | O’Hare Modernization Project
Economic Development Grades
“…we will step up our efforts to make sure Chicagoans are trained for the jobs of the 21st century. It is time we provided these talented people with the opportunities they deserve to become part of the mainstream of our economy…More than anything else, our future quality of life depends on protecting and growing our strong, diverse local economy.”
Mayor Richard M. Daley, Inaugural Address 2003
Nationwide, the gap between rich and poor is widening. From 1967 to 2002 the top 20 percent of the U.S. population experienced average income growth of more than 75 percent, whereas the bottom 20 percent saw income growth of only 35 percent. And even as the top continues to pull further away from the bottom, the very richest are soaring ahead in unprecedented fashion. Income going to the top tenth of 1 percent in the United States has more than tripled to 7 percent from 2 percent in 1980.1 And income of the top one-hundredth of 1 percent (the 14,000 taxpayers earning the most income) quadrupled to 2.87 percent in 2004 from 0.65 percent in 1980. The bottom line is that the rich are getting richer—much richer—and the poor are getting much, much poorer—a trend that has far-reaching effects on the hard working families in Chicago.
Chicago long has been a major center for manufacturing, food processing, publishing, finance, and insurance. Centrally located and served by a major inland port and an excellent infrastructure, Chicago from the beginning has been a transportation hub and major distribution center for the entire country. But this is changing. Chicago’s economy continues to shift from manufacturing to the service sector—and to jobs less tied to the city’s geographic attributes and technical expertise.
Heavy manufacturing jobs, the backbone of Chicago’s workforce for much of the 20th century, are disappearing rapidly. Between 2000 and 2005 Chicago lost 100,000 such positions.2 Thousands of these well-paying jobs moved to plants overseas, which now provide many of the products once made in our own backyards. Between 1999 and 2005, Illinois lost 243 percent of its manufacturing jobs—222,5003 positions that paid an average of $64,000 in wages and benefits and that each created three additional jobs in related industries.4 Concurrent with these losses comes a huge growth in the service sector, which includes jobs in general sales, customer service and restaurants. Between 1999 and 2005, this portion of the job market grew by 559,300 jobs, or 37.1 percent. Unfortunately, service sector jobs often do not pay well—on average, 29.2 percent less than in manufacturing.5
In 2006 the Chicago metropolitan area enjoyed its lowest unemployment rate since 1983.6 Unfortunately, while many new white-collar jobs have been added in finance, insurance, health and other professional services, other new jobs don’t pay enough to keep families above the poverty line. More than one in five of Chicago’s 2.7 million residents live in poverty, an increase of about 20,000 people over the past year.7 Further, the median household income in the Chicago area has decreased nearly $1,700 over that same period. Despite having the third-highest per-capita personal income in the state—$23,449—Chicago’s poverty rate for families with children under 18 years old is 25.7 percent, well above the state average of 13.9 percent. Further, a worker must make $17.33 per hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment at the Fair Market Rent of $901 for the Chicago area.8
The push to privatize public-sector jobs threatens to further reduce wages and benefits throughout Chicago. Wages and benefits for City of Chicago employees are 25 percent to 46 percent higher than those of contract employees in comparable positions.9
For Chicagoans to maintain and increase their standard of living in a global economy, they must be ready to perform knowledge-based jobs that require technical skills, credentials and lifelong learning to adapt to changes. This requires a push for economic development in the neighborhoods and initiatives to help companies provide the jobs where they are needed. The city also must find ways to prepare Chicagoans for those jobs, and to link jobs and workers.
A popular tool used to help Chicago communities and businesses retain and attract jobs is Tax Increment Financing. A TIF essentially uses future tax gains to finance current improvements. Assuming that construction, renovation or rehabilitation of a property will result in higher real-estate values and an accompanying increase in property taxes, the TIF allows a municipality (or other governmental entity) to “borrow” the future tax increase to fund the improvement. Like other cities, Chicago uses TIF to generate public funds for development in a specific geographic area—called a TIF district. Establishment of a TIF district allows governmental bodies to issue bonds to finance infrastructure improvements, undertake land assembly, and provide incentives to lure private investment to urban neighborhoods declared “blighted”—and that, without TIF benefits, would continue to lose value.10
Any increase in taxes collected (the “increment”) within the TIF district is to be used to fund improvements and new development for the life of the TIF, which in Illinois is 23 years, though it can be extended.11
The TIF concept was developed largely to help industries, primarily manufacturing, as well as local businesses, but TIFs over the past few decades have even been used for high-end retail and residential projects. As a result, according to Rachel Weber, associate professor in the Urban Planning and Policy Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, TIF funds are not being allocated properly to improve workforce development. Further, even when TIF money is specifically allocated for workforce training and retention, it is not used.12
Yet TIF is a very significant part of the city’s economic-development strategy, with Chicago’s 129 TIF districts generating nearly $400 million a year. Most of Chicago’s TIF districts are new—with nearly 100 added since 1995.13 Collectively they assessed as much in tax revenues for 2005 as the combined taxes collected by Cook County and the Forest Preserve District, the Chicago Park District and Chicago Library Fund, and the City Colleges of Chicago and Metropolitan Water Reclamation District.
TIFs impact tax rates. According to Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley, the typical Chicago property-tax bill is nearly 10 percent higher than it would be without Chicago’s TIF districts.14 Right now more than 13 percent of the city’s tax base is tied up in TIFs, meaning that new growth in those areas does not help to fund basic services. As a result, basic tax rates have to increase even more to keep pace.
Intended to spur growth in “blighted areas” or in neighborhoods “on the edge,” TIFs soon became an attractive funding tool for redevelopment in less-troubled areas—such as Chicago’s downtown (such as the new LaSalle Street Business District TIF) and near-Loop neighborhoods. At the same time, many TIFs in truly blighted areas have shown little change in terms of new jobs or increases in the tax base.15
The TIF concept is not without its critics, including many who maintain the program has lost its way. They cite the fact that it was created as a tool to promote manufacturing and create jobs, but has been used more recently for residential development. TIF also helps large developers build on big stretches of vacant land, while making it difficult for small and established businesses to take advantage of TIF funding.16 These large-scale developments have transformed some low-income and working class communities—including Lincoln Park, West Town and Lincoln Square—into gentrified middle-class neighborhoods that the original residents no longer could afford.
In 2003, the city launched called TIFWorks, which uses TIF funds for job-training programs.17 To date, the city has awarded 79 contracts worth nearly $4.1 million, and the program is available in 44 city wards. Whereas TIFWorks is a promising program, small companies have a difficult time accessing the funding due to a complex application process. Furthermore, TIFWorks only receives a small percentage of TIF funds, not nearly enough to meet job-training needs in these communities.18
Residents and small businesses have limited opportunity to op- pose TIF districts, let alone influence the sort of development funded by the TIF or the way resulting TIF funds are spent. Despite the appearance of a public process, TIF districts often reflect “back-room” deals.19 The single required public hearing is usually scheduled after decisions have been made. As a result, residents and community groups must rely on the discretion of individual aldermen to intervene on their behalf, and have little recourse if they are dissatisfied with creation of a TIF district or related funding decisions.
Planned Manufacturing Districts
Manufacturing had once been the cornerstone of cities, providing living-wage jobs for large numbers of residents and representing a substantial portion of city tax revenues. Since the 1960s, however, manufacturing has declined sharply as companies moved to the suburbs, to rural localities and, ultimately, to undeveloped nations.
To fight the loss of high-paying jobs for Chicagoans, the city developed Planned Manufacturing Districts, a special zoning designation that restricts rezoning (and, therefore, re-use) of industrial land for non-industrial uses. PMDs are intended to preserve manufacturing jobs by protecting industrial firms from encroachment by land uses incompatible with manufacturing, such as high-end loft housing. PMDs also prevent parcel-by-parcel zoning changes that can, over time, undermine the stability of Chicago’s industrial corridors.20
PMDs were intended to foster the city’s industrial base, maintain a diversified economy, strengthen existing manufacturing areas, encourage industrial investment, and help plan and direct programs and initiatives to promote growth and development of the city’s industrial employment base.21 This is evident in the most recent PMD proposal for a 273-acre Armitage Industrial Corridor, home to 100 firms that employ more than 4,000 workers. PMDs have been successful. For example, from 1988 to 2004, the number of businesses increased to 356 from 255, while jobs increased to 7,415 from 6,588 in the Goose Island, Clybourn Corridor, and Elston Corridor Planned Manufacturing Districts.22
While the city can be commended for its use of PMDs and for its decision to forgo the higher property-tax revenues it could have realized by rezoning these areas for residential or retail development, only 29 percent of jobs in all three PMDs were manufacturing jobs.23 And while manufacturing between 2000 and 2004 increased in the three PMDs while declining in the rest of the city, the added jobs tend to be light assembly work rather than the traditional heavy manufacturing jobs that pay much mores.24 Still, PMDs hold promise, and more should be created. Unfortunately, since Chicago’s first PMD was established in the Clybourn Corridor in 1988, Chicago has created only 13 more, which have received more than $1 billion in public and private investment.
In addition to creating more manufacturing districts, the city needs to provide more resources to ensure the current ones succeed. The non-profit organizations serving as liaisons between the city and manufacturers in these districts are struggling to survive. Over the past few years many have experienced decreased financial support from the city. Further, the city has been unable to provide the adequate infrastructure improvements for most PMDs to effectively attract new manufacturing businesses. Such infrastructure needs include raising aqueducts, repairing potholes and providing businesses with money to improve their building facades.
An additional concern—actually a gross violation of the very rationale for PMDs—came to light recently when a residential development was permitted in the Chicago Kinzie Industrial Corridor PMD. In fact, this district was created in 1998 for the express purpose of protecting the area from residential development. In November 2004 it was discovered that the city had allowed the first-ever residential intrusion into a PMD. Ignoring the PMD designation, city officials in 2000 had granted JMC Development a permit to build a 44-unit condominium. The permit was voided in 2004 because the work had not been completed, whereupon the city issued a new permit. City Hall rejected the Randolph/Fulton Market Association’s request for a stop-work order, saying the permits were “properly obtained.”25
More 122 localities26 and more than 30 major cities across the country have living wage ordinances intended to lift workers out of poverty by ensuring higher wages, stipulating benefits, increasing vacation days and creating hiring benchmarks.27 A living wage is a pay rate above what is considered sufficient to meet basic needs in a particular geographic area. Contractors who do business with a city or county that has a living-wage ordinance must pay their employees a set hourly rate and offer benefits as mandated in the individual living wage legislation.28
Critics of living wage laws maintain that unemployment will go up sharply in areas that enact such legislation because companies will hire fewer people rather than pay higher wages.29 But a 2002 study written by Professor David Neumark, a former skeptic of living wage laws, and published by the Public Policy Institute of California, looked at 36 municipalities with living-wage requirements, including Boston, Chicago and Detroit, and found that decreases in family poverty outweighed small job losses in jobs covered by the ordinances.30
Chicago’s City Council passed a Living Wage Ordinance in 1998, becoming the 20th area in the country to do so. This law required city contractors and those who received financial subsidies from the city to pay $7.60 per hour to clerical workers, janitors, cashiers, elevator operators, security guards, parking attendants, home and health care workers, and day laborers, which amounted to an annual raise of $5,000 for some 10,000 workers in Chicago.31 In 2002, the required pay was increased and annual indexing was added. Currently, Chicago’s living wage is set at $10 per hour.
In the summer of 2006, the City Council attempted to push the issue of living wages further with its 35-to-14 approval of the Living-Wage and Benefits Ordinance. Sponsored by Aldermen Joe Moore (49th) and Manuel Flores (1st) the ordinance would have required stores with more than 90,000 square feet and belonging to a company with more than $1 billion in annual sales pay at least $10 per hour in wages and $3 per hour in benefits. It would have prohibited discrimination in hiring of rehabilitated ex-offenders and prevented the abandonment of closed stores, both of which are serious problems in low-income communities.32
After a very tough public relations battle that pitted large businesses, including the big chains themselves, against small business, community groups, and labor, Mayor Daley vetoed the ordinance. By a small margin, his veto was sustained. Soon after the ordinance was defeated, Wal-Mart announced plans to open new stores in Chicago—four of them in wards where the aldermen voted against the ordinance and a fifth in a ward whose alderman switched her vote.
While he disapproved of the Living Wage and Benefits Ordinance, Mayor Daley championed state legislation to raise Illinois’ minimum wage to $7.50, a move set to take effect July 1, 2007. For a 40-hour work week, a minimum-wage worker in Illinois who makes $7.50 an hour can expect to earn $15,600 per year before taxes, compared with $13,520 at the current hourly minimum $6.50. This is a positive step, but much less than the $20,800 proposed under the Living Wage and Benefits Ordinance33—and a far cry from the $36,000 a year minimum required to pay for a fair market value two-bedroom apartment.34
Economic and workforce development in Chicago and elsewhere is a complex, evolving enterprise with many players—government, business, labor, community groups, educators, and the workers themselves—all trying to build economic activity and create and retain jobs. The City of Chicago has made a serious effort in this area, providing more than $13 million for work- force development—the second-largest amount in the nation among big cities—through funding of the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development (MOWD). But spending on workforce development in Chicago has dropped dramatically in recent years, reflecting cuts in federal funding, which fell to $30 million in 2006 from $49.3 million in 2002. Although the city has increased its contribution, it can’t make up for lost federal monies.35
At the heart of MOWD’s job training and employment strategy is Mayor Daley’s WorkNet, made up of more than 100 community-based organizations (WIA affiliates and CDBG providers) that deliver employment services and also may connect clients to services at Chicago’s Workforce Centers, also known as “One-Stop Centers.” Located throughout the city, these five centers provide computerized job listings, seminars in resume writing and interviewing skills, free Internet use for job searches, information on unemployment insurance, basic job-skills classes and veteran services.36 WorkNet is the pipeline through which residents can find jobs and businesses can find qualified workers. Interestingly, all WIA funding for youth was transferred in 2006 to the Chicago Department of Children and Youth Services meaning MOWD is no longer the sole department accountable for job programs provided by community organizations. The city has also begun to create workforce centers dedicated to specific job sectors—ServiceWorks for the retail and service industry and Manufacturing Works for the manufacturing industry—and plans to create service centers for health care and transportation and logistics.
The city also runs programs that address the needs of specific groups. For example, New Skill Builders gives women and minorities skills they need to apprentices in the trades. The KidStart Summer Jobs Program provides summer employment along with job-readiness training and internships to more than 10,000 youth in the public or corporate sector, or with community organizations.37
The Chicago Public Schools also is working to improve vocational training. One step toward preparing students for high-tech manufacturing careers was the approval of Austin Polytechnical Academy, a charter school spearheaded by the Center for Labor and Community Research and slated to open in September 2007.38 The school is intended to prepare students to be high-skilled production workers as well as manufacturing- plant owners and managers. In addition to high school-diplomas, students work toward industrial certificates in such areas as electronics, metal-working and logistics. Studies will be enhanced by student internships with Chicago-area manufacturers.39 Unfortunately, thousands of next-generation workers—some 90,000 who are neither in school nor employed—need a “second chance.”40 A major challenge to workforce development in Chicago is the need to improve communication and efficiency among various components of the system. Further, economic development has tended to occur without consideration of workplace development, even when TIF funding is available for this purpose—so not allocated funds go unspent. And whereas the city has invested significantly in workforce development, it hasn’t allocated resources equitably throughout all communities. Funding for job readiness, job-placement programs and vocational-training programs is fairly evenly distributed, but adult-education programs—the GED and ESL classes that are a critical first step for many individuals—are virtually nonexistent in sizable portions of the city.41
Specific groups are not well served by the current system, particularly veterans, seniors, immigrants, the homeless and ex-offenders. Chicago’s Workforce Centers are of little benefit to people with poor English skills or those who haven’t completed high school—including many immigrants, who make up the largest group entering the workforce here. Those with multiple barriers to employment—substance-abuse problems or long-term unemployment (which often includes homeless people and ex-offenders) often need a long-term, specialized effort to become employable. They may need several job placements, more intensive training and skill building. A handful of agencies work with of the hard-to-place, but there are not enough of them.42
While on the surface Chicago has an admirable structure in place to create and connect people to jobs, little data is available on how many residents are being helped. Community-based organizations find tracking clients expensive and time-consuming, so it not being done in any comprehensive manner. It therefore is hard to evaluate the programs of the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development.
Another concern is the disconnect between MOWD and the Department of Planning, which often supports businesses without taking into account their labor policies and practices. Further, MOWD often doesn’t work with the Department of Planning to help companies with good labor practices access the support necessary to ensure success.
As Chicago uses tools like TIF and PMDs to attract and retain solid manufacturing jobs, it in turn must be able to produce skilled workers to function in these well-paying positions. This will not be easy, given that 41 percent of Chicago’s current workforce will retire within 15 years, while 46 percent of Chicago’s high-school population never makes it to graduation. The choices appear clear—either manufacturing jobs continue to slip away and an uneducated population tries to scrape by on the low-end salaries offered in the service sector or the city digs in its heels, commits to restoring Chicago as a leader in skilled manufacturing and finds innovative and productive ways to produce skilled workers.
The Daley Administration has fought fiercely to expand and reconfigure O’Hare Airport to preserve Chicago’s standing as the nation’s leading transportation hub. The O’Hare Modernization Program (OMP), which was green-lighted by federal legislation and received final FAA approval in September 2005, will eliminate intersecting runways, create a western terminal with more gates and parking, and connect the new terminal facility with O’Hare’s main terminal with a “people mover.”43
City spokesmen say the expansion is needed to reduce delays and increase airport capacity. Upon completion in 2013, they claim, it will support 185,000 more jobs and generate an additional $18 billion annually in economic activity for the region.44 The project is projected to cost $6.6 billion; however, critics say the final tally may approach 20 billion.45 Complete funding for the OMP is not in place, although the city says it will be paid through revenue bonds, federal grants and airport fees, not increased local taxes. Some $642 million in construction contracts was scheduled to be awarded in the first 15 months of the project, beginning in September 2005, and another $621 million will be given in 2007.46
An enlarged O’Hare is expected to handle as many as 700,000 flights per year. However, critics, including the Aviation Integrity Project, claim that Chicago airspace already is so crowded, that increased gridlock in the sky will result within a few years of project completion.
Some predict that O’Hare’s notorious delays will be mitigated only slightly by the expansion—decreasing to 5 minutes from today’s delays of 15 to 20 minutes, an improvement they consider minimal given its huge cost in dollars and inconvenience to nearby residents.47
Since the inception of the O’Hare Modernization Program, transportation experts have voiced concern that the project had more to do with generating large contracts political allies than with bringing true economic benefit to the region.48 The Aviation Integrity Project claims the contracts are driving the push for airport expansion, not the oft-touted economic development the plan would bring to the O’Hare vicinity. In fact, the group points out, the area is already crowded with businesses, many of which will be bulldozed for the new runways.49
Residents of the northwest suburbs of Des Plaines, Bensonville, and Elk Grove Village have voiced concern that their communities will be irreparably harmed, because the plan includes the destruction of 539 homes, 109 businesses, and a cemetery with 1,300 graves, which will be moved.50 Critics also charge that business interests, in particular United and American airlines and contractors positioned to reap millions, strategically timed campaign contributions to essentially “buy” the support of politicians, including then-U.S. Rep. William Lipinski and then-Gov. George Ryan, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, and U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk. Residents near O’Hare, overwhelmingly opposed the expansion.51
A notable lack of opportunity for public debate over economic development and transportation priorities for the region also has been cited as troublesome. Alternatives to air travel were not publicly discussed, despite studies showing that high-speed rail lines between Midwestern cities could deflect thousands of travelers from airports each year, as they do in Europe.52 Area residents largely have been cut out of the decision-making process and told to trust the politicians. Slick public-relations efforts costing millions of dollars have sought to marginalize opponents. By not using federal funding, the city has avoided hearings and competitive bidding. When local dissent became too noisy, project approval was achieved through federal legislation.53
A viable alternative to O’Hare expansion, construction of a third regional airport in Peotone, has been floated over the past few years. A new airport could benefit the region by providing travel options for the growing population south of the city and increasing competition among airports.54 Its proponents charged that Chicago was determined to kill the Peotone plan because a new airport located outside the city limits would lead to a regional aviation authority that would wrest power away from the city&mdash, along with contracts and jobs.55
Since construction began in late 2005, new questions are being raised about the O’Hare Modernization Project. The sheer magnitude of the contracts being awarded is staggering and begs for an oversight process where none exists. In only one year, the project already has run $400 million over budget— OMP executive director Rosemarie Andolino called the increases a “hiccup,” attributing them to the expense of fighting lawsuits filed by expansion opponents and to increasing land-acquisition costs.56
The issue of how to help ex-offenders reenter society is of huge importance in many Chicago neighborhoods. More than 35,000 individuals were released from incarceration in Illinois in 2003—an increase of almost 29,000 just three years earlier. Further, more than half of the individuals leaving Illinois prisons move to Chicago, concentrating in six low-income Chicago neighborhoods.
Illinois’ recidivism rate (rate of returning to prison) is currently the highest in Illinois history, with 54 percent of incarcerated individuals returning to prison within three years. This is due in large part to the many challenges that released prisoners face. Perhaps the top determining factor is whether the ex-offender obtains employment. Statistics show that ex-offenders have a very difficult time getting hired. Only 14 percent of incarcerated individuals have a job lined up after release. Many do not have the necessary education or job skills. The problem is compounded by the fact that state law bars certain ex-offenders from employment in certain job fields, including some that are obvious, like driving a school bus, and some that are not-so-obvious, like cutting hair. But the stigma of prison is the biggest problem – in a study which asked potential employers whether they would hire a former prisoner, 60 percent said no. All these factors create a huge barrier to employment and of those that didn’t go back to jail and 60 percent of former inmates are still unemployed one year after their release.
Mayor Daley’s administration took a step in addressing this issue in 2004 when he appointed the Mayor’s Policy Caucus on Prisoner Reentry. The Caucus, composed of individuals from government, academia, foundations, advocacy groups, as well as former prisoners and their families, released its final report in January 2006, entitled “Rebuilding Lives. Restoring Hope. Strengthening Communities.”
Among the Report’s recommendations is that the City of Chicago, as one of the largest employers in the area, become a model employer of ex-offenders by establishing internal hiring guidelines for personnel policies and advocate for fair employment standards. The city could demand fair hiring practices of its contractors and encourage other Chicago employers to follow them as well.
In addition to the Caucus, the city began to help ex-offenders obtain “transitional jobs” that ease them into the private sector. In October 2006, the Mayor announced that several city departments, including Streets and Sanitation, Water Management, and General Services, would begin hiring ex-offenders to perform jobs that had been assigned to private contractors, including snow removal and hydrant and curb painting. As many as 110 former prisoners would be hired at between $7 and $9 per hour, for a period of time between 6 and 18 months. In addition, the city would work to help these individuals find permanent jobs in the private sector. The city’s prisoner re-entry initiatives total over $4.3 million, with another $4 million earmarked for future projects including $500,000 in customized training programs and another $400,000 to support non-profit businesses or social enterprises that provide support services, such as case management and substance-abuse treatment, for ex-offenders and help them learn skills in a real work environment. Although this will assist a relatively small amount of ex-offenders, it is move in the right direction, and the city should be commended for taking a step that is considered to be, in some circles, a controversial step.
Planned Manufacturing Districts
PMDs have the potential to preserve manufacturing jobs and even energize that sector by encouraging development of light manufacturing businesses. These designations should be encouraged and supported by the city.
Living Wages
Chicago had the opportunity to enact a law that would have required large retail corporations to pay their workers a living wage and benefits. This legislation, which would have greatly benefited low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, passed the city council but was vetoed by the mayor.
Tax Increment Financing
The typical Chicago taxpayer’s property tax bill is nearly 10 percent higher because of the city’s nearly 130 TIF districts. At least 10 percent of the city’s tax base is tied up in TIFs, meaning that new growth in those areas does not fund basic city services. Chicago is grossly overusing Tax Increment Financing as a development tool; as a result, tax rates are increasing while the cost of government services is escalating.
Employment and Job Training
Chicago has put significant effort into job creation, training, and economic development, but these efforts often fail to reach those who need it most.
O’Hare Modernization
Many doubt that the O’Hare plan will alleviate Chicago’s air congestion or supply the jobs that have been promised. Meanwhile, the plan has gone over budget and is rife with patronage and corruption.
Ex-Offenders
The city has taken initiative on re-entry and ex-offender issues by launching a program that will employ a small number of ex-offenders. This is to its credit. The initiative should be expanded, and the city should find incentives for businesses to hire ex-offenders, and advocate for reform on the county and state levels.
Economic development is a complex issue, which the city is attempting to address on many levels. Its support of Planned Manufacturing Districts is promising, and the infrastructure is in place to provide needed services and job training. However, those programs often don’t reach those who need it most, though they are initiating a promising job program for ex-offenders.
Unfortunately, Chicago has come to rely too much upon Tax-Increment Financing districts and not enough on programs like PMDs. Meanwhile, the O’Hare modernization project crosses the line, having become a significant corruption issue with its patronage, misrepresentation and bloated budgets.
The City of Chicago earns: C+
With a continued commitment to progress and a tightening of the pollution rules on the coal plants by the state, Chicago’s environmental future looks good.