[From article]
Emanuel’s Chicago has regularly been cited for innovation in the use of technology and data in government.
[. . .]
During the “lost decade” of the 2000s, Chicago saw more than 200,000 residents head for the exits. The Loop shed 18.6 percent of its private-sector jobs; the Chicagoland region lost more than 300,000 jobs. Debt soared.
[. . .]
Chicago can be seen, Saunders suggests, as “one-third San Francisco, two-thirds Detroit.”
[. . .]
Chicago is also uniquely burdened among major American cities by its twin deficits. Both the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago are in dire financial condition. Illinois’s unfunded pension liability stands at $111 billion. It owes another $56 billion in unfunded retiree health-care obligations. Chicago itself faces $35 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. The total liability for all local government obligations adds up to as much as $83,000 per household.
[. . .]
It’s a one-party town, and anyone who challenges the party line risks excommunication. Chicagoans don’t understand the city’s position because no one has explained it to them. Bathed in a nonstop stream of civic pronouncements about their amazingly awesome global city, many residents think Chicago is just like London, New York, and San Francisco.
[. . .]
He manages the local media with Washington-style spin control. He’s also shown a lack of regard for the optics of leadership.
http://www.city-journal.org/2015/eon0226ar.html
AARON M. RENN
Rahm’s Runoff
Chicago’s problems run deeper than many in the city want to acknowledge.
26 February 2015
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