From vacant storefronts on Michigan Avenue to high-profile exits from some corporate headquarters to the closure of neighborhood grocery stores, Chicago’s economy has been challenged by both the pandemic and crime.
As Mayor Lori Lightfoot seeks a second term, her rivals blame her for the city’s economic woes.
Lightfoot described herself in this campaign as a “pro-Chicago-business” type mayor. But under her watch, big corporations like Boeing and Citadel left the city at a time when a prominent CEO was describing Chicago as a crime-ridden city “in crisis.”
Exhibit A of this argument is Chicago’s prized North Michigan Avenue, the world-famous shopping district now riddled with proliferating empty storefronts and waves of auto thefts, retail thefts and robberies.
Among Lightfoot’s accomplishments, Chicago continues to be a growing hub for tech startups. And last July, she joined Gov. JB Pritzker to announce that Google had acquired the state-owned James R. Thompson Center to renovate it.
She also secured a long-elusive casino for Chicago that is expected to generate nearly $180 million in annual tourism-related impact for the city, and signed a three-year deal to bring NASCAR to the city.
And in a targeted economic boost for the poor, Lightfoot introduced a guaranteed basic income program for 5,000 residents out of 176,000 who claimed the benefit.
More broadly, the Chicago area has seen inflation fall every month since June. But unemployment in the region, at 4.4% at the end of November, lags behind several major city rivals including New York, Houston and Los Angeles.
Bridges across the Chicago River are being lifted after overnight looting erupted in the Loop and surrounding neighborhoods in August 2020.
Ashlee Rezin /Sun Times file
“We are not back to where we were before COVID. And we really need to understand that Chicago is a safe and prosperous place for people to do business,” said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, later adding, “We haven’t seen the level of growth that some of them are having have seen the great cities.”
As Lightfoot seeks re-election, she and her eight rivals diverge over how to revitalize the economy and restore downtown.
Mixing the corporate headquarters
Whenever Chicago goes to the bond market to borrow money, one of the advantages it offers potential investors is 16 Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies headquartered in the Chicago area.
In the past two years, several major companies, including Google, have announced major expansions in the city. But it’s also come because others have left the city behind, with crime being at least part of the movement.
Last May, the Boeing Company announced that it would be moving its headquarters from Chicago to Virginia.
A month later, the Citadel hedge fund and trading firm Citadel Securities announced it was moving its headquarters from Chicago to Miami after the firm’s billionaire Kenneth Griffin taunted the city as “Afghanistan on a good day.”
Citywide homicides in 2022 are down 14% from the year before, according to Chicago Police data.
But Jack Lavin, president and CEO of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, says crime is the #1 problem facing businesses in Chicago.
A pedestrian walks across Michigan Avenue, a few blocks north of the Michigan Avenue elevated bridge over the Chicago River, in August 2020 after overnight vandalism in Chicago.
Charles Rex Arbogast/` file
“I think that’s going to be the biggest challenge for the future of our economy and the next mayor,” Lavin said.
For her part, Lightfoot vouches for her crime-fighting efforts and sees nothing but positives about her economic record.
“Chicago is a great destination for business,” Lightfoot said during Thursday night’s ABC7/League of Women Voters mayoral debate. “We have a very diverse economy, and people know they have me as mayor who is pro-Chicago business,” she said.
Fight downtown
The mayor has completed construction of a casino on the site of the Chicago Tribune’s River West Printing Center and a deal to bring NASCAR racing to Grant Park — initiatives the city believes will translate hundreds of millions of dollars into local economy could pump.
But crime, pandemic-related store closures, and rising online consumer demand have tarnished what has been one of the city’s most lurid economic gems for decades. According to data from Cushman & Wakefield, a Chicago-based commercial real estate services company, Michigan Avenue’s retail vacancy rate was more than 30% at the end of 2022.
That vacancy rate has more than doubled since 2019, when Lightfoot took office, and is more than eight times higher than in 2016, according to the same data.
The candidates all see the problem, but differ in the solution.
Mayoral candidates (from left) Community activist Ja’Mal Green, Ald. Sophia King (4th), State Rep. Kam Buckner, Businessman Wille Wilson, Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, Former CEO of Chicago Public Schools Paul Vallas, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th) and US Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia prepare to take part in a debate in the WLS-TV ABC Channel 7 studio last week.
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun Times file
Activist Ja’Mal Green proposed revitalizing the corridor as an “experience strip” with Parisian-style cafes, a pedestrian bridge connecting to Oak Street Beach and helipads for sightseeing flights around the city.
Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th) said that residents’ fear of crime is preventing them from visiting restaurants and theaters, and he pointed out supporting investment in the city’s hospitality industry “which is really the backbone of our economy” .
Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson said that while downtown should adapt to a post-pandemic landscape, office and commercial space could instead be converted to residential space – something Lightfoot’s administration for the LaSalle Street corridor in the Loop is encouraging .
Ald. Sophia King (4.) criticized Lightfoot’s negotiating style as the main reason for the high-profile company exits.
Businessman Willie Wilson has blamed the problem on young people who are clamoring for “economic empowerment” in the city.
“A lot of people won’t be on the streets if they have something they love to do,” he said.
Invest in neighborhoods
But the economic struggles that downtown has endured have been felt across the city.
Lightfoot has made community development a cornerstone of its governance through its INVEST South/West program, through which it boasts $2.2 billion in public and private investment on the South and West Sides.
“It has supported high-paying union jobs in construction, created new opportunities for small businesses and created new affordable housing for working families,” Lightfoot told WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times.
However, the program has been criticized for a lack of community engagement and recognition of projects already undertaken before she took office.
Five competitors told WBEZ and the Sun-Times that they would not continue INVEST South/West. US Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García criticized the program as “a holdover from the Emanuel administration with a Lightfoot trademark.”
However, Lightfoot received support from its opponents for a $31.5 million guaranteed income pilot program that started last year, with five of its opponents saying they would continue the program.
A customer exits Whole Foods on Englewood Square in the Englewood neighborhood last year after the company announced that store would be closing in the coming months.
Pat Nabong/Sun Times file
However, basic economic problems persist in some Chicago neighborhoods, including a shortage of grocery stores.
In November, Whole Foods closed its Englewood grocery store after the city used taxpayer money to lure the grocer to 63rd and Halsted Streets six years ago.
“They’re taking TIF money, which is our tax money, and building things that they know aren’t sustainable,” said Ashley Johnson, the program manager of Re-Up, an economic development program of the Resident Association of Greater Englewood. “And now we kind of don’t have a grocery store anymore.”
Johnson, who is not related to the county commissioner running for mayor, grew up watching her large extended family slowly leave the place they once called home.
“Many of them didn’t want to raise their families in a community where they didn’t feel they would reach adulthood or get a proper education,” she said. “Which is sad.”
Dave McKinney reports on Illinois politics and government for WBEZ. Tessa Weinberg reports on city politics and government for WBEZ.
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