“After the Indian summer comes the winter.”
–Consultant Jared Shlaes, Chicago Tribune, March 29, 1980.
That chilling quote appeared in “City on the Brink,” a Tribune series that predicted Chicago’s failing schools, cratering industrial sector, political instability and neglect of its neighborhoods would lead to a death spiral.
Such cities “become irrelevant. Business moves away. So do the best young people. The population ages. The city becomes a backwater. This is the way Chicago is heading,” the Tribune wrote. The prognosis: Chicago had to act or it would end up in the graveyard with other Rust Belt dinosaurs.
Fortunately, the most dire predictions in that series didn’t come true. The city found political stability and took advantage of a booming U.S. economy in the 1990s.
It is, however, still a city that faces enormous challenges.
The U.S. Census Bureau gave Chicago a reality check last week. New data showed the city lost 200,000 residents in the last decade, a 6.9 percent decline. Chicago’s lost more than the entire population of Illinois’ second largest city, Aurora.
A Mexican immigration wave that fueled growth in the 1990s has subsided. Researchers expected those immigrants to bring more growth as they had children. Instead, immigrants are moving from Chicago to the suburbs or bypassing the city entirely. That 1990s influx looks like the exception to a long and steady rule. Chicago has lost population in five of the last six decades. It has fewer people now than it did in 1920.
The city government faces a yawning debt and unfunded pension obligations. It is spending beyond its means. A city that has fewer citizens has fewer potential wage-earners available to support it.
Many residents fear that the dream of safe, sustainable neighborhoods is slipping further from reach. A Tribune/WGN poll last year found that 45 percent of residents thought the city’s quality of life had gotten worse in the past decade, compared with 25 percent who thought it had improved.
On Tuesday, Chicago will hold an election for mayor, the first one since 1947 without an incumbent on the ballot. Unfortunately, the campaign has failed to capture the urgency of the financial problems this city faces.
Chicago’s next mayor has to make some hard spending decisions, has to retool city government for a smaller population and taxpayer base. The mayor has to create the kind of public schools that parents want … and are moving elsewhere to find. Applications for charter schools outpace the number of openings by 10 to 1. The mayor has to figure out why the flight of citizens has been alarmingly high in some Chicago neighborhoods. The mayor has to make sure Chicago stays economically competitive with Bolingbrook and Birmingham and Beijing.
The Tribune has endorsed Rahm Emanuel for mayor. You can read all the reasons why at Chicagotribune.com/elections, but we’ll cite two here. He would bring vast problem-solving experience on the national and world stage, and he has been more candid than his opponents have been about what it will take to meet the economic challenges facing the city.
We have also endorsed a diverse field of candidates for alderman, choosing candidates who have the best grasp of these challenges, the best answers about how to resolve them.
The good news: Chicago is far better positioned for the future than it was during its wrenching Rust Belt days of 1980. The city’s economy is more diverse, and its urban environment richer in the amenities that attract a talented work force, from parks to culture. As corporate headquarters scaled down across the country, Chicago became a global center for back-office operations and business services such as corporate law firms. Its central location and status as a transportation hub give it a crucial advantage going forward. That’s why we need to get the expansion of O’Hare International Airport back on track, pronto.
Chicago can’t be complacent. That big population loss is a worrying sign. Chicago has a job to do. It starts with the vote on Tuesday.
