Thanks for the very insightful article. I was the alderman for the 46th Ward when the proposal on Weiss Hospital's asphalt parking lot at 4600 N. Clarendon was going through the Zoning Committee. CTU was adamantly opposed to it. I also recall a professor from UIC submitting a research paper that she claimed proved that more market-rate housing in Uptown would drive people with lower incomes out of the neighborhood.
In the research article that the professor submitted as proof, it discussed six different studies highlighting the impact of building more market-rate housing. Five of the six studies highlighted in the report stated that rents dropped as a result of new market-rate developments, while one was inconclusive. Her opinion wouldn't budge when I pointed this out to her. I was confused that a professor couldn't be swayed by research that she submitted to sway me.
I now see polarization as the major culprit, with one side focused on defeating the other. That renders them unable to view anything that even slightly goes against their narrative. Anyone who views the world as a place where one must engage in a battle to defeat their defined enemy is not going to respond to a reasoned debate. The problem is that the best solutions often emerge when people with different viewpoints come together to collaborate. Still, the narrative that calls for defeating one's enemy prevents those reasonable solutions from surfacing.
Great article, per usual. I have a few other theories for why unions don't back growth policies, both of which are underpinned by the fact that union members are just normal citizens subject to the same logical fallacies as the population generally.
1) I think there's a widely held belief amongst Chicagoans (and left leaning Americans generally) that most of our financial woes can be solved by new or increased taxes, and any suggestion to the contrary is heretical and in defense of corporations over everyday citizens, which doesn't make for good union optics.
2) I think that NIMBY-ism is the natural place for people to land if you believe that people are intrinsically self-interested (which I do), so advocating for growth is advocating against people in defense of landlords and developers, which also does not make for good union optics.
Both of these rationales are a) politically powerful and b) destructive. I'd love to hear your thoughts if you disagree though!
Chicago can't file for bankruptcy under State law. It's called the Financially Distressed Municipality law. I'll send my analysis later, but look it up.
I respect the public sector unions, but self interest rules there too. That's why Chicago has 100 schools that are less than 1/3 full yet have complete admin staffs.
Agreed for sure! Just seems to me that pro-growth policies should be in their self interest; it's easier to defend those admin staffs if we got the schools closer to filled.
In California, public sector unions often don’t endorse pro-growth housing bills in deference to the Building and Construction Trades unions. The Trades, private sector construction unions, regularly oppose major housing bills for not including strong enough union-first labor requirements
Recently, the biggest construction union, the Carpenters, left the Trades in part because the Carpenters were willing to accept looser labor standards in the hopes of spurring more growth and jobs overall. But that hasn’t been enough to pull more public sector unions off the fence
My understanding is that even should Chicago declare bankruptcy, we would still be in the hook for the full value of the pensions due to the Illinois Constitution.
There's an unfortunate precedent here in the form of Harvey, IL, which neglected its pension to the point where it was forced to lay off about half its public safety personnel in order to make payments.
Note that this is still a very bad outcome for unions!
So there's definitely some open questions here, mainly because cities in Illinois are not currently able to file for bankruptcy at all, which makes it hard to know exactly how a bankruptcy would play out.
My understanding though is that in an actual bankruptcy proceeding, a pension would be treated like any other contract / contractually guaranteed payment - which is to say they're still subject to the bankruptcy proceeding and at the risk of taking writedowns. Historically pensioners have been treated much better than bondholders in most municipal bankruptcies, but they're still not risk-free here.
The Harvey example is truly telling. And while pensions are codified in the constitution, laws can change. Elections have consequences. If our leaders and advocates keep ignoring the problem, eventually voters will sideline them and the consequences will be far far worse for these constituencies that don't seem to want to help
Ive said this before, mainly on reddit and other spaces, but Chicago needs a large, pro urbanism coalition. We have to build it. So many of the city's issues could be solved with better city building but too many people and stake holders are completely oblivious to these issues!
AccessiblyUrban makes the point that these people are juat regilar, everyday, Americans. They are beyond ignorant of urban issues. We have to find a way to get these to the public as a whole.
We need to tie, crime, budgets, traffic, quality of life, and more into one, large, comprehensive vision of a better city for all that will solve most of our issues
Excellent take. It really is mystifying that everyone keeps taking a "can't someone else do it" approach when it's clearly an "all hands on deck" moment
As someone from the burbs, I can be called a NIMBY often, but I know that what's good for the city is good for me, too - and the city is already dense, so why so much pushback for policies that could use that density to your advantage to grow the economic base?
Just because pensions are codified into law doesn't mean that's permanent. Laws change. Elections have consequences. And as you mentioned, cities CAN go bankrupt and then everyone loses.
I'm the son of a Teamster. I support unions looking out for #1. But to sit out the conversation seems short-sighted. This problem isn't going away, and the state can't print money to bail out Chicago or Cook County. You need to help yourselves. Drop the ideological worldview and figure out what's going to work that won't saddle residents with service cuts and yet higher taxes
Thanks for the very insightful article. I was the alderman for the 46th Ward when the proposal on Weiss Hospital's asphalt parking lot at 4600 N. Clarendon was going through the Zoning Committee. CTU was adamantly opposed to it. I also recall a professor from UIC submitting a research paper that she claimed proved that more market-rate housing in Uptown would drive people with lower incomes out of the neighborhood.
In the research article that the professor submitted as proof, it discussed six different studies highlighting the impact of building more market-rate housing. Five of the six studies highlighted in the report stated that rents dropped as a result of new market-rate developments, while one was inconclusive. Her opinion wouldn't budge when I pointed this out to her. I was confused that a professor couldn't be swayed by research that she submitted to sway me.
I now see polarization as the major culprit, with one side focused on defeating the other. That renders them unable to view anything that even slightly goes against their narrative. Anyone who views the world as a place where one must engage in a battle to defeat their defined enemy is not going to respond to a reasoned debate. The problem is that the best solutions often emerge when people with different viewpoints come together to collaborate. Still, the narrative that calls for defeating one's enemy prevents those reasonable solutions from surfacing.
I assume that was the UCLA review... which I thought did a nice job making the case for the Hospital! https://chi.streetsblog.org/2022/08/26/activists-are-blocking-the-development-of-a-parking-lot-is-that-the-best-way-to-stop-displacement
Yes, I read the report that the professor suggested with the hope of providing some insight into any blind spots I might hold.
Great article, per usual. I have a few other theories for why unions don't back growth policies, both of which are underpinned by the fact that union members are just normal citizens subject to the same logical fallacies as the population generally.
1) I think there's a widely held belief amongst Chicagoans (and left leaning Americans generally) that most of our financial woes can be solved by new or increased taxes, and any suggestion to the contrary is heretical and in defense of corporations over everyday citizens, which doesn't make for good union optics.
2) I think that NIMBY-ism is the natural place for people to land if you believe that people are intrinsically self-interested (which I do), so advocating for growth is advocating against people in defense of landlords and developers, which also does not make for good union optics.
Both of these rationales are a) politically powerful and b) destructive. I'd love to hear your thoughts if you disagree though!
Chicago can't file for bankruptcy under State law. It's called the Financially Distressed Municipality law. I'll send my analysis later, but look it up.
I respect the public sector unions, but self interest rules there too. That's why Chicago has 100 schools that are less than 1/3 full yet have complete admin staffs.
Agreed for sure! Just seems to me that pro-growth policies should be in their self interest; it's easier to defend those admin staffs if we got the schools closer to filled.
In California, public sector unions often don’t endorse pro-growth housing bills in deference to the Building and Construction Trades unions. The Trades, private sector construction unions, regularly oppose major housing bills for not including strong enough union-first labor requirements
Recently, the biggest construction union, the Carpenters, left the Trades in part because the Carpenters were willing to accept looser labor standards in the hopes of spurring more growth and jobs overall. But that hasn’t been enough to pull more public sector unions off the fence
I wrote about the split among the unions (and other parts of the Democratic Party) here if anyone is interested: https://jeremyl.substack.com/p/the-democratic-civil-war-is-here
My understanding is that even should Chicago declare bankruptcy, we would still be in the hook for the full value of the pensions due to the Illinois Constitution.
There's an unfortunate precedent here in the form of Harvey, IL, which neglected its pension to the point where it was forced to lay off about half its public safety personnel in order to make payments.
Note that this is still a very bad outcome for unions!
Sources:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2017/08/19/harvey-firefighters-pension-on-collision-course-with-bankruptcy-appeals-court-says/
https://abc7chicago.com/harvey-il-news-police/3322684/
So there's definitely some open questions here, mainly because cities in Illinois are not currently able to file for bankruptcy at all, which makes it hard to know exactly how a bankruptcy would play out.
My understanding though is that in an actual bankruptcy proceeding, a pension would be treated like any other contract / contractually guaranteed payment - which is to say they're still subject to the bankruptcy proceeding and at the risk of taking writedowns. Historically pensioners have been treated much better than bondholders in most municipal bankruptcies, but they're still not risk-free here.
I had an interview with Prof. David Schleicher which touched on this a little bit: https://citythatworks.substack.com/p/municipal-bankruptcy-and-chicago
The Harvey example is truly telling. And while pensions are codified in the constitution, laws can change. Elections have consequences. If our leaders and advocates keep ignoring the problem, eventually voters will sideline them and the consequences will be far far worse for these constituencies that don't seem to want to help
Ive said this before, mainly on reddit and other spaces, but Chicago needs a large, pro urbanism coalition. We have to build it. So many of the city's issues could be solved with better city building but too many people and stake holders are completely oblivious to these issues!
AccessiblyUrban makes the point that these people are juat regilar, everyday, Americans. They are beyond ignorant of urban issues. We have to find a way to get these to the public as a whole.
We need to tie, crime, budgets, traffic, quality of life, and more into one, large, comprehensive vision of a better city for all that will solve most of our issues
Great article Conor. Once Chicago is no longer afraid of being pro-business we will start to grow.
Excellent take. It really is mystifying that everyone keeps taking a "can't someone else do it" approach when it's clearly an "all hands on deck" moment
As someone from the burbs, I can be called a NIMBY often, but I know that what's good for the city is good for me, too - and the city is already dense, so why so much pushback for policies that could use that density to your advantage to grow the economic base?
Just because pensions are codified into law doesn't mean that's permanent. Laws change. Elections have consequences. And as you mentioned, cities CAN go bankrupt and then everyone loses.
I'm the son of a Teamster. I support unions looking out for #1. But to sit out the conversation seems short-sighted. This problem isn't going away, and the state can't print money to bail out Chicago or Cook County. You need to help yourselves. Drop the ideological worldview and figure out what's going to work that won't saddle residents with service cuts and yet higher taxes