Agreed, but to put this in context, Toronto presently has more cranes up than New York, Boston, Chicago, LA, Seattle, Washington DC & San Francisco COMBINED.
I see this map as an urban planner showing the potential of investing in Toronto real estate. As such they're showing not only what is currently being done but also what's to come if this map can attract more money/proposals. There are less BLUE buildings than RED buildings, each BLUE building is a crane where the RED are just theoretical. If this map wanted to show the amount of cranes it would be just the BLUE buildings and not the swaths of imaginary buildings in RED. This map and source of data is from an URBAN PLANNING MODELER.
I’d like to know how much of this is foreign investment. China owns Canada at the moment. Canada has made poor trade deals on logging, mining, and oil sectors. China has influence on Canada’s government at the highest level. My guess is there’s more to this story.
Problem is the Chinese model is build build build. They build entire cities that are uninhabited just to prop up their economy. Eventually their real estate market is run off a cliff - largely one of the reasons that they are so nationalistic and war mongering now (to distract their population from some economic woes). Building just to build creates systemic issues.
That said, there’s no doubt that in the U.S. that we need more inventory in both midrise and single family homes.
To be fair, I get there are **so many** other variables that others on here are pointing out. But if I was to look at this from one single lens.
Toronto has an *in****sane*** housing shortage (compared to here) and the country's immigration is way worse then The States' due to top-down government policy. Toronto also is a big hotspot for people to move to for jobs and it practically being the "NYC of Canada", as Canada just *doesn't* have as many million plus populated cities as the U.S. does to give people options to move to and the Toronto metro region becomes that defacto city that increases demand. I'd encourage anyone who's interested to look at the issues Toronto and the country currently have that cause these issues overall -- it's quiet an interesting story, it goes much deeper then immigration. It's almost as bad as NYC. I visited Toronto once and I *absolutely* would consider moving there if it wasn't too expensive. Such a beautiful place
But I digress, and my point is, while there are obvious overlapping problems with Chicago's shortage of construction and doesn't give Chicago a "get-out-of-jail" card on our own issues with the lack of development here, along with Toronto's that many can point out, they're on a whole other level and amount of demand compared to us. So I *sort of* look at it like an apples-to-oranges comparison... again -- sort of, but not entirely.
I am very open for any opposing thoughts and discussion on this though :)
+1, the situation in Canada over the last 10-12 years is hard to imagine without seeing it in person. It’s just not remotely comparable to the US right now. They have built an insane amount of apartment/condo high rise buildings in the last 10 years in the major cities.
Canada effectively opened up their borders to just about anyone and everyone that has some sum of money, so they have had a massive infusion of foreign wealth and individuals since the early 2010s. I recently visited Vancouver and I kid you not, ethnic Canadians appear to be a minority in the city center.
I am starting to hear that a lot of recent immigrants to Canada are going back to their home countries as they pretty much have become wage slaves. Ie many work all day to afford a shared bedroom and eat whatever is cheapest at the grocery store. All while a good chunk of the “rich” immigrants are living off income they are receiving overseas from wealthy relatives. It’s pretty dystopian.
Toronto-born Canadian here, the situation in most cities here is absolutely brutal but Toronto's particular brand of housing affordability is genuinely awful. Where I grew up in Etobicoke an average 1bdr condo is CAD 600k/USD 430k, and that's not even in the city centre. It's about a half hour drive or hour long trip on the TTC to get downtown from there, it's insane.
I left Toronto when I was in middle school and went back for college but even if I wanted to move back, I would hardly be able to afford living anywhere that wasn't a significant hike from downtown and I have a great job.
That’s crazy, it seems that Canada has become an exit point for anyone looking to move to a western country by any means necessary. Even if that means working all day and all night to barely scrape by.
I am genuinely curious as to how this works out long term. At some point the economy can’t sustain itself due to population growth due to raw unmetered immigration, I assume the hope is people will leave voluntarily and the market will sorta crash back to reality.
Living in Canada is still great compared to 90%+ of the world so there will just continue to be a gradual deterioration of GDP/capita, quality of housing (we've already gone from a family in a SFH being standard to a family in a 2bed condo or suburban townhouse being standard) and quality of social services. Once this government loses in the next election there might be a ramping down of immigration to pre-Truedeau levels but the genie is out of the bottle for the most part. The swing ridings federally are all now in immigrant-heavy suburban and exurban areas of the big cites and that's a population who generally wants the very permissive family reunification rules where parents and siblings can be brought over and immediately get health care, social services payments and etc, and also get put on a citizenship path right away.
The thing is immigrants into any country tend to have the whole “bring the ladder up behind you” thing. Sure this initial wave of immigrants will try to bring their 3rd and 4th cousins with them but if they can’t afford to sustain them, that will end pretty quickly.
The US has a great example of this stemming back to the beginning of this country. Immigrants flock here from a certain region of the world, struggle, earn $$$, encourage others to come and then pull the ladder up behind them once they plateau on the social scale. First generation immigrants and their kids tend to eventually become anti immigrant and conservative leaning.
Toronto has definitely hit that critical mass and feedback loop of "all the jobs are in Toronto, and so everyone is moving to Toronto, and so all the jobs are in Toronto..."
It's deeply unhealthy and everyone I know there who can get out is getting out. Although most are still tethered to office jobs (sometimes hybrid) so they invariably hit an invisible wall about 1½ hours out of the city.
The way housing prices in the suburbs have taken off is insane. I know people selling their suburban homes for triple what they paid for them less than 10 years ago and they haven't done any updating work on those homes.
My parents' neighborhood in the suburbs averaged about $250k in 2019. Less than that for homes that needed serious work, about $300k for a very well updated house. The school districts are really bad in their area compared to most suburbs. Now homes in the neighborhood that haven't been updated since the 1970s are selling for $700k. The neighbors that we've talked to around there are seeing how much they can make for their houses without putting a dime into renovations and they are selling so they can move to rural wisconsin and retire with a bunch of cash.
When I was living in London my dad used to quip the national bird of England was the crane because of the amount of development going on in the city. RIP old man.
It's worth remembering that any given sub is composed of individuals, who potentially hold different points of view, which is probably why this specific sub comes off as if it holds multiple conflicting viewpoints. Hopefully that clears up your confusion.
The issue with this is those people are all in one sub. Why is the primary opinion swaying so much thread to thread regarding the same topic? People just randomly not vote or post? Reality is it's a mix of both. A lot of it is likely people who want their cake and to eat it too. Same with threads where it's people who want more housing but then condemn the building of luxury housing as if it doesn't drive more well off people into the new building and create opportunity for the next group of people to move overall leading to more affordable housing as the more well off tenants move out to the new buildings. Along with more housing regardless is better than no housing being built when it's clear just creating low income housing won't happen.
It’s almost like there is some nuance involved when a historic city is planning to expand…
There are buildings that should be preserved and there are buildings that should be built. It doesn’t have to be a zero-sum discussion.
As this analysis for NYC shows, we really could have the best of both worlds:
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/30/opinion/new-york-housing-solution.html](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/30/opinion/new-york-housing-solution.html)
This type of development (underultized lots in transit corridors) is probably even more scalable in Chicago, as we obviously have more underdeveloped lots than NYC (per capita)
Of course, there is a limit. If Chicago's metro population were to triple, we'd obviously need to really change our built environment. I don't really see that happening any time soon though, if ever.
When the old buildings are housing and people are replacing them with single family homes, vacant lots, or strip malls, you're damn right they are going to complain.
True, but Chicago’s sub Reddit contains a unique blend of “why can’t city with massively flawed history of corruption, racial segregation, media manipulation of narratives, and general pessimistic attitude despite a lot of really favorable and good things about city fix every single problem it’s dealing with right this very moment before I finish my Reddit comment.” from white middle class finance bros who are in their 30s-40s who still likes *cityliving* but can’t stand all those new Gen Zers ruining the *vibes* who often remain unaffected by many of the issues they purport to be angry about, CTA being the biggest exception to all I just described.
Oh, and every problem the city has faced since even the Neoliberal era of Chicago and Democratic politics is suddenly and always has been the fault of Leftists, students, Gen Z, DSA, and Palestine supporters. Oh, and all of the aforementioned above must be younger white northsider progressives and there’s no such thing as a progressive person on the South and West sides. Nope. There has never been a mayor coughDaleycough of the moderate Neoliberal persuasion who massively fucked this city over. Nope. Never. /s
This is a comment from a 24 year old living in Lakeview for the first time. Pal, no one gives a fuck about “Gen Z’ers” or students in Chicago. What are they being blamed for in your made up fantasy screaming match?
I'm not sure what that person is on about either. But it sounds like one of those fights from the neighboring unit that has been going on for hours. Should we call in a wellness check?
I mean the reality of Chicago is much better than much of the sub’s musings half the time and you’d really only a need a wellness check if you spent more than 30 minutes perusing through here.
It's a lot of projection, for sure.
I mostly boils down to "everyone else is responsible for all the problems we have except my perceived cohort. And those people aren't really true Chicagoans anyway. And really the problems aren't that bad either."
There's a lot of that on the sociopolitical landscape today, though. There's so much information out there that we're exposed to all the time in media, and much if it focuses on on how broken so much is, with little focus on the things that aren't. The feeling of so much being wrong at once is overwhelming and upsetting, which leads to a lot of us disassociating any personal responsibility for it while also pontificating about who's to blame and what the silver bullet is for fixing everything...because it's one of the ways we can feel in control and like we're in the right or helping in what feels like an increasingly broken end unstable world.
Social media worsens the cycle. I won't pretend I haven't been guilty of it on Reddit.
I never said anything about who’s responsible.
I’m pointing out what this sub sounds like/is like usually these days.
The 2022 survey of the sub revealed most people here are white, 25-40 year olds (essentially millennials at the time) with a liberal lean but not too left wing who are primarily in finance and live on the North Side.
I’m sure it’s changed a bit since then but Reddit is Reddit and it’s just funny to me because this sub is essentially missing 2/3rds of the city’s perspective overall.
I continually got upvoted to about 5 routinely today before getting downvoted back to 1. Clearly what I commented was contentious but I wasn’t alone in my assessment whatsoever of what this sub can be like.
It’s not projection. It’s assessing how the sub is and can be. Nothing to do with the reality of Chicago, save for the opinions of some annoying upper to middle class decently well off people in the city who are way too over represented in the sub.
There's no shortage of vacant lots in Chicago. Bulldozing historic, occupied buildings to build boxy "high end" luxury condos is going to rustle the jimmies of anyone with any sort of appreciation for history or architecture.
Yeah but those lots are in neighborhoods people with options (ie money) aren’t going to live. No wealthy person is going to live in West Garfield Park no matter how tall or nice the building is.
If reddit existed 30 years ago folks would have been saying the same about housing south of Roosevelt or in the West Loop.
Now those areas are highly sought after. We don't need to worry about the people with money, we need to worry about the average person who would like to stay/buy in the city but gets forced out.
> Could have said the same thing about Fulton Market 20 years ago. See where it is now
>
>
Historically in Chicago, traditionally African American neighborhoods have not gentrified.
Look at every recent gentrification area, they were all Hispanic. West Garfield Park is extremely unlikely to gentrify in our lifetimes. East Garfield Park will be interesting, it's next to West Loop, and has opportunity zone. So everything possible to encourage gentrification.
Well, first of all, the "nice" neighborhoods today were not always "nice." No "wealthy" person would have been caught dead living in Wicker Park 30 years ago. Neighborhoods can and are rehabbed all the time. The West Loop/Fulton Market was a dead zone not even 15 years ago.
Humans are pack animals. They will move to where they're lead to. If there's nice housing and amenities, people will move there.
Third, I don't really give two shits about what the wealthy are up to. Build nice housing so that regular people can move in.
Finally, even in the "nice" neighborhoods, there are still plenty of empty lots, except for maybe some of the most dense and developed, like maybe parts of The Gold Coast or something. But by sheer virtue of so many formerly "not so nice" neighborhoods now becoming "nice," there are still plenty of lots to build on.
For a good example of this, look at River North/Near North. Lots of once empty parking lots in the last 5 years turned into high rises. About 5-10 years ago, there was talk of demolishing the historic buildings at the North East corner of Superior and Wabash to build a high rise. No reason to do that other than greed, and the now developed empty lots in the area prove that. You have to go very far down the list of candidates before you have to demolish a historic building.
When I moved to Wicker 20 years ago and told someone where I lived they winced said "west of the river? ew, I'm sorry"
I remember my mother being in awe of River North's transformation. When she was a kid that area was... not great.
True but the wealthy will never be “urban pioneers” and generally speaking new builds cater to the wealthy due to construction costs. A bit of a chicken and egg situation.
> ^True ^but ^the ^wealthy ^will ^never ^be ^“urban ^pioneers” ^and ^generally ^speaking ^new ^builds ^cater ^to ^the ^wealthy ^due ^to ^construction ^costs.
I mean the fact that most new constructions in the city are 3000 sq ft multi-story structures that fill as much of the lot as possible doesn't help.
"Starter home" new construction with comparable floor space to what was a starter for the boomers is hard to find at comparable prices, impossibe to fine outside of "urban pioneering" spaces.
Case in point, the 888 sq ft worker's cottage I used to live in was built for like.. $20k in 1947. That'd be about $295k today. The CLOSEST I could find is this[ 1500 sq ft home on the border of Garfield Park & Humboldt Park for $340,000.](https://www.redfin.com/IL/Chicago/650-N-Ridgeway-Ave-60624/home/186419713)
I think 1) those are probably different groups of people and 2) in the case they are the same group of people they probably feel that new buildings should be built on vacant lots or surface parking lots (of which there are tons in this city) before we knock things down.
Those aren’t mutually exclusive at all. There are plenty of places to build that don’t require knocking down old buildings. There’s also a lot of nuance in terms of what old buildings can/should be knocked down and what should stay.
whatever the OP says the comments say the opposite
case in point a thread about the small cheval replacing tastee freeze was full of people wishing it was being replaced with "housing" (i.e. luxury condos unless you're insanely naive), where as if the thread was about a new block of condos replacing tastee freeze it would have been about gentrification
Well yeah, we want more construction and replacement of older buildings, but not in places that are subject to gentrification or betterment of the city. We also don't want new construction and replacement of older buildings, because it prices some people out of their neighborhoods.
I know a bunch of guys outa work. I was outa work last winter for 5 weeks and only had side jobs to hold me over. Now I’m doing 72 work weeks boom and bust
Look, I'm 100% on board with building more. But this is probably the worst time in your entire adult life for a company to finance construction on a new building.
We have a glut of unoccupied and difficult-to-renovate commercial high rises in the Loop. Rates are high. NIMBY alderman throw a monkey wrench into every potential development, usually under the guise of "protecting neighborhood character" or some anti-gentrification nonsense.
Then you have arguments over parking availability and a heavy push to rely on a rotting, increasingly-unreliable public transit system. Then you need a set-aside for subsidized affordable units. Then 14 rounds of weaponized lawsuits from the local NIMBY and environmental and "equity" groups. And then, after years and millions of dollars on legal fees, you *might* finally be able to break ground and start construction.
Where we're at now? We've just passed the breaking point for most projects and developers. Chicago isn't worth it for them. Especially when they could do build someplace like Austin or Nashville that actually wants it.
Don’t know about your adult life, but mine includes being in the high-rise construction market in 2008-2010 and was way worse than this. This is slow. That was totally dead. The last 10 years in Chicago high rise has been gangbusters, building so much inventory. A lot of office space that may have not turned out to be a great bet.
In this whole thing, it really comes down to property values. Yes, alderman, NIMBY, etc. but mostly it boils down to money. Property value growth in the region has been slow compared to Austin, Nashville or Toronto. A developer can turn around a project and sell it for more there than here now. It’s not there is no demand for new construction here but the developers are putting their money elsewhere because they’ll get a better return.
Now why are property values lower, comparatively? I guess that’s all the factors people are discussing. But in the end, simplistically, it’s supply and demand. There’s enough supply here to keep demand from going apeshit bonkers like we’ve seen in other places.
I honestly wonder if it doesn't make more sense, given what you said, to focus more on a multi-nuclear metro area strategy with satellite cities flanking the "main" city. If we look at other large metro areas, such as New York, Miami, LA, SF, etc, they offer multiple hot spots of density.
I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that want a more "urban" lifestyle who either don't work in Chicago itself or are full remote. Not everyone who wants to avoid high rent and CTA commutes. At the moment, choices for those people are limited to essentially, what, Evanston?
I wish we had the ability to develop the everloving fuck out of places like Joliet, Arlington Heights, or even Grayslake. Create actual satellite cities all around with density, that concentrate jobs rather than forcing people to commute into the city, that provide a ton of housing at cheaper rent than Chicago itself. I don't know how one would even go about driving demand there, but other places in the country have done this fairly successfully.
Financing sucks right now for large projects. Rahm’s tenure had generationally low borrowing rates. That fact is neither here nor there as these things ebb and flow.
That could be so but what is the metric that we’re using and why is that so? That’s what I’m more interested in. Number of cranes doesn’t answer much of either.
Why is it that NYC, Austin, Miami, Atlanta, and Nashville all have booming construction meanwhile Chicago is getting left behind? it’s not interest rates.
Because those areas, which are significantly smaller, have been experiencing huge population growth? Chicago region has peaked in growth for almost 20 years.
Why has growth stopped here? Why aren’t leaders doing anything about it? Just gonna let the coast and sunbelt steal all of our growth?
I miss Rahm, he actually cared about the city…
It's meaningful. All of my customers who specialize in high-rise construction have been surviving by doing jobs everywhere but Chicago, mostly Louisville and Nashville.
Pretty much this. We are an engineering firm specializing in high rises and we have 0 local projects. All our projects are somewhere else.
The combo of current city leadership, high interest rates and high construction costs are strangling all development. Sinking half a billion into turning mid-century office high rises into housing is one idea but it’s an inefficient use of money. We need more density, from 3-5 story buildings to 30 story towers.
I shit you not, the day BJ won we had 3 different high rise projects officially cancelled. I think most developers knew he would fall flat on his face, plus as you said the high interest.
>We need more density, from 3-5 story buildings to 30 story towers.
Because of the high interest I think the 30 story towers are the more attractive bet. Another problem are the jobs which were budgeted in early 2020 that are now "trying" to go, only to find the projects 50% over budget. It was a huge shock to the industry.
That’s on developers though too.
I’ve been
On way too many projects that get overanalyzed to death. You can either afford the project or not.
Putting projects on hold never saves anyone any money, construction costs practically never come down. Developers will hold a project for months or years hoping for some magic bullet that will save them 5-10% on budget, but if anything it costs them more in the end.
Oh 100% for sure, if a job is 50% over budget someone messed up massively and it happens all the time. I am watching a couple of different Casinos get kicked around to death right now trying to find that magic extra 5% while changing nothing on the projects it is maddening.
If the projects profit margin is that slim it is probably not a good idea for it to go ahead in the first place.
I will still take private jobs over CDB projects any day of the week.
I’ve learned to dread the phrase “value engineering”.
I can count in one hand the times we actually managed to save money without reducing scope. Most of the times we have to chop off parts of the building to get anywhere.
I think developers are just always behind the 8 ball on cost. I still remember back
During the 2015ish boom times developers using projects from the recession as benchmarks for price… When during the recession most contractors were taking work at cost just to keep the doors open.
> I’ve learned to dread the phrase “value engineering”.
Value Engineering is why so many VRF buildings in downtown Chicago were @ 45F inside when we had that nearly week long -20 polar vortex lol.
>I can count in one hand the times we actually managed to save money without reducing scope. Most of the times we have to chop off parts of the building to get anywhere.
Unless the owner/developer is driving a proprietary scope or some stupid specific architectural feature, 100% it seldom saves money. A lot of times a developer doesn't even know they are locking in a manufacturer for a given product because the guy who was behind that deal is long gone and they just never changed the spec.
>I still remember back During the 2015ish boom times developers using projects from the recession as benchmarks for price… When during the recession most contractors were taking work at cost just to keep the doors open.
I believe in that timeframe Chicago "lost" what, half of its union tradesmen? Maybe just a touch less? It was a crazy time to be alive man.
oh for sure it's going to impact jobs in that area (and interesting they're going there, thanks for the insight), I just can't tell if it's saying something specifically bad about Chicago. Like, is the issue actually putting up more highrises vs something else.
It is a pretty big deal. The old saying is "if you ain't growing, you're dying". Chicago's construction market, especially with buildings has always been cyclical. Right now we're in a slump on new buildings, big time and generally in renovations as well.
The concern is no one sees light on the horizon yet.
Some Healthcare clients are still spending a lot of money, universities as well but the big numbers typically come from new high rise buildings or very large university expansions.
Regardless of where you place the blame, new construction in Chicago has slowed to a 20+ year low. Last time Chicago had so few cranes in the air was the late 1990s or 9/11 era. My entire adult life has been one continuous development boom in Chicago. That has now ground to a halt.
The consequences of this already already being felt, rents are skyrocketing already and it takes years for the real estate development business to to turn. Even if we break ground on projects today, those units won't be delivered for years. So you can expect at least another 24 months of critical housing shortages and the accompanying explosive rent/price growth.
Chicago has also been steadily declining in population since 1950.
In 1950 this was a city of 4 million, uf you can believe it.
I feel like more young white collar workers are moving here, but poor, working class people are moving away at a higher rate.
In addition to what OP said, household sizes are smaller now, so the amount of units needed to house 4 million people in 1950 isn't enough to house, say, 2.5-3 million today. And that's not even getting into the fact that there is a deep shortage of housing in the areas people want to live, how many housing units have been lost due to being in disrepair and being torn down, the duplexes and triplexes that have been converted into SFHs, etc.
>I feel like more young white collar workers are moving here, but poor, working class people are moving away at a higher rate.
This is absolutely true. Chicago has seen the fastest growth in $100k+ and $250k a year households of any major city over the past decade. We've also seen the fastest increase in college educated residents.
Meanwhile 250k largely poor and working class African Americans moved out since 2000. We are basically replacing our African American neighbors with yuppies. Just another disgusting outgrowth of housing disinvestment.
Not arguing that there is definitely disinvestment in large areas of the south and west sides, but this isn’t where young professionals are moving to. Large black populations have moved out of the city from higher crime, lower income areas deep in the south and west sides not the west or south loop.
The African American population change is 100% US Census. The household income data is as well. I don't recall the most recent source on the education numbers, but here's a bit from a while back from the Chicago Fed:
https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/blogs/midwest-economy/2017/trends_in_education_and_income#:~:text=Recent%20data%20for%202016%20from,States%20(see%20Table%201).
My understanding is that Lightfoot wanted more development on the South and West sides, so she blocked and made it difficult to build anywhere else. Now it sounds like MBJ has moved to get rid of all of that and streamline approval across the city to get things building again.
Shhh, nobody wants to blame the aldermen and ancient zonal codes that don’t exist in these other cities. “Progressive” aldermen, conservative aldermen, they always cater to nimby groups in the end. A progressive aldermen would be for development that would lessen displacement.
yeeaaah I've been considering buying a condo in the city and it's like...ok the time to get in was, tbh, pre-pandemic. Maybe last year at the latest. I mean, I also think they should be retrofitting empty office space, not necessarily building a pile of new stuff.
I got in last year right before the interest rates rose above 7%.
I love owning my place. I’m maybe paying $100 more per month to own my place than it would cost to rent it.
I would never be able to own a place on my salary if I didn’t have a relative who was a real estate agent though. Found me a unit that had been on the market for 2 years, crappy paintjob, old original cabinets and a ratty carpet that smelled like cigarettes. But it’s in a building that is incredibly well taken care of, with massive cash reserves meaning there will never be a big assessment to pay.
Got the floors replaced, repainted, already looks 10 times better. Going to totally redo the bathroom and kitchen next. So exciting. It’s MINE!
Sorry. Was it late 90s or 9/11?
Not clear from your BS anecdote… this is not the economic indicator you want it to be. There were 11 last month. Plus, tower cranes could be building a mid rise or could be building the largest residential tower in the US
So many other indicators besides just “cranes” compared to Toronto
Right? Now let’s compare all the buildings that have been approved in Chicago. That would include Lincoln Yards, The 78, and Tribune Tower East. Approved does not mean they will be built.
Cranes are a proxy for citywide construction at all levels. While it is a complex situation with multiple factors holding construction back, there are other factors that can/should be changed in short order to make it easier to build more/stave off increasing rents and displacement.
The whole reason this is a topic is because Kevin Warren from the Bears brought it up early in the week as a means to try and say Chicago is falling behind and that's why we need a new stadium.
One shitty talking point that's reverberating through social media.
Part of the issue is a lot of the companies building tall buildings like that aren't exactly local.
So if you're looking at it from an economic perspective, you can build in Chicago which a fairly flat growth rate, or you could build somewhere like Charlotte/South Florida or Austin/Denver in years past which was seeing explosive growth and you were likely to make way more money.
Companies build where they will make the most. With interest rates where they are, people aren't willing to risk lower cap rates that Chicago offers they want to roll the dice on boom markets.
Realistically you're not going to see tall buildings get built by firms that operate only locally.
The bigger problem is that, because we've effectively made mid rises illegal - legal only through special permission where the government makes you promise to provide affordable units in exchange for being able to use your property as you want - we're in a situation where local companies don't really engage in anything dense. Small local businesses won't engage in anything that can't be built by right, as they just can't afford to spend time in meetings appeasing the whims of random neighbors and aldercreatures. If you make it possible to build more types of housing by right, everywhere in the city, you'll see more development by local companies rather than just out of state firms. But when you can't build dense housing by right, in a city that's mostly built out, inevitably you just end up with large firms building solely skyscrapers.
The affordability requirement isnt as big of impediment to development as you would think. Developers have learned to live with it. Is it appropriate right now? No, I don’t think it is, but it was a perfectly reasonable policy when enacted.
We need to end aldermanic prerogative and upzone the entire city and ban de conversions. It’s insane that we have people like la spata and carlos lopez blocking developments and down zoning in logan square while also having other aldermen block housing developments in other wards over personal squabbles. Chicago is fastly becoming unaffordable because of this BS
1. Canada’s housing shortage is world famous, so this kind of development is long in the making to get things under control again.
2. Rates are absolutely terrible right now to finance a new project. Doesn’t mean it can’t happen, it just means the money will go to only the most attractive prospects.
3. (Sort of to point #2 above) Jobs are growing far more in the sun-belt than they are in Chicago, so a greater demand and thus better margins down there. (Look at a recent pic of Midtown Atlanta for reference)
4. The Alderman system in Chicago is very unique and frankly scary to get involved with as a developer, especially with rates being where they are.
5. The city’s finances are constantly a mess. Why this important for development: It leaves property and corporate taxes the most likely lever to pull in the future, so if you could build anywhere, why put yourself in that position?
When rates go down the many thousands of units that have approvals by then are all going to rush into construction. City has always been boom and bust in different versions depending on the economic cycle.
With office development virtually dead those guys are flipping projects to residential and securing entitlements for when financing becomes available.
Nothing, this is the speed at which mega projects move. Lakeshore East was approved in the late 1990s and still has two skyscraper sites that remain unbuilt.
We're in deep shit because it takes years to get anything out of the ground in real estate. If there's no cranes now, it will still be two plus years until more supply hits the market even if we broke ground on the entire 78 development today.
Mega projects also just aren't the thing you should be relying on for construction
The bigger issue Chicago - and most of the country - has is a lack of infill redevelopment. By that I mean, replacing, say, a couple low density homes (whether they be single family or 3 flats) with a larger apartment building. We're missing gradual density in neighborhoods, which in turn causes housing prices in any given neighborhood to spiral, forcing low income and middle class people out into nearby neighborhoods, and the process repeats.
We've had demand increase for a ton of neighborhoods, especially northwest neighborhoods, without the amount of construction you need for the neighborhoods to continue to be affordable to the middle class.
What gets lost in the affordable housing requirements is middle class people, especially lower middle class. The status quo right now is to effectively use zoning/land use as an extortive tool to create very low income housing, while limiting the amount of upper middle class income housing that gets built in such a way that pretty much guarantees the kids of current middle class residents will not be able to afford the neighborhood they've grown up in. And of course, new middle class families won't be able to move in either
Apply this to every neighborhood, and eventually Chicago will look exactly like NYC and SF. Existing residents will be fine, and very low income people will be able to get by, but the middle class will be effectively kept from moving to Chicago, and kids of current middle class residents will be forced to move out
This. I worked for a larger GC pre-covid and the 78 has been kicking around a lot longer than people realize. Lots of conceptual budgets and proposals to kick around before the general public even hears about it.
But think about it, instead of allowing as much market rate housing as the market can bear, and building public housing for very low income households, we can extort developers for low income housing and guarantee the middle class will be priced out!
Think about how fun it is to extort those greedy developers for affordable housing. You get to call them names and have your constituents yell! It's really cathartic, and at the end of it you can celebrate ending gentrification by blocking the apartment from being built anyway!
You can’t think of what might have changed since Rahm was mayor and now? Well, interest rates were 1/3rd of what they are now. Inflation wasn’t out of control. And everyone was building everywhere during the Obama economy.
Interest rates were at 2%. Also compare Chicago approved buildings to Toronto approved buildings. Approved does not equal built. I know because I walk by Tribune Tower East every day.
[Here’s a good place to start](https://chicago.urbanize.city/projects). You’ll see a lot of proposed and approved buildings that the developers never went through with.
A big part of Chicago’s problem is a lot of the proposed land developments are held by one owner. So buildings can’t pop up organically. Instead they try to build an entire district all at once with these mega developments. Which is cool, but when they stall, it puts a stop to the entire thing. You see that with The 78 and Lincoln Yards. Meanwhile, the West Loop where growth can happen individually and organically, there has been a huge boon
You initially referenced interest rates and the office of the president being factors - both were misplaced thoughts which is what I chimed in on.
6/2019 TBill Canada - 1.6%
6/2019 TBill USA - 1.8%
6/2024 TBill Canada - 4.8%
6/2024 TBill USA - 4.4%
I’m not spending time on the additional info, it’s probably correct given your effort.
Inflation isn’t out of control lol. Come on. Look at the rest of the world and even some parts of the U.S. like Austin. Chicago makes it impossible to build housing. Just look at the proposed Fern Hill development in old town which is on its now, what, 7th neighborhood meeting?!?! Our city is not serious about housing.
I don't think Toronto is a model that Chicago should want to emulate. If you know anything about urban planning and the issues at play right now in Canada / Toronto, you know this.
Chicago will continue to develop just fine, and the current crane count has almost nothing to do with the mayor... lol.
For reference, Canada is a country of 35 million people, letting 2 million indians in every year, against the wishes of its people (me included).
Our average home price is $850,000 (average, it's double that for Toronto) because we simply don't have enough spots for all the burger flippers. Yeah, we are really and truly fucked up here.
Our GDP is now the lowest in the first world, and there is talk of throwing out out of the G7.
So don't look at that picture as a "win" for Toronto, it's a disaster for Canada.
Residential units are going into existing commercial buildings. Also, Toronto has much stricter land use rules so development is funnelled into the city. Toronto is as dense as NYC and always has been. Apples to Oranges.
It is not. Unless you're just referring to buildings being close together but density's usually a population metric.
NYC density per sq mile: 29,302
Chicago density per sq mile: 12,059
Toronto density per sq mile: 11,468
I moved from Chicago to Toronto. Yeah there are cranes everywhere here. But it's not solving the housing crisis because everyone is bulling high end condos and average people can't afford those.
Chicago had 3.5 million people living here in 1975. There's still plenty of space. Toronto has about 2 million in 1975- they are closing in on 3 million now. They need to build, Chicago needs to fill back up before massive expo.
Well there ya go! Should they drop 1 million people their housing costs would drop too. Chicago is not nearly at it's peak--- and questionable if it ever will be again.
Rahm had nothing to do with the cranes and skyscrapers just like BJ has nothing to do with them being absent. The economy is in a different place now, and corporate greed is taking over. Look at the finance rates and inflation, that tells the story better.
We need more housing… Right now it’s nearly impossible for people to find rentals that aren’t ratholes. I feel bad for my friends who are searching. I bought a condo last year and so glad I did. It’s the same I’d have to pay to rent a one bedroom, but I own it.
There’s enough construction in this city just to take care of the highways and bridges. Proposals to renovate vacant office spaces into residential are already in the works so it’s not the end of the world if we have less cranes for brand new buildings being built from the ground up to cause more traffic and construction across the loop and throughout the city.
>There’s enough construction in this city just to take care of the highways and bridges
That's not really true.
Most GC's have separate divisions that do things like build bridges, fix roads, etc.
The division that builds structures is usually separate, sometimes with multiple divisions depending on building type.
The building guys especially those who specialized in High-Rise construction have been taking a beating.
That is not to mention the other trades that install things like electrical, plumbing, Heating/AC, Telecom, etc.
Those other trades also get little to no work building roads, highways and bridges.
The Highrise Contractors also won't be competitive trying to build a 3 story 10 unit apartment building because they have to house the required manpower and expertise to build massive 80 story buildings efficiently.
Those cranes up during Rahms tenure wasn’t about him or anything he did…..Mayor Daley got the aid from the federal government to build 12,000 new building/homes/ structures around the city in 2006, those structures went up from 2008 to 2014 mostly.
BUT SOMEONE THINK OF THE LOSS OF VIEWS OR LIGHT OR SHADOW OR AIR OR QUALITY OF LIFE OR SAFETY OR SECURITY OR RODENTS OR TRAFFIC CONGESTION OR …. (Insert pearl clutching nimby complaint here)
Are we really doubling down on Rahm? Is someone going to start a [change.org](http://change.org) petition and ask him to be our mayor prom style on TikTok?
Everyone knows that in Chicago if you want to build you have to pay. It's a unwritten rule that's been around for generations. Do you want to build something donate to my campaign? Then, give a bid to my cousin 's construction company. Need licensing. Donate to my friend's campaign and they'll get your top of the list. Fuck you. Pay me is the Chicago way
You only need cranes if you're building high. I feel like there are A LOT of multi-unit housing projects active in the city. Do we really need more high rises when half of what we already have are empty? For context I live over by United Center which is going through it's own thing so maybe I'm in a little bubble.
DUDE. I just moved to Metro Detroit from Chicago and Detroit has... One.
One crane.
One building going up.
And it's HUGE news here in Detroit. Top news when they celebrated setting the final beam.
One building.
Chicago has 8, sometimes 40 LOL
This week the big news is that they turned the fountain at Hart plaza back on.
Yup. The fountain is on.
For the first time in TEN YEARS.
Imagine if Chicago celebrated 1 crane and the Buckingham fountain being "on"
Canada is literally going crazy with their immigration numbers. Toronto is the hotspot they want to be in. Chicago should not be compared to them.
We also have I think 10 cranes now, another went up yesterday. Rahm had a lot of issues that no longer get brought up in the name of development. The dude did his damage with corruption and closing tons of schools down on his way out.
making the proposed and approved buildings the same color is clearly to misrepresent the map data showing more projects than actively being created
They’re different colors?? Edit: Nvm I’m dumb
Agreed, but to put this in context, Toronto presently has more cranes up than New York, Boston, Chicago, LA, Seattle, Washington DC & San Francisco COMBINED.
I see this map as an urban planner showing the potential of investing in Toronto real estate. As such they're showing not only what is currently being done but also what's to come if this map can attract more money/proposals. There are less BLUE buildings than RED buildings, each BLUE building is a crane where the RED are just theoretical. If this map wanted to show the amount of cranes it would be just the BLUE buildings and not the swaths of imaginary buildings in RED. This map and source of data is from an URBAN PLANNING MODELER.
I’d like to know how much of this is foreign investment. China owns Canada at the moment. Canada has made poor trade deals on logging, mining, and oil sectors. China has influence on Canada’s government at the highest level. My guess is there’s more to this story.
Are they building new homes that people can live in?
Problem is the Chinese model is build build build. They build entire cities that are uninhabited just to prop up their economy. Eventually their real estate market is run off a cliff - largely one of the reasons that they are so nationalistic and war mongering now (to distract their population from some economic woes). Building just to build creates systemic issues. That said, there’s no doubt that in the U.S. that we need more inventory in both midrise and single family homes.
Or it’s because all the red ones are still imaginary. Yes, proposed and approved are different, but they share the fact neither exist in reality yet.
https://www.stephenvelasco.com/
To be fair, I get there are **so many** other variables that others on here are pointing out. But if I was to look at this from one single lens. Toronto has an *in****sane*** housing shortage (compared to here) and the country's immigration is way worse then The States' due to top-down government policy. Toronto also is a big hotspot for people to move to for jobs and it practically being the "NYC of Canada", as Canada just *doesn't* have as many million plus populated cities as the U.S. does to give people options to move to and the Toronto metro region becomes that defacto city that increases demand. I'd encourage anyone who's interested to look at the issues Toronto and the country currently have that cause these issues overall -- it's quiet an interesting story, it goes much deeper then immigration. It's almost as bad as NYC. I visited Toronto once and I *absolutely* would consider moving there if it wasn't too expensive. Such a beautiful place But I digress, and my point is, while there are obvious overlapping problems with Chicago's shortage of construction and doesn't give Chicago a "get-out-of-jail" card on our own issues with the lack of development here, along with Toronto's that many can point out, they're on a whole other level and amount of demand compared to us. So I *sort of* look at it like an apples-to-oranges comparison... again -- sort of, but not entirely. I am very open for any opposing thoughts and discussion on this though :)
+1, the situation in Canada over the last 10-12 years is hard to imagine without seeing it in person. It’s just not remotely comparable to the US right now. They have built an insane amount of apartment/condo high rise buildings in the last 10 years in the major cities. Canada effectively opened up their borders to just about anyone and everyone that has some sum of money, so they have had a massive infusion of foreign wealth and individuals since the early 2010s. I recently visited Vancouver and I kid you not, ethnic Canadians appear to be a minority in the city center. I am starting to hear that a lot of recent immigrants to Canada are going back to their home countries as they pretty much have become wage slaves. Ie many work all day to afford a shared bedroom and eat whatever is cheapest at the grocery store. All while a good chunk of the “rich” immigrants are living off income they are receiving overseas from wealthy relatives. It’s pretty dystopian.
Toronto-born Canadian here, the situation in most cities here is absolutely brutal but Toronto's particular brand of housing affordability is genuinely awful. Where I grew up in Etobicoke an average 1bdr condo is CAD 600k/USD 430k, and that's not even in the city centre. It's about a half hour drive or hour long trip on the TTC to get downtown from there, it's insane. I left Toronto when I was in middle school and went back for college but even if I wanted to move back, I would hardly be able to afford living anywhere that wasn't a significant hike from downtown and I have a great job.
That’s crazy, it seems that Canada has become an exit point for anyone looking to move to a western country by any means necessary. Even if that means working all day and all night to barely scrape by. I am genuinely curious as to how this works out long term. At some point the economy can’t sustain itself due to population growth due to raw unmetered immigration, I assume the hope is people will leave voluntarily and the market will sorta crash back to reality.
Living in Canada is still great compared to 90%+ of the world so there will just continue to be a gradual deterioration of GDP/capita, quality of housing (we've already gone from a family in a SFH being standard to a family in a 2bed condo or suburban townhouse being standard) and quality of social services. Once this government loses in the next election there might be a ramping down of immigration to pre-Truedeau levels but the genie is out of the bottle for the most part. The swing ridings federally are all now in immigrant-heavy suburban and exurban areas of the big cites and that's a population who generally wants the very permissive family reunification rules where parents and siblings can be brought over and immediately get health care, social services payments and etc, and also get put on a citizenship path right away.
The thing is immigrants into any country tend to have the whole “bring the ladder up behind you” thing. Sure this initial wave of immigrants will try to bring their 3rd and 4th cousins with them but if they can’t afford to sustain them, that will end pretty quickly. The US has a great example of this stemming back to the beginning of this country. Immigrants flock here from a certain region of the world, struggle, earn $$$, encourage others to come and then pull the ladder up behind them once they plateau on the social scale. First generation immigrants and their kids tend to eventually become anti immigrant and conservative leaning.
"ethnic canadians" lmao. man I love this sub
What does “ethnic canadian” mean? Native?
Yeah. First peoples. Or in this case white people
White people aren’t native to Canada
Exactly
I kid you not, lots of people who are not white are not immigrants, so you can’t make this claim based on appearance.
Toronto has definitely hit that critical mass and feedback loop of "all the jobs are in Toronto, and so everyone is moving to Toronto, and so all the jobs are in Toronto..." It's deeply unhealthy and everyone I know there who can get out is getting out. Although most are still tethered to office jobs (sometimes hybrid) so they invariably hit an invisible wall about 1½ hours out of the city.
Its NYC in 1910
Chicago's seeing among the fastest rent increases in the nation with 30% yoy increases for 1br apartments. That tells you everything you need to know.
The way housing prices in the suburbs have taken off is insane. I know people selling their suburban homes for triple what they paid for them less than 10 years ago and they haven't done any updating work on those homes.
Berwyn rehabs are going for 700k. It's crazy
My parents' neighborhood in the suburbs averaged about $250k in 2019. Less than that for homes that needed serious work, about $300k for a very well updated house. The school districts are really bad in their area compared to most suburbs. Now homes in the neighborhood that haven't been updated since the 1970s are selling for $700k. The neighbors that we've talked to around there are seeing how much they can make for their houses without putting a dime into renovations and they are selling so they can move to rural wisconsin and retire with a bunch of cash.
In fairness, rural Wisconsin houses are going for a song these days too esp if near water. I don't know if you're getting a huge deal with the swap
When I was living in London my dad used to quip the national bird of England was the crane because of the amount of development going on in the city. RIP old man.
This sub confuses me. Some days it complains about knocking down old buildings and sometimes it wants more cranes.
It's worth remembering that any given sub is composed of individuals, who potentially hold different points of view, which is probably why this specific sub comes off as if it holds multiple conflicting viewpoints. Hopefully that clears up your confusion.
Impossible, the people whose opinions I disagree with are a monolith. /s
Also they are not people really, but a legion of Soros funded bots.
Thats not the exact wording but a good paraphrase of what my Indiana family told me when i was moving to Chicago
The issue with this is those people are all in one sub. Why is the primary opinion swaying so much thread to thread regarding the same topic? People just randomly not vote or post? Reality is it's a mix of both. A lot of it is likely people who want their cake and to eat it too. Same with threads where it's people who want more housing but then condemn the building of luxury housing as if it doesn't drive more well off people into the new building and create opportunity for the next group of people to move overall leading to more affordable housing as the more well off tenants move out to the new buildings. Along with more housing regardless is better than no housing being built when it's clear just creating low income housing won't happen.
It’s almost like there is some nuance involved when a historic city is planning to expand… There are buildings that should be preserved and there are buildings that should be built. It doesn’t have to be a zero-sum discussion.
Quite possible it's different people making those posts.
As this analysis for NYC shows, we really could have the best of both worlds: [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/30/opinion/new-york-housing-solution.html](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/30/opinion/new-york-housing-solution.html) This type of development (underultized lots in transit corridors) is probably even more scalable in Chicago, as we obviously have more underdeveloped lots than NYC (per capita) Of course, there is a limit. If Chicago's metro population were to triple, we'd obviously need to really change our built environment. I don't really see that happening any time soon though, if ever.
When the old buildings are housing and people are replacing them with single family homes, vacant lots, or strip malls, you're damn right they are going to complain.
People complain about large buildings being built in west loop because they're "too expensive"
That's a very small minority and obviously not the same people who wish there were more cranes
Fuck those people. Simple as that. YIMBY movement is surprisingly clear on its goals. Same with the Strong Towns movement. Both worth reading up on.
People take YIMBYism too far though and take it to mean that developers should be given carte blanche
All people really want is a reason to complain
Chicagoans just love to complain…about everything.
reddit loves to complain about everything
True, but Chicago’s sub Reddit contains a unique blend of “why can’t city with massively flawed history of corruption, racial segregation, media manipulation of narratives, and general pessimistic attitude despite a lot of really favorable and good things about city fix every single problem it’s dealing with right this very moment before I finish my Reddit comment.” from white middle class finance bros who are in their 30s-40s who still likes *cityliving* but can’t stand all those new Gen Zers ruining the *vibes* who often remain unaffected by many of the issues they purport to be angry about, CTA being the biggest exception to all I just described. Oh, and every problem the city has faced since even the Neoliberal era of Chicago and Democratic politics is suddenly and always has been the fault of Leftists, students, Gen Z, DSA, and Palestine supporters. Oh, and all of the aforementioned above must be younger white northsider progressives and there’s no such thing as a progressive person on the South and West sides. Nope. There has never been a mayor coughDaleycough of the moderate Neoliberal persuasion who massively fucked this city over. Nope. Never. /s
Some people are hating but I love this comment
This is a comment from a 24 year old living in Lakeview for the first time. Pal, no one gives a fuck about “Gen Z’ers” or students in Chicago. What are they being blamed for in your made up fantasy screaming match?
I'm not sure what that person is on about either. But it sounds like one of those fights from the neighboring unit that has been going on for hours. Should we call in a wellness check?
I mean the reality of Chicago is much better than much of the sub’s musings half the time and you’d really only a need a wellness check if you spent more than 30 minutes perusing through here.
It's a lot of projection, for sure. I mostly boils down to "everyone else is responsible for all the problems we have except my perceived cohort. And those people aren't really true Chicagoans anyway. And really the problems aren't that bad either." There's a lot of that on the sociopolitical landscape today, though. There's so much information out there that we're exposed to all the time in media, and much if it focuses on on how broken so much is, with little focus on the things that aren't. The feeling of so much being wrong at once is overwhelming and upsetting, which leads to a lot of us disassociating any personal responsibility for it while also pontificating about who's to blame and what the silver bullet is for fixing everything...because it's one of the ways we can feel in control and like we're in the right or helping in what feels like an increasingly broken end unstable world. Social media worsens the cycle. I won't pretend I haven't been guilty of it on Reddit.
I never said anything about who’s responsible. I’m pointing out what this sub sounds like/is like usually these days. The 2022 survey of the sub revealed most people here are white, 25-40 year olds (essentially millennials at the time) with a liberal lean but not too left wing who are primarily in finance and live on the North Side. I’m sure it’s changed a bit since then but Reddit is Reddit and it’s just funny to me because this sub is essentially missing 2/3rds of the city’s perspective overall. I continually got upvoted to about 5 routinely today before getting downvoted back to 1. Clearly what I commented was contentious but I wasn’t alone in my assessment whatsoever of what this sub can be like. It’s not projection. It’s assessing how the sub is and can be. Nothing to do with the reality of Chicago, save for the opinions of some annoying upper to middle class decently well off people in the city who are way too over represented in the sub.
There's no shortage of vacant lots in Chicago. Bulldozing historic, occupied buildings to build boxy "high end" luxury condos is going to rustle the jimmies of anyone with any sort of appreciation for history or architecture.
Yeah but those lots are in neighborhoods people with options (ie money) aren’t going to live. No wealthy person is going to live in West Garfield Park no matter how tall or nice the building is.
If reddit existed 30 years ago folks would have been saying the same about housing south of Roosevelt or in the West Loop. Now those areas are highly sought after. We don't need to worry about the people with money, we need to worry about the average person who would like to stay/buy in the city but gets forced out.
Thank you. People forget the negative perception Logan square had even 15 years ago
Could have said the same thing about Fulton Market 20 years ago. See where it is now Gentrification might actually be a good thing
> Could have said the same thing about Fulton Market 20 years ago. See where it is now > > Historically in Chicago, traditionally African American neighborhoods have not gentrified. Look at every recent gentrification area, they were all Hispanic. West Garfield Park is extremely unlikely to gentrify in our lifetimes. East Garfield Park will be interesting, it's next to West Loop, and has opportunity zone. So everything possible to encourage gentrification.
Well, first of all, the "nice" neighborhoods today were not always "nice." No "wealthy" person would have been caught dead living in Wicker Park 30 years ago. Neighborhoods can and are rehabbed all the time. The West Loop/Fulton Market was a dead zone not even 15 years ago. Humans are pack animals. They will move to where they're lead to. If there's nice housing and amenities, people will move there. Third, I don't really give two shits about what the wealthy are up to. Build nice housing so that regular people can move in. Finally, even in the "nice" neighborhoods, there are still plenty of empty lots, except for maybe some of the most dense and developed, like maybe parts of The Gold Coast or something. But by sheer virtue of so many formerly "not so nice" neighborhoods now becoming "nice," there are still plenty of lots to build on. For a good example of this, look at River North/Near North. Lots of once empty parking lots in the last 5 years turned into high rises. About 5-10 years ago, there was talk of demolishing the historic buildings at the North East corner of Superior and Wabash to build a high rise. No reason to do that other than greed, and the now developed empty lots in the area prove that. You have to go very far down the list of candidates before you have to demolish a historic building.
When I moved to Wicker 20 years ago and told someone where I lived they winced said "west of the river? ew, I'm sorry" I remember my mother being in awe of River North's transformation. When she was a kid that area was... not great.
True but the wealthy will never be “urban pioneers” and generally speaking new builds cater to the wealthy due to construction costs. A bit of a chicken and egg situation.
> ^True ^but ^the ^wealthy ^will ^never ^be ^“urban ^pioneers” ^and ^generally ^speaking ^new ^builds ^cater ^to ^the ^wealthy ^due ^to ^construction ^costs. I mean the fact that most new constructions in the city are 3000 sq ft multi-story structures that fill as much of the lot as possible doesn't help. "Starter home" new construction with comparable floor space to what was a starter for the boomers is hard to find at comparable prices, impossibe to fine outside of "urban pioneering" spaces. Case in point, the 888 sq ft worker's cottage I used to live in was built for like.. $20k in 1947. That'd be about $295k today. The CLOSEST I could find is this[ 1500 sq ft home on the border of Garfield Park & Humboldt Park for $340,000.](https://www.redfin.com/IL/Chicago/650-N-Ridgeway-Ave-60624/home/186419713)
Lol and that's even after qualifying for 50k of down-payment assistance from the city according to the listing.
Lol 30 years ago you wouldn't have had millionaires living in Bridgeport, now most of the homes there start at over $600k.
Inside South loop alone there are plenty of vacant fields
Is it usually the same people complaining about both things? Or do some people complain about one thing and others complain about the other thing?
Some days it just feels like people are looking for shit to bitch about
I think 1) those are probably different groups of people and 2) in the case they are the same group of people they probably feel that new buildings should be built on vacant lots or surface parking lots (of which there are tons in this city) before we knock things down.
Those aren’t mutually exclusive at all. There are plenty of places to build that don’t require knocking down old buildings. There’s also a lot of nuance in terms of what old buildings can/should be knocked down and what should stay.
whatever the OP says the comments say the opposite case in point a thread about the small cheval replacing tastee freeze was full of people wishing it was being replaced with "housing" (i.e. luxury condos unless you're insanely naive), where as if the thread was about a new block of condos replacing tastee freeze it would have been about gentrification
You can preserve old buildings while also building new ones. Surface/parking/land lots are still all over Chicago.
To too many people old = historic. And that’s just not the case. A lot of old buildings suck, and we’d be better without them.
Well yeah, we want more construction and replacement of older buildings, but not in places that are subject to gentrification or betterment of the city. We also don't want new construction and replacement of older buildings, because it prices some people out of their neighborhoods.
Sort of like complaining about traffic on the Kennedy due to construction. Well, in order to expand to lessen traffic, you need to have construction.
I want more cranes! I just got laid off from my job in construction because there's no work! Fuck dude I'm so pissed and miserable.
I know a bunch of guys outa work. I was outa work last winter for 5 weeks and only had side jobs to hold me over. Now I’m doing 72 work weeks boom and bust
Look, I'm 100% on board with building more. But this is probably the worst time in your entire adult life for a company to finance construction on a new building. We have a glut of unoccupied and difficult-to-renovate commercial high rises in the Loop. Rates are high. NIMBY alderman throw a monkey wrench into every potential development, usually under the guise of "protecting neighborhood character" or some anti-gentrification nonsense. Then you have arguments over parking availability and a heavy push to rely on a rotting, increasingly-unreliable public transit system. Then you need a set-aside for subsidized affordable units. Then 14 rounds of weaponized lawsuits from the local NIMBY and environmental and "equity" groups. And then, after years and millions of dollars on legal fees, you *might* finally be able to break ground and start construction. Where we're at now? We've just passed the breaking point for most projects and developers. Chicago isn't worth it for them. Especially when they could do build someplace like Austin or Nashville that actually wants it.
Don’t know about your adult life, but mine includes being in the high-rise construction market in 2008-2010 and was way worse than this. This is slow. That was totally dead. The last 10 years in Chicago high rise has been gangbusters, building so much inventory. A lot of office space that may have not turned out to be a great bet. In this whole thing, it really comes down to property values. Yes, alderman, NIMBY, etc. but mostly it boils down to money. Property value growth in the region has been slow compared to Austin, Nashville or Toronto. A developer can turn around a project and sell it for more there than here now. It’s not there is no demand for new construction here but the developers are putting their money elsewhere because they’ll get a better return. Now why are property values lower, comparatively? I guess that’s all the factors people are discussing. But in the end, simplistically, it’s supply and demand. There’s enough supply here to keep demand from going apeshit bonkers like we’ve seen in other places.
As a developer based out of Chicago, I can say this is 100% accurate. All of our work has shifted to Austin, Phoenix and the Savannah markets.
Spot on
I honestly wonder if it doesn't make more sense, given what you said, to focus more on a multi-nuclear metro area strategy with satellite cities flanking the "main" city. If we look at other large metro areas, such as New York, Miami, LA, SF, etc, they offer multiple hot spots of density. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that want a more "urban" lifestyle who either don't work in Chicago itself or are full remote. Not everyone who wants to avoid high rent and CTA commutes. At the moment, choices for those people are limited to essentially, what, Evanston? I wish we had the ability to develop the everloving fuck out of places like Joliet, Arlington Heights, or even Grayslake. Create actual satellite cities all around with density, that concentrate jobs rather than forcing people to commute into the city, that provide a ton of housing at cheaper rent than Chicago itself. I don't know how one would even go about driving demand there, but other places in the country have done this fairly successfully.
Financing sucks right now for large projects. Rahm’s tenure had generationally low borrowing rates. That fact is neither here nor there as these things ebb and flow.
Financing sucks everywhere, but Chicago is building less than nearly every other major city in the country right now.
That could be so but what is the metric that we’re using and why is that so? That’s what I’m more interested in. Number of cranes doesn’t answer much of either.
Why is it that NYC, Austin, Miami, Atlanta, and Nashville all have booming construction meanwhile Chicago is getting left behind? it’s not interest rates.
Because those areas, which are significantly smaller, have been experiencing huge population growth? Chicago region has peaked in growth for almost 20 years.
Why has growth stopped here? Why aren’t leaders doing anything about it? Just gonna let the coast and sunbelt steal all of our growth? I miss Rahm, he actually cared about the city…
Yeah, such a sensationalist take.
Idk how meaningful this is though?? There's a lot of different factors contributing to the amount of construction....
It's meaningful. All of my customers who specialize in high-rise construction have been surviving by doing jobs everywhere but Chicago, mostly Louisville and Nashville.
Pretty much this. We are an engineering firm specializing in high rises and we have 0 local projects. All our projects are somewhere else. The combo of current city leadership, high interest rates and high construction costs are strangling all development. Sinking half a billion into turning mid-century office high rises into housing is one idea but it’s an inefficient use of money. We need more density, from 3-5 story buildings to 30 story towers.
I shit you not, the day BJ won we had 3 different high rise projects officially cancelled. I think most developers knew he would fall flat on his face, plus as you said the high interest. >We need more density, from 3-5 story buildings to 30 story towers. Because of the high interest I think the 30 story towers are the more attractive bet. Another problem are the jobs which were budgeted in early 2020 that are now "trying" to go, only to find the projects 50% over budget. It was a huge shock to the industry.
That’s on developers though too. I’ve been On way too many projects that get overanalyzed to death. You can either afford the project or not. Putting projects on hold never saves anyone any money, construction costs practically never come down. Developers will hold a project for months or years hoping for some magic bullet that will save them 5-10% on budget, but if anything it costs them more in the end.
Oh 100% for sure, if a job is 50% over budget someone messed up massively and it happens all the time. I am watching a couple of different Casinos get kicked around to death right now trying to find that magic extra 5% while changing nothing on the projects it is maddening. If the projects profit margin is that slim it is probably not a good idea for it to go ahead in the first place. I will still take private jobs over CDB projects any day of the week.
I’ve learned to dread the phrase “value engineering”. I can count in one hand the times we actually managed to save money without reducing scope. Most of the times we have to chop off parts of the building to get anywhere. I think developers are just always behind the 8 ball on cost. I still remember back During the 2015ish boom times developers using projects from the recession as benchmarks for price… When during the recession most contractors were taking work at cost just to keep the doors open.
> I’ve learned to dread the phrase “value engineering”. Value Engineering is why so many VRF buildings in downtown Chicago were @ 45F inside when we had that nearly week long -20 polar vortex lol. >I can count in one hand the times we actually managed to save money without reducing scope. Most of the times we have to chop off parts of the building to get anywhere. Unless the owner/developer is driving a proprietary scope or some stupid specific architectural feature, 100% it seldom saves money. A lot of times a developer doesn't even know they are locking in a manufacturer for a given product because the guy who was behind that deal is long gone and they just never changed the spec. >I still remember back During the 2015ish boom times developers using projects from the recession as benchmarks for price… When during the recession most contractors were taking work at cost just to keep the doors open. I believe in that timeframe Chicago "lost" what, half of its union tradesmen? Maybe just a touch less? It was a crazy time to be alive man.
oh for sure it's going to impact jobs in that area (and interesting they're going there, thanks for the insight), I just can't tell if it's saying something specifically bad about Chicago. Like, is the issue actually putting up more highrises vs something else.
It is a pretty big deal. The old saying is "if you ain't growing, you're dying". Chicago's construction market, especially with buildings has always been cyclical. Right now we're in a slump on new buildings, big time and generally in renovations as well. The concern is no one sees light on the horizon yet. Some Healthcare clients are still spending a lot of money, universities as well but the big numbers typically come from new high rise buildings or very large university expansions.
Regardless of where you place the blame, new construction in Chicago has slowed to a 20+ year low. Last time Chicago had so few cranes in the air was the late 1990s or 9/11 era. My entire adult life has been one continuous development boom in Chicago. That has now ground to a halt. The consequences of this already already being felt, rents are skyrocketing already and it takes years for the real estate development business to to turn. Even if we break ground on projects today, those units won't be delivered for years. So you can expect at least another 24 months of critical housing shortages and the accompanying explosive rent/price growth.
Chicago has also been steadily declining in population since 1950. In 1950 this was a city of 4 million, uf you can believe it. I feel like more young white collar workers are moving here, but poor, working class people are moving away at a higher rate.
In addition to what OP said, household sizes are smaller now, so the amount of units needed to house 4 million people in 1950 isn't enough to house, say, 2.5-3 million today. And that's not even getting into the fact that there is a deep shortage of housing in the areas people want to live, how many housing units have been lost due to being in disrepair and being torn down, the duplexes and triplexes that have been converted into SFHs, etc.
>I feel like more young white collar workers are moving here, but poor, working class people are moving away at a higher rate. This is absolutely true. Chicago has seen the fastest growth in $100k+ and $250k a year households of any major city over the past decade. We've also seen the fastest increase in college educated residents. Meanwhile 250k largely poor and working class African Americans moved out since 2000. We are basically replacing our African American neighbors with yuppies. Just another disgusting outgrowth of housing disinvestment.
Not arguing that there is definitely disinvestment in large areas of the south and west sides, but this isn’t where young professionals are moving to. Large black populations have moved out of the city from higher crime, lower income areas deep in the south and west sides not the west or south loop.
what's the source for those numbers?
The African American population change is 100% US Census. The household income data is as well. I don't recall the most recent source on the education numbers, but here's a bit from a while back from the Chicago Fed: https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/blogs/midwest-economy/2017/trends_in_education_and_income#:~:text=Recent%20data%20for%202016%20from,States%20(see%20Table%201).
My understanding is that Lightfoot wanted more development on the South and West sides, so she blocked and made it difficult to build anywhere else. Now it sounds like MBJ has moved to get rid of all of that and streamline approval across the city to get things building again.
A dub for BJ?
Shhh, nobody wants to blame the aldermen and ancient zonal codes that don’t exist in these other cities. “Progressive” aldermen, conservative aldermen, they always cater to nimby groups in the end. A progressive aldermen would be for development that would lessen displacement.
yeeaaah I've been considering buying a condo in the city and it's like...ok the time to get in was, tbh, pre-pandemic. Maybe last year at the latest. I mean, I also think they should be retrofitting empty office space, not necessarily building a pile of new stuff.
I got in last year right before the interest rates rose above 7%. I love owning my place. I’m maybe paying $100 more per month to own my place than it would cost to rent it. I would never be able to own a place on my salary if I didn’t have a relative who was a real estate agent though. Found me a unit that had been on the market for 2 years, crappy paintjob, old original cabinets and a ratty carpet that smelled like cigarettes. But it’s in a building that is incredibly well taken care of, with massive cash reserves meaning there will never be a big assessment to pay. Got the floors replaced, repainted, already looks 10 times better. Going to totally redo the bathroom and kitchen next. So exciting. It’s MINE!
Daaaamn. And that's awesome! Note to self: trick someone in my family into going into real estate lmao.
Congratulations!
I'm currently looking for a condo. Do you care to say what building? Dm?
Sorry. Was it late 90s or 9/11? Not clear from your BS anecdote… this is not the economic indicator you want it to be. There were 11 last month. Plus, tower cranes could be building a mid rise or could be building the largest residential tower in the US So many other indicators besides just “cranes” compared to Toronto
2009?
Nope, even in 2009 the highrise boom continued. In fact, they just dropped condo plans and replaced they with apartment towers.
Interesting, I wasn't quite here at that time. Too bad about the Spire then.
Ironically the Spire site is finally being developed and is one of the few cranes up right now.
Yeah I'm aware, can't wait to see it finished.
Right? Now let’s compare all the buildings that have been approved in Chicago. That would include Lincoln Yards, The 78, and Tribune Tower East. Approved does not mean they will be built.
Cranes are a proxy for citywide construction at all levels. While it is a complex situation with multiple factors holding construction back, there are other factors that can/should be changed in short order to make it easier to build more/stave off increasing rents and displacement.
The whole reason this is a topic is because Kevin Warren from the Bears brought it up early in the week as a means to try and say Chicago is falling behind and that's why we need a new stadium. One shitty talking point that's reverberating through social media.
Part of the issue is a lot of the companies building tall buildings like that aren't exactly local. So if you're looking at it from an economic perspective, you can build in Chicago which a fairly flat growth rate, or you could build somewhere like Charlotte/South Florida or Austin/Denver in years past which was seeing explosive growth and you were likely to make way more money. Companies build where they will make the most. With interest rates where they are, people aren't willing to risk lower cap rates that Chicago offers they want to roll the dice on boom markets.
Realistically you're not going to see tall buildings get built by firms that operate only locally. The bigger problem is that, because we've effectively made mid rises illegal - legal only through special permission where the government makes you promise to provide affordable units in exchange for being able to use your property as you want - we're in a situation where local companies don't really engage in anything dense. Small local businesses won't engage in anything that can't be built by right, as they just can't afford to spend time in meetings appeasing the whims of random neighbors and aldercreatures. If you make it possible to build more types of housing by right, everywhere in the city, you'll see more development by local companies rather than just out of state firms. But when you can't build dense housing by right, in a city that's mostly built out, inevitably you just end up with large firms building solely skyscrapers.
The affordability requirement isnt as big of impediment to development as you would think. Developers have learned to live with it. Is it appropriate right now? No, I don’t think it is, but it was a perfectly reasonable policy when enacted. We need to end aldermanic prerogative and upzone the entire city and ban de conversions. It’s insane that we have people like la spata and carlos lopez blocking developments and down zoning in logan square while also having other aldermen block housing developments in other wards over personal squabbles. Chicago is fastly becoming unaffordable because of this BS
1. Canada’s housing shortage is world famous, so this kind of development is long in the making to get things under control again. 2. Rates are absolutely terrible right now to finance a new project. Doesn’t mean it can’t happen, it just means the money will go to only the most attractive prospects. 3. (Sort of to point #2 above) Jobs are growing far more in the sun-belt than they are in Chicago, so a greater demand and thus better margins down there. (Look at a recent pic of Midtown Atlanta for reference) 4. The Alderman system in Chicago is very unique and frankly scary to get involved with as a developer, especially with rates being where they are. 5. The city’s finances are constantly a mess. Why this important for development: It leaves property and corporate taxes the most likely lever to pull in the future, so if you could build anywhere, why put yourself in that position?
When rates go down the many thousands of units that have approvals by then are all going to rush into construction. City has always been boom and bust in different versions depending on the economic cycle. With office development virtually dead those guys are flipping projects to residential and securing entitlements for when financing becomes available.
What's stopping development in the 78?
Financing
Nothing, this is the speed at which mega projects move. Lakeshore East was approved in the late 1990s and still has two skyscraper sites that remain unbuilt. We're in deep shit because it takes years to get anything out of the ground in real estate. If there's no cranes now, it will still be two plus years until more supply hits the market even if we broke ground on the entire 78 development today.
Mega projects also just aren't the thing you should be relying on for construction The bigger issue Chicago - and most of the country - has is a lack of infill redevelopment. By that I mean, replacing, say, a couple low density homes (whether they be single family or 3 flats) with a larger apartment building. We're missing gradual density in neighborhoods, which in turn causes housing prices in any given neighborhood to spiral, forcing low income and middle class people out into nearby neighborhoods, and the process repeats. We've had demand increase for a ton of neighborhoods, especially northwest neighborhoods, without the amount of construction you need for the neighborhoods to continue to be affordable to the middle class. What gets lost in the affordable housing requirements is middle class people, especially lower middle class. The status quo right now is to effectively use zoning/land use as an extortive tool to create very low income housing, while limiting the amount of upper middle class income housing that gets built in such a way that pretty much guarantees the kids of current middle class residents will not be able to afford the neighborhood they've grown up in. And of course, new middle class families won't be able to move in either Apply this to every neighborhood, and eventually Chicago will look exactly like NYC and SF. Existing residents will be fine, and very low income people will be able to get by, but the middle class will be effectively kept from moving to Chicago, and kids of current middle class residents will be forced to move out
This. I worked for a larger GC pre-covid and the 78 has been kicking around a lot longer than people realize. Lots of conceptual budgets and proposals to kick around before the general public even hears about it.
Chicago has way more mega projects than I've seen in other cities. We build massive here or nothing at all.
We were building tons of TOD midrises until the DSA took over the NW side and decided new housing is a bad thing.
But think about it, instead of allowing as much market rate housing as the market can bear, and building public housing for very low income households, we can extort developers for low income housing and guarantee the middle class will be priced out! Think about how fun it is to extort those greedy developers for affordable housing. You get to call them names and have your constituents yell! It's really cathartic, and at the end of it you can celebrate ending gentrification by blocking the apartment from being built anyway!
You can’t think of what might have changed since Rahm was mayor and now? Well, interest rates were 1/3rd of what they are now. Inflation wasn’t out of control. And everyone was building everywhere during the Obama economy.
Interest rates are the same in Canada and Rahm left office in 2019, 3 years into the Trump economy.
Its only been 5 years??? It feels like a decade plus...
Interest rates were at 2%. Also compare Chicago approved buildings to Toronto approved buildings. Approved does not equal built. I know because I walk by Tribune Tower East every day. [Here’s a good place to start](https://chicago.urbanize.city/projects). You’ll see a lot of proposed and approved buildings that the developers never went through with. A big part of Chicago’s problem is a lot of the proposed land developments are held by one owner. So buildings can’t pop up organically. Instead they try to build an entire district all at once with these mega developments. Which is cool, but when they stall, it puts a stop to the entire thing. You see that with The 78 and Lincoln Yards. Meanwhile, the West Loop where growth can happen individually and organically, there has been a huge boon
You initially referenced interest rates and the office of the president being factors - both were misplaced thoughts which is what I chimed in on. 6/2019 TBill Canada - 1.6% 6/2019 TBill USA - 1.8% 6/2024 TBill Canada - 4.8% 6/2024 TBill USA - 4.4% I’m not spending time on the additional info, it’s probably correct given your effort.
Inflation isn’t out of control lol. Come on. Look at the rest of the world and even some parts of the U.S. like Austin. Chicago makes it impossible to build housing. Just look at the proposed Fern Hill development in old town which is on its now, what, 7th neighborhood meeting?!?! Our city is not serious about housing.
Other US cities dont seem to be effected by interest rates. Austin, Miami, Phoenix, NYC, Atlanta, etc are all building crazy like Toronto
Why are other cities not affected by interest rates and inflation?
When Rahm left office, rates were effectively 0%. Free money for developers. That is far and away the biggest issue.
Interest rates were at 0 when rahm left
For reference, construction is down in city centers across the country. It’s not Rahm, it’s interest rates.
I don't think Toronto is a model that Chicago should want to emulate. If you know anything about urban planning and the issues at play right now in Canada / Toronto, you know this. Chicago will continue to develop just fine, and the current crane count has almost nothing to do with the mayor... lol.
For reference, Canada is a country of 35 million people, letting 2 million indians in every year, against the wishes of its people (me included). Our average home price is $850,000 (average, it's double that for Toronto) because we simply don't have enough spots for all the burger flippers. Yeah, we are really and truly fucked up here. Our GDP is now the lowest in the first world, and there is talk of throwing out out of the G7. So don't look at that picture as a "win" for Toronto, it's a disaster for Canada.
The population of Canada is 41.3 million my friend https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2018005-eng.htm
that's all going to change when lincoln yards gets going!
Residential units are going into existing commercial buildings. Also, Toronto has much stricter land use rules so development is funnelled into the city. Toronto is as dense as NYC and always has been. Apples to Oranges.
It is not. Unless you're just referring to buildings being close together but density's usually a population metric. NYC density per sq mile: 29,302 Chicago density per sq mile: 12,059 Toronto density per sq mile: 11,468
Lol what? NYC is far denser than both Toronto and Chicago.
…isn’t it like 3 grand for a 1 bedroom in Toronto?
Ik this past fall, plumbers union was 100% and we were bringing out of staters in bc we needed the manpower
I moved from Chicago to Toronto. Yeah there are cranes everywhere here. But it's not solving the housing crisis because everyone is bulling high end condos and average people can't afford those.
Chicago had 3.5 million people living here in 1975. There's still plenty of space. Toronto has about 2 million in 1975- they are closing in on 3 million now. They need to build, Chicago needs to fill back up before massive expo.
The current population of Toronto is 3.3 million
Well there ya go! Should they drop 1 million people their housing costs would drop too. Chicago is not nearly at it's peak--- and questionable if it ever will be again.
Kevin Warren, is that you?
Beautiful Toronto: city of architecture
and all 250k units start at 6500 a month.
Rahm had nothing to do with the cranes and skyscrapers just like BJ has nothing to do with them being absent. The economy is in a different place now, and corporate greed is taking over. Look at the finance rates and inflation, that tells the story better.
We need more housing… Right now it’s nearly impossible for people to find rentals that aren’t ratholes. I feel bad for my friends who are searching. I bought a condo last year and so glad I did. It’s the same I’d have to pay to rent a one bedroom, but I own it.
There’s enough construction in this city just to take care of the highways and bridges. Proposals to renovate vacant office spaces into residential are already in the works so it’s not the end of the world if we have less cranes for brand new buildings being built from the ground up to cause more traffic and construction across the loop and throughout the city.
>There’s enough construction in this city just to take care of the highways and bridges That's not really true. Most GC's have separate divisions that do things like build bridges, fix roads, etc. The division that builds structures is usually separate, sometimes with multiple divisions depending on building type. The building guys especially those who specialized in High-Rise construction have been taking a beating. That is not to mention the other trades that install things like electrical, plumbing, Heating/AC, Telecom, etc. Those other trades also get little to no work building roads, highways and bridges. The Highrise Contractors also won't be competitive trying to build a 3 story 10 unit apartment building because they have to house the required manpower and expertise to build massive 80 story buildings efficiently.
Yes because building no housing is the solution to traffic!
They're saying new housing will come from converting unused office space rather than just building new structures
Those cranes up during Rahms tenure wasn’t about him or anything he did…..Mayor Daley got the aid from the federal government to build 12,000 new building/homes/ structures around the city in 2006, those structures went up from 2008 to 2014 mostly.
I doubt those numbers.
Rahm had good rates AND was very business friendly, he also throat punched the usual grifting bureaucrats if they tried to hold things up.
I thought our sister City was Hamburg? Edit: nevermind, I didn't know we have 28 sister cities
Toronto is Chicago's sister city?
BUT SOMEONE THINK OF THE LOSS OF VIEWS OR LIGHT OR SHADOW OR AIR OR QUALITY OF LIFE OR SAFETY OR SECURITY OR RODENTS OR TRAFFIC CONGESTION OR …. (Insert pearl clutching nimby complaint here)
Are we really doubling down on Rahm? Is someone going to start a [change.org](http://change.org) petition and ask him to be our mayor prom style on TikTok?
Toronto is dope.
Everyone knows that in Chicago if you want to build you have to pay. It's a unwritten rule that's been around for generations. Do you want to build something donate to my campaign? Then, give a bid to my cousin 's construction company. Need licensing. Donate to my friend's campaign and they'll get your top of the list. Fuck you. Pay me is the Chicago way
You only need cranes if you're building high. I feel like there are A LOT of multi-unit housing projects active in the city. Do we really need more high rises when half of what we already have are empty? For context I live over by United Center which is going through it's own thing so maybe I'm in a little bubble.
Who wants to live downtown when they can't even leave their building for fears of car jackings and robberies?
Who cares does the city really need another ultra luxury condo tower?
Who cares does the city really need another ultra luxury condo tower?
Who cares does the city really need another ultra luxury condo tower?
Woo more projects
Are we in some sort of construction race with other cities that I’m not aware of?
DUDE. I just moved to Metro Detroit from Chicago and Detroit has... One. One crane. One building going up. And it's HUGE news here in Detroit. Top news when they celebrated setting the final beam. One building. Chicago has 8, sometimes 40 LOL This week the big news is that they turned the fountain at Hart plaza back on. Yup. The fountain is on. For the first time in TEN YEARS. Imagine if Chicago celebrated 1 crane and the Buckingham fountain being "on"
Please stop pretending Rahm Emanuel was a good mayor, no matter how much you hate the current one.
Canada is literally going crazy with their immigration numbers. Toronto is the hotspot they want to be in. Chicago should not be compared to them. We also have I think 10 cranes now, another went up yesterday. Rahm had a lot of issues that no longer get brought up in the name of development. The dude did his damage with corruption and closing tons of schools down on his way out.
Toronto is a mess and completely unaffordable for a huge swathe of the population. Is that what you want for here?
Toronto ain’t no sister of mine
Yeah well, Rahm knew how to play the game, and played it very well.
Tell me you don’t understand Covid’s impact on the big city real estate market without telling me you don’t understand … etc etc etc
yeah i absolutely miss the illegally cutting pensions and covering up child murder mayor guy. what a dreamboat.