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Gov. Pritzker on crime, the city’s new mayor and the future of downtown Chicago

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* I guess it’s kinda turning out to be Mike Flannery Day here. This is our third Flannery-related post. But his interview with Gov. Pritzker was pretty good. Let’s start with the governor’s answer to Flannery’s question about the future of Chicago crime…

Pritzker: It has trended down from a year or two ago, but it’s been mildly moving in the right direction, again, I don’t think there’s evidence like it’s heading down to 400 or less murders a year and half the shootings. I do think, though, that there’s more emphasis on prevention than there ever has been before with the new mayor. And I’m grateful for that. I think that lifting up communities that have been poor and left out is the best way for us to make an enormous difference going forward at lowering crime rates.

Flannery: So what do you think’s going to work in the short term? How do we stop next weekend and weekend after that?

Pritzker: Couple of things. One is we’ve got to hire police. There’s no doubt about it. Right? The Chicago Police Department has lost hundreds, I mean, 1500 police officers, some of that is a result, and we saw that stay at the state level. Some of that is a result of there was a big hiring trend 20 years ago, and now it’s time for them to retire. And so you lose some people, right because they’re retiring. And then we as you know, we have a labor shortage in the country, let alone here

Flannery: And people don’t want to be cops anywhere in the country.

Pritzker: And I would say there aren’t enough people applying for any job. So the idea that you can build up the kind of force that you want in that environment is very difficult. I will say though, that at least at the state level, we’ve been able to build up state police. Because I started in my first year in office, and I’ve worked on it now for four plus years. So we have more state police now than we had when I came into office. You’ve got to stay at it. You’ve got to keep hiring. You’ve got to figure ways to attract people to the job. We’ve been successful at the state level. The city, I don’t think put as much of its shoulder into the wheel. Now though, I know that the mayor wants to do more, and I’m glad of that. But that’s not the only thing. More police isn’t the only answer. You’ve got to invest in communities and I don’t just mean you know, building up the economy, of course you do.

Please pardon all transcription errors.

* On new Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson…

Pritzker: You know what I find so impressive about the new mayor is he’s a listener. He isn’t stuck in some ideological rut or with only one idea and, you know, cuts out everybody.

Flannery: That is what some in the business community fear.

Pritzker: I think before he got elected, that’s what many people feared. I think what we’ve seen though, is he’s picking good staff. He’s listening and maybe changing a little bit, the way he views how we build up the economy in Chicago, what we need to do to build the future of Chicago. And public safety. I think he’s listening. And I’m very hopeful because he’s doing all of that. Look, I think all of us before we come into office, you run a tough campaign, you pick some lanes that you’re running down so that you can get elected. And then you get an office, and you still believe in those things, but you’re a little bit shaped by the circumstances that you’re walking into. And certainly Chicago has a bunch of challenges, situations that a new mayor needs to handle.

He sounds relieved to be rid of Mayor Johnson’s predecessor.

* On to downtown…

Flannery: Will downtown Chicago come back or is it going to be repurposed? Are we going to have, we’re still missing 100,000-plus workers. Will they be back or is it going to be somehow different in big cities like this?

Pritzker: There will be an evolution. Remember that under Mayor Daley, Richard M. Daley, downtown went from being a ghost town at night to having apartments and condos. You could watch people walk the streets in downtown Chicago. That never happened. People would go home and it was dead at night. And so that I think is something that’s a transformation that nobody expected. And it was a good transformation. I think we’re seeing transformation right now. Google bought the James R. Thompson Center … They are committed to that space and they’ve been making progress on it. … And I think they understand that this is an iconic location, and they’re taking a building over and completely renovating it, but it’s going to look very much the same. That beautiful, you know, glass edifice, right, and I think they see real possibility and that so it’ll be a gleaming center of downtown Chicago. You’ve seen Fulton Market. Look what’s happened at Fulton Market. Who thought, 20 years ago that was warehouses. Now it’s the cool area for businesses to move into and apartments and so on, Google, in their first iteration of a headquarters is there. We are seeing LaSalle street right. They’re building on LaSalle Street that will become condos and apartments. So there’s going to be a transformation and of course, we’re going to see people come back to work. You’ve seen it. It feels slower than it ought to be, but it is rising. And Chicago is doing better than LA and New York in bringing people back downtown. And I’ve talked to most of the major businesses downtown. I want them to bring their workers. It’s time. It’s time. … They understand that they ought to be doing that and that they really kind of need to do it. But they also know that they don’t want to lose some of the workers who are being productive at home and who are saying, ‘Hey, if you bring me back in, I’ve got kids at home I can take care of and do my job at the same time. If you bring me back in the office, I’m gonna have to leave my job with you and go to another…’

Flannery: Some of the big [hotels] downtown are in danger of going bankrupt. I think some of the loans are in some jeopardy. They’ve been filled up in the last few weeks, but not much in the last few years.

Pritzker: Look, it’s a great time to buy in Chicago. Certainly there was a downturn that came from the COVID 19 pandemic, a lot of buildings that have undergone distress as a result of that. But look at what’s happening now. And those hotels are getting filled up and it’s not just unique to a Taylor Swift concert. We now have major conventions coming…

Flannery: Are they going to be here through the rest of the year, do you think, through the winter?

Pritzker: It takes time to attract conventions, but we’re retaining conventions and we’re bringing as you know, the Democratic National Convention next year. We also have Rotary, they’re having their major convention. Nobody talks about that one.

Flannery: World headquarters in Evanston.

Pritzker: Yes, but they have their conventions all over. That convention is major for Chicago. People talking about the Democratic Convention…

Flannery: Bigger than the DNC.

Pritzker: It is bigger than the DNC. So these are the kinds of things, and by the way, you know, we’re having activities in downtown Chicago. Lollapalooza is a big deal. We’ll see about NASCAR and how much business that brings in, but I think there’s a belief that it will. So I think that you know, if you talk to the hoteliers in downtown Chicago, they will tell you things look pretty good going forward. So is a great time for people who want to buy real estate in downtown Chicago because there’s nowhere to go here but up because we went through so much turmoil in the last few years.

He also claimed that “over 10,000 jobs for sure” have been created here in the biotech and quantam spaces.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Jun 20, 23 @ 12:52 pm

Comments

I would be curious how many of that 10,000 are in the quantum space.

For what it is worth, numbers are up downtown, and I suspect they are going to continue to improve based off general observation.

Comment by OneMan Tuesday, Jun 20, 23 @ 1:06 pm
Worked a Rotery Convention before. I’ve never met a nicer group of people.

Comment by Betty Draper’s cigarette Tuesday, Jun 20, 23 @ 1:08 pm
Lollapalooza…and the Rotary…heh.

Comment by Dotnonymous XL Tuesday, Jun 20, 23 @ 1:09 pm
The shortage of new police officers doesn’t appear to be any worse than the shortage of new workers overall. We are hitting boomer and gen x retirement in public safety and this was always going to be a problem. Add to it a hot economy, poor community relations with the police, and none of this is surprising. From what I’ve seen the other public safety fields are having the same issues (fire, ems)

Comment by ArchPundit Tuesday, Jun 20, 23 @ 1:33 pm
From my personal experience riding the Brown line everyday, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, a lot of people are back downtown. Mondays and Fridays? Not so much.

But it’s progress. The Loop is slowly coming back, but a lot of problems remain, including a lot of idle men spending their days in a local park, and plenty of people with apparent mental/emotional needs not being addressed. Maybe they stand out more, but I also think there are more of both groups.

Honestly, I see what appear to be healthy youngish men spending all day at Pritzker Park, when nearly every store I pass has help wanted signs up begging for applicants. If you can be downtown every day from 9-5, you can find a job. Maybe they don’t need work, and there are probably serious obstacles for some to enter the workforce, but a lack of jobs isn’t the problem. Maybe a lack of pay, but you’ve got to start somewhere.

Comment by 47th Ward Tuesday, Jun 20, 23 @ 1:33 pm
Rotary in 2030 is going to be amazing for Chicago, bringing in humanitarian leaders from all over the world. Also an opportunity for local non-profits to be spotlighted and raise funds from the thousands of Rotary clubs in attendance.

Comment by NIU Grad Tuesday, Jun 20, 23 @ 1:38 pm
At the same time as the Taylor Swift concert, there were 45,000 people attending an oncology conference at McCormick (Uber nightmare). You can see it downtown. Tourists are coming back too. Next NASCAR. I’ve been a bit shocked by it. On the weekends, the Red Line looks like the old rush hour. People are headed downtown, River North etc.. It is coming back.

Comment by levivotedforjudy Tuesday, Jun 20, 23 @ 2:22 pm
===I would be curious how many of that 10,000 are in the quantum space.===

It’s hard to tell, because as soon as you look at them, they’re somewhere else.

Comment by Suburban Mom Wednesday, Jun 21, 23 @ 1:35 pm