OPINION:
Chicago is tragically slipping away from its roots and stature as the model for the American century and one of the most innovative cities in the world.
Historically, Chicago has been known for its big shoulders, big hustle, big businesses and big innovations. In the words of Thomas Dyja in “The Third Coast”: “As New York positioned itself on the global stage and Hollywood polished the nation’s fantasies, the most profound aspects of American modernity emerged from the flat prairie land next to Lake Michigan.”
Sadly, today’s Chicago is not the vigorous culture-setting Second City of its past. It is struggling, violent, financially strapped and failing. Its businesses are leaving, and its residents are following. Too many of its neighborhoods are scenes of horrific violence and economic blight.
Once proud and grand, Chicago today is an American tragedy.
Chicago originated as a trading post, with a never-say-die spirit that made it the cradle of American capitalism. It was in this city that the first American futures exchange was organized. Chicago’s bravado served as the engine for some of the most iconic American companies: Sears Roebuck, Swift, Zenith and Motorola.
Don’t forget, the world’s first nuclear chain reaction occurred in Chicago.
The city’s location at the heart of America’s food basket made it the national capital of food innovation and manufacturing. Chicago’s list of behemoth businesses also includes McDonald’s, Kraft, Quaker Oats, Brach’s and Wrigley. These great businesses modernized trade, generated world-changing technological advances, fed America and employed millions.
Today, however, Chicago has slammed the door on this legacy. High taxes and crime are driving out businesses and residents. In the past decade, Chicago has lost a stunning 17% of its businesses, nearly 10,000.
As of August, Chicago had fewer business license applications than in any other year in the past decade. In that same 10 years, active business licenses on Michigan Avenue — the Magnificent Mile, Chicago’s crown jewel — have dropped 51%, from 1,600 to 784. In the past five years, Chicago has lost major employers, including Boeing, Citadel, Guggenheim, Tyson Foods and TTX.
Caterpillar, a company that has spent more than 100 years in Illinois, has moved its headquarters from Chicagoland to Irving, Texas.
People are leaving too. In 2024, Chicago lost 56,235 residents, the largest population loss in the Midwest and the third largest in the country. Chicago has pushed more of its residents to other places in the country than virtually any other city.
While packing their bags, these businesses shared the reason they moved out. Citadel’s Ken Griffin said, “It’s become ever more difficult to have [Chicago] as our global headquarters, a city which has so much violence.”
Chicago’s reputation for gun violence is singular. There is more crime in Chicago than in any other major U.S. city.
More taxes too. Illinois is the highest-taxed state in the nation. It has the third-highest state corporate income tax and the highest commercial property tax. Its debt burden is driven by unfunded pension liabilities.
Each Chicago taxpayer’s share of the debt is $40,600. Add the state debt, and that number doubles. Chicago is considered the second-worst sinkhole city in the country.
The responsibility for this American tragedy lies with the incompetent governing class in Chicago and Illinois. We’re ruled by leftists. Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker have governed our city and state with a far-left ideology that demonizes law enforcement and business. Our mayor injects race into every issue, and our governor, heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, has exhibited an insatiable appetite for pandering to the lunatic left wing of today’s Democratic Party, remaking himself into a Bolshevik billionaire.
Chicago has become a sanctuary city — not only for illegal migrants, many of whom are violent criminals, but also for gangs and thugs who smash and grab at our stores, carjack vehicles and brazenly rob people, sometimes in broad daylight. Criminals know Chicago’s political leaders are openly and actively hostile to law enforcement.
Though not to higher taxes. Mr. Johnson is pushing to raise the existing employee head tax for all businesses with 200 or more workers in Chicago and has consistently pushed for a transaction tax on higher-priced real estate sales. With the urging of Chicago Democrats, the Illinois General Assembly this year came within a hairsbreadth of imposing a tax on unrealized gains — income you haven’t yet earned and may never earn. It’s a tax that exists nowhere in America.
The Chicago City treasurer has her own agenda. Melissa Conyears-Ervin proposed boycotting U.S. Treasury bonds in the city’s $11 billion portfolio, saying, “Chicagoans do not want us to bankroll … the authoritarian regime of Donald Trump.” The problem is that, first, rejecting the safest and most liquid investments available — and those returning at a higher rate than the city portfolio has returned under the treasurer’s tenure — is directly at odds with her fiduciary duty. Equally perplexing, the treasurer of an essentially bankrupt city is seeking to “defund” the federal government, an entity that puts $1 billion into the city’s annual budget, not to mention funds programs supporting low-income Chicagoans.
Chicago is no stranger to catastrophe. One hundred fifty years ago, it rose from the ashes. Today, high taxes and crime are burning it to the ground. Unless Chicago changes course, our beloved home risks becoming another great city lost to history.
• Rod Blagojevich served as governor of Illinois from 2003 to 2009. In February, he was pardoned by President Trump for his conviction on corruption charges.
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