Every mayor in Chicago history has unveiled, amid great fanfare, a jobs plan and an economic development proposal to bring prosperity to every corner of Chicago. They've had mixed success.
So what's new about the 10-year plan Mayor Lori Lightfoot began to roll out in a speech last evening—especially as compared to the one former Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced eight years ago?
After talking to a few folks and having some time to mull over the details, there are a lot of similarities and couple of differences of note—and a few other key differences that depend on what happens next. At the top of the list is Lightfoot’s declaring it her official policy to try to rebuild Chicago’s population from roughly 2.7 million now to at least 3 million.
Equally important, though, is that Lightfoot has a plan.
At a time when Chicago’s socialist City Council caucus views business as something to squeeze via a “corporate head tax,” “LaSalle Street tax,” “commuter tax” or whatever, it’s refreshing to hear a progressive mayor talk about expanding the size of the pie, rather than just dividing it differently.
This mayor easily could have gone in the other direction. Instead, she’s sensibly arguing that key to raising the city’s overall prosperity is to grow more jobs, period. That’s important.
As to the plan itself, Lightfoot identified seven industrial sectors—including manufacturing, tech, health care and transportation/logistics—where Chicago’s prospects are particularly good. It’s no secret that those roughly are the same sectors Emanuel pointed to in 2011, or that Gov. J.B. Pritzker highlighted them in his recent state economic plan. Chicago’s relative strengths in those areas is obvious.
More difficult will be implementing what Team Lightfoot calls “equity”—something to ensure that the jobs go to people living everywhere in the city, and not just the tier of neighborhoods downtown and to the north and northwest.
Lightfoot seems serious about that. That’s the significance of the 3 million population call, because there’s no way this city will get back to that level without offering new economic opportunities to disproportionately minority, lesser educated people who now see more opportunity at cheaper living costs elsewhere.
But how?
Samir Mayekar, the man in charge of implementing the plan as Lightfoot’s deputy mayor, says the seven clusters identified are, with a few exceptions, open to people who need skilled training but not necessarily an advanced degree, tech partially withstanding.
The city will try to accentuate that by working closely with employers to hire people who, for instance, could gain from an apprenticeship program rather than attending college. It’s focusing on a few neighborhood retail strips as a catalytic key. It also is trying to take advantage of some recent signs that some downtown employers may be prepared to set up shop in outlying neighborhoods, he adds. “Holding a job that’s close to where someone lives really can enhance productivity,” he says.
Perhaps. Much depends on whether reliable public transportation is available there. Few neighborhoods are served as well and efficiently as the center city. Much also depends on what type of financial incentives Team Lightfoot decides to offer in the future. Like it or not, that’s part of the economic development story everywhere.
Those details are yet to be resolved. We’ll see what working groups in each of those seven sectors actually produce next year.
Emanuel's strategy of courting big-business leaders to set up headquarters and other large offices downtown worked wonderfully, for part of Chicago. The challenge in Lightfoot's plan is to widen the scope of what's already been achieved.
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December 11, 2019 at 02:40AM
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The challenge in Lightfoot's new jobs plan - Crain's Chicago Business
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