Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s first effort at building “affordable” housing is costing nearly $700,000 per unit. Similar units in the same area cost $126,583.
Red-light cameras on the city’s South Side issued the most tickets per intersection between October 2023 and September 2024, more than 2.5 times as many as cameras on the North Side. Citywide, fines are up to $61.4 million for past 12 months.
Chicago’s migrant crisis has been national news and a $430-million headache. But those in the city for the Democratic National Convention will have a hard time seeing the problem because the city has moved shelters out of downtown and to the South Side.
Independence Day weekend was bloody in Chicago. City leaders are doing little other than pointing fingers. Here are 10 things Chicagoans should know about the current crime problem.
Josh Bandoch, head of policy for the Illinois Policy Institute, testimony about how accessory dwelling units can help fix Chicago’s affordable housing shortage. City regulations and mandates can derail this free-market solution, though.
Black Chicagoans were over 20 times more likely to become homicide victims during the past 12 months than their white peers, with 9-in-10 homicides on the South Side and West Side. Hopes of catching killers hit a new low.
Chicagoans reported 2,619 fewer vehicle thefts during the first four months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, but cases remain more than double what they were just a few years ago as arrests remain low. One carjacking took a police officer’s life.
Chicago speed cameras hit motorists with over $102 million in fines during 2023, and $879 million total since they started flashing a decade ago. The mayor promised to eliminate the automated traffic cams, which issued a ticket every 20 seconds last year.
Voters on the South Side and West Side of Chicago supported Mayor Brandon Johnson just a year ago. They just vehemently rejected his plan to raise the real estate transfer tax, which threatened businesses and lacked details about easing homelessness.
Boosting “sustainable community schools” and killing selective enrollment and other public-school choices is the Chicago Teachers Union’s answer to fix city schools. But the push is about union power rather than raising student achievement.