Tag Archives: Chicago region

Suburban worries that Metra troubles may end up giving Chicago more influence

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DuPage County Chairman Dan Cronin doesn’t want the troubles with Metra to give Chicago an opportunity to grab more power over regional transit:

As Metra tries to function amid scandal, it’s essential the suburbs maintain their influence on the board, DuPage Chairman Dan Cronin warned Friday.

With state lawmakers and Gov. Pat Quinn pushing to reinvent the troubled agency, there’s a danger whatever emerges will shift the balance of power to Chicago, Cronin said.

“I’m here representing the nearly 1 million people in DuPage County,” Cronin said. “I want to make sure their voice is heard. We have to be mindful of transit needs in the suburbs.”…

Friday marked the first time the board of directors has met since its game-changing session in June when they approved a separation agreement with former CEO Alex Clifford that’s been called a golden parachute at best and “hush money” at worst…

Other fallout included the departures of Kane County appointee Mike McCoy and DuPage’s Paul Darley. McCoy, a civil engineer and former county chairman, and business owner Darley were considered independent voices on the board.

There is not much context here about Cronin’s statements. However, this statement hints at larger issues. This is part of a ongoing power struggle in the Chicago region between the city and suburban interests. There are transit needs in DuPage County including rail lines to Chicago and major highways and roads (plus a lack of mass transit to points within the county itself outside of Metra lines). And Metra is not the only flashpoint; the Regional Transit Authority is another issue. But, this could also simply be a manifestation of something many suburbanites, particularly conservatives, fear: Chicago is a power-hungry entity that can’t wait to dictate more policy to the rest of Illinois. And this may be the reason many suburbanites live there in the first-place or now justify their suburban presence: they wanted to get away from Chicago.

More Chicago area houses purchased with cash

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In perhaps another sign of the bifurcated housing market, more and more buyers are purchasing Chicago area homes with cash:

Some people actually pay cash to buy a house. In fact, it happens more than you’d probably expect—in the first half of 2013, cash paid for 34 percent of all homes bought in the Chicago area, according to data that RealtyTrac released exclusively to Chicago. For the month of June, cash bought 30 percent of local homes, which was even with the national average in data the company released last week.

Many of those cash buyers were investors, either the big corporate type or the smaller individual type. But real estate agents and others say the number of end-users buying homes for their own use and paying cash has risen steeply this year. (I could not find data that breaks down which cash buyers are end users and which are investors.)

And the reasons this is happening more?

-They want to be the sharpest competitor in a multiple-bid situation. A cash offer is “the cleanest offer,” Whelan says. It assures the seller that the deal won’t fall through for lack of financing, and it typically offers a faster closing because it eliminates the wait for the mortgage process.

-They know that sellers sometimes will accept a lower-priced cash offer over a higher-priced offer that will be financed, to avoid the hassle.

-They may believe that the value of the home they want is above what an appraiser would calculate based on comps from the recent past. Paying cash instead of getting a mortgage leaps over a mortgage lender’s requirement of an appraisal, Kawabata points out.

-Although it’s been easing recently, jumbo loans—mortgages for more than $417,000 in the Chicago area—were difficult to get for the past few years so buyers of higher-priced homes had been lining up cash for the home purchases they wanted to make this year.

In other words, if you have the cash on hand, it can give you a leg up on big real estate purchases. But, this option isn’t available to most people. So, it seems like this helps those with wealth to continue to rack up the wealth through larger and/or more valuable real estate portfolios.

Sociologist Charles Tilly honored in Elmhurst, IL

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It is not often that you see renowned sociologists acknowledged by their high schools in the Chicago suburbs: the late Charles Tilly is being honored by York High School in Elmhurst.

York High School finally has its first group of hall of famers—or as they are referred to in District 205, Dukes of Distinction.

This well-deserved group was culled from nominations submitted by Elmhurst community members, District 205 staff, alumni and others early this year. These eight honorees have distinguished themselves through significant and extraordinary accomplishments, service and an outstanding contribution to society…

Dr. Charles Tilly, Class of 1946

Dr. Tilly was a a comparative and historical sociologist, analyst of social movements, and a social theorist, political sociologist and methodological innovator. Dr. Tilly authored 51 books and over 600 articles, as well as directing over 200 doctoral dissertations. He was a member of numerous scientific academies and a lecturer at universities all over the world. He was called “an intellectual global powerhouse,” whose contributions led to the development of seven subfields in sociology. Dr. Tilly died in 2008.

Perhaps I’m alone in this but I would be intrigued to hear how well-known sociologists made it from high school to an academic career in sociology. Is there anything about Lombard and Elmhurst that pushed Tilly toward sociology? I recently saw another suggestion that the lives of adults tend to mirror their lives in high school, which is highly reductionistic and depressing, but perhaps future sociologists were different?

Also, given the history of sociology in Chicago, how many other sociologists are from the Chicago suburbs? How about a per capita look at which major US regions produce the most sociologists?

Argument: many Chicago suburbs have boring mottos

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The Daily Herald suggests a number of Chicago suburbs have dull mottos that don’t say much about the communities:

Town mottos are like nicknames in that the best ones, such as “City of Big Shoulders” for Chicago, are bestowed by others and not self-proclaimed, such as “Urbus en Horto” (“City in a Garden”) for Chicago. At least there is a story behind Des Plaines’ destiny. Most suburbs adopt bland, easily forgotten mottos that tout development or vague hopes for the future, such as Schaumburg’s “Progress Through Thoughtful Planning,” Bloomingdale’s “Growth With Pride,” or Bolingbrook’s “A Place to Grow.”

Wauconda’s “Water. Spirit. Wonder.” is unique but might sound a little cold compared to neighboring Island Lake, which is “A Community of Friendly People” who settled there instead of in Huntley, “The Friendly Village with Country Charm.”

Hanover Park opts for “One Village — One Future.” It doesn’t say much, but no one can argue with the math. No one should quibble about Elgin’s “The City in the Suburbs.” But Naperville’s “Great Service — All the Time,” also a favorite motto of pizzerias, might fuel discussions. One Wikipedia entry falsely touts Libertyville’s motto as the impressive “Fortitudine Vincimus,” Latin for “By Endurance We Conquer,” which basically means “We Will Win By Hanging Around Until Everybody Else Quits.” But Libertyville never used that motto and currently sports only the phrase “Spirit of Independence” on its red-white-and-blue logo…

Lombard, “The Lilac Village,” still boasts a motto that brings to mind something pretty and fragrant. Roselle hosts a rose parade and includes roses in its village seal, but it uses the motto “Tradition Meets Tomorrow,” which is pretty similar to the “Where Tradition and Vision Meet” motto of Batavia. (Given Batavia’s link to the high-energy physics of Fermilab, it might consider the motto “Village of Density.”)

These mottos sound like classic talk from city boosters: they tend to contain grand visions about the future without getting into too many specifics or highlight a small part of the community’s character. I think they are primarily about trying to impress businesses, trying to attract them to relocate in a place that is thriving and will continue to thrive.

Unfortunately, when all the mottos sound similar, they all don’t mean a whole lot. How does a business really differentiate between communities based on their mottos? The biggest issue for a suburb might be having a motto that is significantly different. This might lead people to ask why that community is so out of line.

Critics of suburbs might see these mottos as more evidence of the homogeneity or blandness of suburbs. Many communities seem to be striving after the same things. Yet, we know that suburbs are actually quite different, whether that is due to different functions (like comparing a bedroom suburb and an edge city) or different histories (date of founding, specific historical circumstances) or a unique set of self-perception (like suburbs that view themselves as extra friendly or full of volunteers). So perhaps more suburbs should work to differentiate themselves in their mottos, move away from bland American notions of progress, and more explicitly highlight their more unique features.

NIMBY reactions in Chicago suburbs to possible marijuana dispensaries

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With a medical marijuana bill in the works in Illinois, some Chicago suburbs are trying to prepare for marijuana dispensaries:

In anticipation of the law, the Lake County Municipal League plans a seminar July 18 addressing how to handle the issue. Several suburbs, including Barrington, Buffalo Grove, Carpentersville, Deerfield, Highland Park and Libertyville, have taken preliminary steps to determine where marijuana facilities could locate…

Fox Lake took steps to limit marijuana facilities to its manufacturing areas, away from the downtown and residential areas.

“No one on the board is opposed to medical marijuana,” Mayor Donny Schmit said. “Everybody knows someone who’s had cancer or suffered eye disease. We just wanted an area where (suspicious) traffic would be noticed.”…

The proposed Illinois law would limit access to medical marijuana to patients 18 and older. Marijuana facilities would have to be at least 1,000 feet from schools, and smoking marijuana would be forbidden in public places and motor vehicles…

“Do you want your home next to a marijuana dispensary?” he said. “I wouldn’t. At least our communities would be protected to the fullest extent we can.”

It will be fascinating to see how more suburbs respond to this. Even if the facilities are legal, many residents, particularly in places with higher property values, will not want to live near such facilities and communities will not to have them prominently featured in their business and civic areas. At the same time, this is a different issue than many NIMBY concerns like landfills or prisons or manufacturing facilities – the medical marijuana law is intended to help sick people. Does having a medical marijuana dispensary nearby lower property values? Is it an eyesore on the level with tattoo parlors?

Might the tide turn if there was some local sales tax money that could be collected from each facility?

The changing nature of poverty in the Chicago region between 1980 and 2010

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Building off a post two days ago about comparing maps of urban poverty in 1980 and 2010, here is a closer look at how poverty has changed in the Chicago region over the same time period:

The shift is really quite dramatic, in broad terms:

Between 2000 and 2007/11, Cook County’s poverty rate moved from 13.5 percent to 15.8 percent; at the beginning of the decade, its poverty rate was highest in the region, but by 2007/11 it had been surpassed by DeKalb County and Lake County, Indiana, where the rates jumped from 11.4 to 15.9 percent and 12.2 to 16.6 percent, respectively.

Chicago city’s share of its CBSA’s population below poverty declined from a stunning 60 percent of the total to 48 percent of the total between 2000 and 2007/11.

It highlights something important: the decrease in Chicago’s population over the past few decades has gotten a lot of attention, but not the more recent decrease in population in the surrounding cities:

Chicago’s suburban poverty growth stems partly from the hollowing out of older inner suburbs noted by Lucy and Phillips (2003), Hanlon (2010), and others, in which who have more resources move away and are not replaced by others, leaving poor and near-poor households behind. Although the metropolitan area gained population in the 2000s, 122 of the Chicago region’s municipalities lost population. Among these declining cities, the average increase in poverty was 4.2 percentage points, compared with an average poverty growth of 3.1 percentage points in the growing cities.

Indeed, the best known and most severe poverty rate increases in Chicago occurred in a series of suburbs south of Chicago that lost population, including Harvey, Chicago Heights, and Calumet City. This zone of spiraling poverty—increases of 8 to 12 percentage points—amid population loss extends into northwest Indiana. The poverty rate in Gary and East Chicago exceed 30 percent citywide; Hammond’s poverty rate increased from 14 to 22 percent over the decade. Among these cities, only Hammond had a majority-white non-Hispanic population in 2000, and both Gary and Harvey were at least 80 percent black.

This is part of a bigger trend in the United States: poverty has spread to the suburbs, particularly to inner-ring suburbs adjacent to big cities that now face more inner-city issues. This not only upsets traditional views of suburbs as home to the wealthy but also raises a whole set of questions about how existing residents will respond and what social services can be provided. Both of these questions are ones that more and more American communities will face and it is unclear what the outcome will be.

Thinking specifically of the Chicago area poverty data, this is interesting to reconcile with the animosity others in the suburbs or elsewhere in Illinois have for the problems of Chicago. These maps show that issues like race or social class or gangs are not just big-city issues, no matter how much non city dwellers might wish to blame the city.

McMansion owners in the Chicago suburbs get cheaper ComEd rates than city-dwellers

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Crain’s Chicago Business highlights an interesting part of the regulations for ComEd: a suburban homeowner pays a more advantageous rater than a city resident.

The reason: The price to reserve “capacity”—the right to buy electricity during peak-demand periods—will soar next June. That rising cost, which is embedded in the energy price on customers’ electric bills, will hit households consuming small amounts of power far harder than owners of large homes using a lot of electricity. Residents of wealthy suburbs with larger, high-consumption homes could well pay 1 to 2 cents per kilowatt-hour less for electricity than city residents.

Why? ComEd allocates the capacity charge evenly among all residential customers regardless of their usage. So the owner of a city bungalow consuming 500 kilowatt-hours per month pays the same dollar amount for capacity as the owner of a McMansion in the suburbs using three times as much. The McMansion owner’s total electric bill will be higher than the bungalow owner’s, but the McMansion owner will pay less per kilowatt-hour because the added capacity charge makes up a much smaller percentage of the total.

This disparity hasn’t been an issue to date because capacity costs have been unusually low over the past two years. But the price for capacity in PJM Interconnection—the 13-state power grid that includes northern Illinois—will rise 350 percent for the year beginning in June 2014. That will have a bigger impact on towns and cities with lots of small-usage households such as Chicago than it will on suburbs featuring larger homes…

Evidence of “have” and “have-not” municipalities already is starting to appear. Two wealthy north suburbs with many large homes, Bannockburn and Kildeer, last month locked in an energy price for their residents of just below 5 cents per kilowatt-hour for the next two years beginning in September. By contrast, under the Integrys contract, Chicago residents pay 5.42 cents, or 8 percent more. And next May, when the city must reprice the deal, it’s expected to struggle to beat a ComEd price that will approach 7 cents.

The article doesn’t answer the most basic question: how did this disparity end up in the regulations in the first place?

The article suggests that people in the city or suburbs should be paying the same electricity rate. It is only fair to pay equally. But, I wonder if some wouldn’t argue that the suburbanites who are more spread out, require more infrastructure to reach this larger area, and tend to live in bigger houses should actually be paying higher rates. Couldn’t that be written into the regulations? This may not be politically popular but I imagine the argument could be made. Indeed, using the term McMansion in comparison to the humble Chicago bungalow leans in this direction by referring to unnecessarily large homes.

Average new US house over 2,500 square feet; average new Chicago area house 2,650 square feet

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Here is an update on the average (not the median) new house size in the United States and in the Chicago region:

As a result, the average new home completed last year was 2,505 square feet. That represents the third annual increase in square feet and puts the average home size on par with where it was in 2008. Average home size peaked in 2007 at 2,521 square feet…

In the Chicago area, the average size of homes being built today is about 2,650 square feet, down from the 2,800 to 3,000 square feet constructed during the housing boom, according to Chris Huecksteadt, director of the Chicago region for Metrostudy, a housing research firm.

The US average is not surprising but it is rarer to see see figures for specific metropolitan regions. The higher than average new housing size in the Chicago area is likely related to the wealth of the metropolitan area but its lack of recovery compared to the national average suggests the region hasn’t bounced back as much as some other regions.

Suburbs wooing the Chicago Cubs highlights the regional nature of sports teams and stadiums

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The Chicago Cubs moving out of the city seems unlikely. But, that hasn’t stopped several Chicago suburbs from suggesting they would be willing to work out a deal with the Cubs to build a new stadium:

What the soliciting suburbs believe — and sources close to the Cubs confirm — is that the siblings of Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts are souring on Chicago and growing increasingly concerned the deal will be modified in a way that denies the team the revenue it needs to renovate Wrigley without a public subsidy…

“If this deal looks like it’s going down in flames or not getting done in a reasonable time, Tom will invest in ‘Plan B’ locations. He’d still work with the mayor on a city site. But, maybe not in Wrigleyville. I know people don’t believe it. But, it’s true,” the Cubs source said…

Aides to Mayor Rahm Emanuel privately dismissed this week’s public solicitation from DuPage County Board Chairman Dan Cronin as a Cubs-orchestrated negotiating ploy.

“This is all manufactured to gain leverage,” said a top mayoral aide, who asked to remain anonymous.

Last month, Ricketts threatened to move his team out of Wrigley and Chicago if he doesn’t get the outfield signs he needs to bankroll a $300 million stadium renovation without a public subsidy.

This comes after the announcement this week that DuPage County has two potential sites for the Cubs. But, little extra information about these plans were provided.

But, I think a more interesting take is the regional nature of sports teams and stadiums. Sports teams these days are really regional entities, particularly considering that more people live in the suburbs than central cities. It is unusual to have a team like the Cubs so closely tied to a specific neighborhood. Additionally, cities often see sports stadiums as economic engines, even though research suggests spending lots of taxpayer dollars on stadiums doesn’t pay off for communities. On one hand, it is not all that different than fighting over big box stores or corporate headquarters because of the supposed economic benefits. Yet, on the other hand it is a constant status symbol. Could the city of Chicago really afford in terms of prestige to lose the Cubs? I don’t think so. Would a suburb get a big status boost from hosting the Cubs? Possibly. If a suburb was able to woo the Cubs, I imagine they would trumpet this fact and try to build around it for decades.

This has happened before in Chicago. When the Chicago Bears were looking for a new stadium from the 1970s to the early 1990s, several suburbs were involved. The Bears ended up getting a decent enough deal from the city to stay. (Maybe they should have pushed harder. They have the smallest NFL stadium in terms of seats and with it also being an open-air facility, this limits its Super Bowl possibilities in the future. Also, the facility is still owned by the Chicago Park District and this has led to issues over the years.) Again, it is hard to imagine the Chicago Bears, a historic NFL franchise, playing out in the suburbs next to a major highway. What would have been a boon for a suburb would have been a big perceived loss for Chicago.

In the end, these sorts of negotiations can pit cities against suburbs in similar ways to fighting over business opportunities. But, rather than arguing about just money, sports teams are viewed as public goods that belong to a region. Perhaps the worst possible outcome is for the region to lose a team to another region altogether. The second worst outcome might be for the big city to lose the stadium to an upstart suburb.

Better to expand Metra service to Oswego and Yorkville or use money to solve problems within the region?

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Discussion is growing about expanding Metra commuter rail service to Oswego and Yorkville but where the money will come from is an issue:

Metra board directors on Friday supported increasing a consulting contract by $439,631 for a total of $2.26 million to review the Yorkville option. The funding for the engineering study comes from a federal grant, earmarked in 2003 by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Yorkville.

The agency has been considering locating stations in Oswego but Yorkville is being added since it offers an optimal site for a yard to house trains. Montgomery is also in the mix as a new station.

But how to pay for operating the expansion and related construction — since most of the route is outside the six-county region that Metra serves — is an unknown. A sales tax in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties subsidizes part of the costs of running Metra, but it isn’t levied in Kendall County…

Oswego Village Administrator Steve Jones said the Metra station was “extremely important. Up until the housing crash, Oswego and the immediate area was one of the fastest-growing areas in the country. As residents move to the area, they have some expectations for transportation for employment and cultural matters … just being linked to the city.”

Since Oswego and Yorkville have been growing, this makes some sense. Yet, I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to find money, grants and otherwise, to expand train service within the six county region. As currently constituted, Metra service is based on a hub and spokes model where riders have to go into the city before heading back out. Why not find money to develop belt lines where riders can move between job centers, particularly places like Naperville, Schaumburg, and Hoffman Estates as well as O’Hare Airport? Indeed, there are already plans for such a line that involve expanding an existing beltway rail line. Read more here about the STAR Line.

More broadly, this is a question of whether officials should encourage continued expansion of metropolitan areas through the construction of new infrastructure or help deal with the existing issues of metropolitan regions. People may choose to move to places like Oswego or Yorkville but officials don’t necessarily have to find the money to support it.