![]() And, especially ominous, several major corporations have recently announced their departure from the region: Boeing, Caterpillar, and the hedge fund giant Citadel. Upscale Michigan Avenue has seen significant retail closures. Most workers are still not coming into their downtown offices. Carjackings, shootings, and industrial-scale shoplifting now plague even the most upscale areas of town. Crime, a problem that unlike in New York had never fully been conquered, has come back to the fore. In the last few years, the city has again hit choppy waters, with many raising questions about its future prospects. Big tech set up shop and the city’s startup scene grew. ConAgra and Molson Coors were drawn to the city from out of town. The 2010s, though not without challenges, saw another business surge into the city, as United Airlines and Boeing and other corporations planted their flag in downtown Chicago. Still, the young college grads of the Midwest kept rolling in, and ultimately so did business. The city dug itself into a financial hole that would only become apparent later. The 2000s turned out to be a lost decade of job growth in which Daley seemed to have lost his magic touch. The city’s path proved to have downs as well as ups. Daley was heralded as one of America’s supermayors. The vibe of the city transformed from The Blues Brothers to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. ![]() A dingy industrial city was cleaned up and adorned with flowers, a reclaimed river, wrought iron and classy streetlights. Waves of redevelopment surged outward from the downtown Loop and the thin north lakefront gentrified zone. My move to Chicago in 1992 coincided with the decade in which America’s urban resurgence exploded. So I’ve always had a special attachment to the city. The city changed this kid who grew up four miles outside a town of less than a hundred people into an “urbanophile” - a name I gave to a blog I later started. Moving to Chicago after college changed my life.
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