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The smartest politician in Chicago has decided not to seek a third term as mayor. If only the captain of the ill-fated Titanic would have been this astute before its maiden voyage.

9-Sep-18 – Chicagoans should have guessed that political shift was underway when Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s powerful City Council floor leader, 40th Ward Alderman Pat O’Connor, announced on August 30 that he was retiring from politics.

It is obvious that two of Chicago’s most powerful politicians looked into the crystal ball and saw the future of the city’s catastrophic finances and the monumental $28 billion public pension debt much more clearly than the hapless home and condominium owners.

“Every property owner in Chicago fears that next year we are going to be hit with a tsunami – the largest real estate tax increases ever billed on Planet Earth,” said a Logan Square three-flat owner who recently was slapped with a whopping 73 percent reassessment hike from Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios.

Is the city’s overwhelming financial crisis so bad that the political kings are exiting the sinking palace like rats and swimming up the Chicago River before the perfect storm hits?

For those investors who hope to survive financially, selling their multi-unit apartment buildings for top dollar and making an exodus from Chicago while prices still are at record highs may be the smartest answer, experts say.

In fairness, Mayor Emanuel inherited the police, firefighter, and school teacher pension mess from former Mayor Richard M. Daley, who had kicked the debt down the road.

However, Rahm has forced taxpayers to dig deeply into their pockets for more than $2 billion in tax hikes – including $1.1 billion in property tax increases – hefty water, sewer, and telephone fees, and new levies for garbage collection. This has resulted in hefty rent hikes for thousands of apartment dwellers.

While Rahm still has eight more months in office to try to solve the crisis, his only hope is a pie-in-the-sky proposal to sell $10 billion in pension obligation bonds.

Photo by Steven Dahlman

“I’m exploring these pension stabilization funds to secure the pensions and lessen the pain of future taxes,” said Emanuel (left).

Success with Riverwalk and other downtown development

While analysts likely will spend the next eight months postulating on who will be Rahm’s successor, there is no doubt about the mayor’s accomplishments. Here are a few of Emanuel’s brightest successes in the worlds of real estate development, affordable housing, and tech jobs...

• Chicago Riverwalk. Rahm’s treasured downtown Riverwalk likely will stand as one of his lasting achievements. It transformed the polluted Chicago River into a tourist magnet.

• Downtown development. Rahm will leave office while the city’s real estate market is booming, and developers are breaking ground on a plethora of billion-dollar skyscrapers and residential towers – both luxury rental and high-end condominiums.

Plans call for $12 billion in mixed-use development coming to a former industrial site on the Chicago River and a stretch of the river near the South Loop.

One of the proposed sites is the Lincoln Yards project on the North Branch of the river. Thanks to Emanuel’s efforts, this old industrial neighborhood of steel furnaces and junkyards now is scheduled for office and residential uses.

Long vacant, the 2.8 million-square-foot Old Main Post Office in the West Loop now is under rehab and Walgreen’s has announced it will move much of its office operations there.

Another booming new West Loop neighborhood is the Fulton Market district, which has gone from meatpackers to plush restaurants, hotels, and apartments. Not far away is The 606, a jogging and bike trail that runs from Bucktown to Logan Square, boosting real estate values along its route.

(Right) Mayor Emanuel sits with ironworkers on wooden seats being installed on the Riverwalk between State and Dearborn Streets on May 22, 2015. Photos by Steven Dahlman.

Photo by Steven Dahlman

• South Side development. Chinatown received a new library, a boathouse in Ping Tom Memorial Park, and other public works upgrades on Rahm’s watch. He also coaxed large grocery chains, including Whole Foods, into opening stores in the South Side’s food deserts.

• Affordable housing. Rahm pushed through the Affordable Requirements Ordinance that set stricter guidelines on levels of affordable housing in some new developments. Another program would expand the city’s rules regarding transit-oriented development to parcels along CTA bus lines. It would eliminate the developer expense of building a parking space for each dwelling unit.

This year, Rahm proposed the Building Neighborhood and Affordable Homes pilot program which would provide $40,000 to $60,000 in down payment funds to qualified applicants who buy a home built through the dollar-per-lot program. Purchasers would be required to live in the home for ten years.

• Transportation. Rahm earned points in the African American community for redevelopment of the 95th Street CTA Station and planning the southern extension of the Red Line.

• Tech jobs. Employment in Chicago’s tech sector grew by 35,290 jobs between 2010 and 2015, a growth rate of nearly 35 percent, according to a report by Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago.

That’s an impressive record for any mayor of a major city in the United States. Rahm Emanuel is only 58 years old, a savvy Washington, D.C., political veteran, former Congressman, and White House chief of staff to President Barack Obama.

“Rahm Emanuel has been a tireless and brilliant public servant,” said Obama. “Chicago is better and stronger for his leadership, and I was a better president for his wise counsel at a particularly perilous time for our country.”

With President Donald Trump in the White House, times seem even more perilous today. Don’t be surprised if Rahm Emanuel is nominated by the Democratic Party to run for president in 2020.