CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[the urban politician]

Yet Houston, Dallas, Atlanta seem to not be bothered by any of these arguments....

Greg Hinz posted another one today in Crains analyzing this data further. Good stuff...

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Yet Houston, Dallas, Atlanta seem to not be bothered by any of these arguments....

Greg Hinz posted another one today in Crains analyzing this data further. Good stuff...

Ah yes, cities that have all boomed in the last 50 years and have suffered absolutely no catastrophic consequences from their terrible design decisions. Of course that's only if you ignore repeated "100 year" flooding in Houston because they built on all the swamps without providing any infrastructure to address it.

Here's the thing, Northern cities were all very dense and very large with huge industrial bases before WWII. The destruction caused by deindustrialization, blasting freeways through the urban fabric and urban renewal all totally destabilized these places. Meanwhile the South was finally beginning to pull their heads just a hair out of their asses due to forced desegregation by the Federal government. These places rapidly realized that there was serious money to be made undercutting the expensive Northern labor pool and poaching companies. Thus we have the situation we have today.

Unfortunately for these cities, they are heading for a day of reckoning and, whenever that day comes, they have none of the legacy infrastructure or built environment that places like Chicago have. More than even the factors I listed above, Chicago ran into a problem with depreciation syncing where entire areas were built virtually overnight and therefore the building stock wore out virtually overnight. Sound familiar?

Well little of any of the cities you mention is older than 50 years old. Virtually no parts of these cities is older than 75 years old. Guess when the depreciation syncing problem becomes a serious issue? Usually 50-75 years after an area was built.

Now let's look at a city like Houston with it's sprawling area and very paltry infrastructure (which by the way is also subject to depreciation syncing, notice how Chicago has basically had to build an entirely new freeway system over the past 20 years?). How's that gonna work when all of the sudden huuuugggeeee swaths of Houston that were slapped up in the 1970's, 80's or 90's suddenly become rundown all at once? Who's going to move in?

Who is going to decide it's worth taking a chance on some inner Houston area that consists of cookie cutter shitboxes that are probably falling apart? At least Chicago's historic core was built with such great quality that it could withstand a century or more of use and still be functional. I kid you not, I just gutted a building that still had all original 1880's plumbing including fixtures, farmhouse sink in the kitchen, only a clawfoot tub and toilet in the bathroom with no sink. That's 130 year old improvements still placed in use. What is central Houston going to look like in 130 years? My guess is something similar to Detroit, but partially submerged.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

...
Who is going to decide it's worth taking a chance on some inner Houston area that consists of cookie cutter shitboxes that are probably falling apart? At least Chicago's historic core was built with such great quality that it could withstand a century or more of use and still be functional. I kid you not, I just gutted a building that still had all original 1880's plumbing including fixtures, farmhouse sink in the kitchen, only a clawfoot tub and toilet in the bathroom with no sink. That's 130 year old improvements still placed in use. What is central Houston going to look like in 130 years? My guess is something similar to Detroit, but partially submerged.

Speaking of building quality, look at Venice. It's slowly becoming more and more submerged and its buildings, while undergoing accelerated deterioration now, are holding up a lot better than most Houston residential stock from the 1960s and on would in any sort of similar situation. The old ways of making buildings might be far more expensive today, but they definitely have their advantages over long timespans.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

...
Maybe that mid-sized company in the suburbs has great bones, but a suburban location makes it difficult to recruit the talent they need to thrive. Moving to the central area that literally anyone from SE Wisconsin to SW Michigan can easily access by transit solves that problem. I've had to turn down a job in the SW burbs because my commute could have been nearly 1.5 hours each way. I can't be the only one

It's short-sighted for Chicago to have the transit infrastructure that it does and waste it by employing potentially millions of people in auto-oriented, suburban office parks. I feel that the cities married to the sprawl game are inadvertently limiting future growth potential.

I agree in principle, but one thing I've always wanted to see is a set of "time-density" maps. Google must have the data necessary to create such a thing, although I don't know if the data are available in a usable form to the public.

By "time-density," I basically mean how much people have access to in 15-30-60 minute time periods by various means of transport, including realistic estimates for getting to the mode of transportation and from the endpoint for the transportation to the actual destination - so basically door-to-door time.

What i want to know is, for all trips of 20 minutes or less, how much does an auto-bound resident in a popular part of Houston have access to? How many supermarkets? How many clothing stores? How many parks or phone shops or jobs? For a popular part of Boston, how much does a pedestrian have access to? What does a driver in East Lakeview have access to, including the time it takes him, including finding his car, driving it someplace, finding parking, walking from the car to the entrance, etc. Finally, for each of them, break it down by travel type and show it all together.

For me, it would be enlightening because then we could all see what the ideal density is for maximizing access to things.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by marothisu

...
Indianapolis: 4.57%

Wait, I thought high earners would be fighting to get into Indy because of their "advantageous taxes" and "friendly business environment"?

Originally Posted by Vlajos

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/reale...ate-year-surge

Very strong office leasing in the 4th quarter.

That's always nice to see. What surprises me is, with River North's perennial tightest commercial marketplace, why are new office buildings not getting proposed there more often? Especially boutique-sized ones that could well-serve startups?

[glowrock]

As a recent transplant to Chicago from Houston, I can probably help you guys answer a good number of your questions regarding your Houston-oriented questions. Generally speaking, it's true that the general housing stock slapped up in the 70's-2000's is pretty crappy, no doubt about it. The inner neighborhoods that are doing well tend to be either relatively historic in nature (ie: Heights neighborhood), or have essentially been little more than land with homes that have been scraped off to build modern homes and especially townhomes/condos. As for commuting within that 20 minute limit, that's generally really rough for almost everyone in the region unless one happens to live literally within a few miles of their workplace, which is very, very unlikely in a place the size of Houston (city OR metro). Keep in mind, just the CITY of Houston is in the 650 square mile range, so really it's probably best to compare only the section of Houston known as the Inner Loop (ie: inside of the I-610 loop) when doing any sort of comparison with Chicago.

From my experience, even ignoring the employment situation, I chose to leave there because I wanted to live in a "real" city, which I feel Chicago is and Houston generally is not, save for a few small areas that could be reasonably construed as walkable and/or at least relatively organically mixed-use.

Fact of the matter is that Houston is actually becoming much, much more dense in certain areas, but it will be many decades before density (and infrastructure to handle traffic and most importantly flooding issues) is built up enough to handle the population of the region.

The bus system is actually pretty good overall, but nothing like Chicago's. The rail is pathetic, period. Bike infrastructure is actually pretty good overall, but again, nothing like Chicago. Car is king, of course.

Of course, Houston is also extremely polycentric in terms of its major job centers, with not only downtown, but also the Medical Center, Uptown/Galleria, Greenspoint, the 290 corridor, The Woodlands, I-10/Energy Corridor, and many areas along the Houston Ship Channel being massive job centers, therefore it DOES make it difficult in terms of truly developing a good transit network capable of handling even a modest percentage of overall commuters.

I can certainly help answer other more specific questions you've got. Just let me know.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by glowrock

As a recent transplant to Chicago from Houston, I can probably help you guys answer a good number of your questions regarding your Houston-oriented questions. Generally speaking, it's true that the general housing stock slapped up in the 70's-2000's is pretty crappy, no doubt about it. The inner neighborhoods that are doing well tend to be either relatively historic in nature (ie: Heights neighborhood), or have essentially been little more than land with homes that have been scraped off to build modern homes and especially townhomes/condos. As for commuting within that 20 minute limit, that's generally really rough for almost everyone in the region unless one happens to live literally within a few miles of their workplace, which is very, very unlikely in a place the size of Houston (city OR metro). Keep in mind, just the CITY of Houston is in the 650 square mile range, so really it's probably best to compare only the section of Houston known as the Inner Loop (ie: inside of the I-610 loop) when doing any sort of comparison with Chicago.

From my experience, even ignoring the employment situation, I chose to leave there because I wanted to live in a "real" city, which I feel Chicago is and Houston generally is not, save for a few small areas that could be reasonably construed as walkable and/or at least relatively organically mixed-use.

Fact of the matter is that Houston is actually becoming much, much more dense in certain areas, but it will be many decades before density (and infrastructure to handle traffic and most importantly flooding issues) is built up enough to handle the population of the region.

The bus system is actually pretty good overall, but nothing like Chicago's. The rail is pathetic, period. Bike infrastructure is actually pretty good overall, but again, nothing like Chicago. Car is king, of course.

Of course, Houston is also extremely polycentric in terms of its major job centers, with not only downtown, but also the Medical Center, Uptown/Galleria, Greenspoint, the 290 corridor, The Woodlands, I-10/Energy Corridor, and many areas along the Houston Ship Channel being massive job centers, therefore it DOES make it difficult in terms of truly developing a good transit network capable of handling even a modest percentage of overall commuters.

I can certainly help answer other more specific questions you've got. Just let me know.

Aaron (Glowrock)

Interesting take. Chicago's definitely more centralized than probably anywhere not named NYC, but there's a good deal of sprawl out in the burbs. Office parks along 88/90/94/294/355 (outside of the O'Hare branch of the Blue Line) wouldn't necessarily be out of place in Houston.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by emathias

By "time-density," I basically mean how much people have access to in 15-30-60 minute time periods by various means of transport, including realistic estimates for getting to the mode of transportation and from the endpoint for the transportation to the actual destination - so basically door-to-door time.

The word you're looking for is "isochrone", and plenty of people have already generated such maps.

Here's a whole app that does isochrones for Chicago:
http://urbanaccessibility.com/accessibility/travel

It also does "accessibility maps", which combines the isochrones with a WalkScore-like metric to see what amenities can reasonably be accessed from a given location.

Here, you see a lot of interesting stuff. Places like Belmont-Cragin and Chicago Lawn that are far from expressways seem isolated and far-flung with poor downtown access when you're driving, but they really aren't that isolated from a transit standpoint. Even though they don't have rail access, the bus grid still provides pretty uniform access across the city.

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

Interesting take. Chicago's definitely more centralized than probably anywhere not named NYC, but there's a good deal of sprawl out in the burbs. Office parks along 88/90/94/294/355 (outside of the O'Hare branch of the Blue Line) wouldn't necessarily be out of place in Houston.

Agreed, IrishIllini. Chicago IS certainly sprawled out in the burbs, absolutely no question at all about it. That being said, many of the places I mentioned with respect to Houston are in the city of Houston itself, with the exception of The Woodlands and the westernmost part of the Energy Corridor. Not to mention, Houston is more than twice the size in square miles of Chicago, actually nearly three times the size if I'm not mistaken.

Houston's job distribution geography is nowhere near as centralized as Chicago's. In fact, it's quite possible that the Texas Medical Center district may have as many overall jobs as downtown Houston, though I don't have the numbers in front of me to confirm or deny this.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[nergie]

http://https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/03/cinespace-film-studios-is

[Justin_Chicago]

NextCapital adds $30 million in funding

The financial-software company raised another $30 million, led by Oak HC/FT, a venture fund based in Greenwich, Conn. Two years ago, Chicago-based NextCapital raised $16 million, led by strategic investors such as AllianceBernstein and John Hancock parent Manulife, which offer mutual funds and use the company's software.

Article: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...from-oak-hc-ft

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by nergie

http://https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/03/cinespace-film-studios-is

Link isn't working

[emathias]

Originally Posted by nergie

http://https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/03/cinespace-film-studios-is

Originally Posted by Vlajos

Link isn't working

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/03/cine...n-chicago.html

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by emathias

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/03/cine...n-chicago.html

Got it, thanks! Nice read, would be great to see the industry continue to grow here.

[IrishIllini]

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...-cant-win-renn

Ugh, I hate these articles. When will we stop with the woe is me attitude? I feel like there's no region in the US so low on itself as the Midwest. What's most puzzling is the author in this OpEd talks about our universities being lackluster. Last I checked, UChicago and nearly every Big Ten school (especially Northwestern, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Purdue, and recently Ohio State) rank very well nationally across all their programs.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...-cant-win-renn

Ugh, I hate these articles. When will we stop with the woe is me attitude? I feel like there's no region in the US so low on itself as the Midwest. What's most puzzling is the author in this OpEd talks about our universities being lackluster. Last I checked, UChicago and nearly every Big Ten school (especially Northwestern, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Purdue, and recently Ohio State) rank very well nationally across all their programs.

That's just Aaron Renn. I sincerely think he just has a thing for picking on the Midwest. He grew up in Indiana, moved to Chicago (where his marriage ended--hence the sourness), and became a wannabe New Yawka who now magically thinks he can "fix" the Midwest. A yawner...

[emathias]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

That's just Aaron Renn. I sincerely think he just has a thing for picking on the Midwest. He grew up in Indiana, moved to Chicago (where his marriage ended--hence the sourness), and became a wannabe New Yawka who now magically thinks he can "fix" the Midwest. A yawner...

Yes. Renn is a hack who cherry picks and/or misinterprets data, contradicts himself at times. He used to mainly just get column space in smallish blog type websites, but about a decade ago he won a competition sponsored by the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce related to proposing something that would result in the CTA giving a billion rides per year and reducing the regions greenhouse gas emmissions. His proposal relied extremely heavily on "stick" methods (as opposed to "carrot" methods) to force people into transit, which I thought was an absurd strategy to accept as a winning idea. No city in its right mind would even consider half of what he proposed unless they wanted to destroy their own economy. Now he seems to get the occasional invitation to write something for established print publications but I have no idea why. Maybe just because some editors are dumb enough to think Renn is brilliant in the same way some people think Paul Ryan's budget ideas are brilliant (they aren't).

[ardecila]

I’ve always been interested in hearing what Renn has to say, he clearly isn’t hostile to dense cities the way Kotkin and O’Toole are. He worked in consulting before taking up the urbanist mantle, so most of his articles are couched in corporate jargon and pretty frank, in the way you would expect a corporate turnaround strategy to be. That perspective is valuable.

Of course, cities and states are not corporations, and they can’t be managed in the same authoritarian way. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider that kind of advice.

As far as this specific article goes - I have a Chicago-shaped porthole on the world, so of course I’m gonna think the Big Ten universities can stack up to those on the coasts. Renn has a Manhattan-shaped porthole, so when he doesn’t encounter many Big Ten grads in the Capital Of The World, he’s naturally gonna see those universities as less influential.

The immigration point is backed up by numbers, but I’d like to see why Chicago in-migration has slowed. I know Mexican immigrant flows have now shrunk quite a bit, and a lot of those crossing the border are now Central Americans who may not have communities in Chicago to join. Chicago does have a growing Chinese population but I sense that we’re still trailing coastal cities in luring Chinese specifically and Asians in general. As for Caribbeans, Africans, Middle Easterners, forget it. The lure of Chicago to immigrants was always the well-paid factory jobs, well now those are gone. Other cities may not necessarily offer higher wages, but they do offer a lower cost of living and warmer weather.

[the urban politician]

^ Chicago is doing well with Chinese and exceptionally well with Indians. Carribean types are mostly going to New York, and Africans are NY and Minneapolis (which proves that you can't blame our weather). But I meet a lot of Nigerians around here, so I wonder about those numbers. Also, I disagree with you about middle easterners--we draw a decent number of them, although for the Midwest Detroit is really their biggest draw.

When you talk about immigration, ultimately people will end up where they end up.

Immigrants often don't end up staying in the city where they first landed on American soil.

Many of Chicago's Puerto Ricans, for example, first immigrated to the east coast.

I think Chicago should focus on having as much opportunity as possible. As long as that happens, people will keep showing up. It has always been a welcoming and diverse society. The recent slowdown to me just suggests that local opportunities and skill sets aren't matching up, in addition to the fact that immigration as a whole is slowing down.

[Justin_Chicago]

Healthcare Startup VillageMD Raises $80M

Chicago-based VillageMD has landed a big round of funding to grow its data and technology platform for doctors.

VillageMD announced Thursday that it has raised $80 million in funding led by Athyrium Capital Management, a New York-based investor in healthcare companies. VillageMD, which launched in 2013, has now raised $116 million in funding. It previously raised a $36 million Series A in 2015.

VillageMD partners with primary care providers to help them cut costs and deliver better patient outcomes. The startup provides doctors with data analytics, physician-based care coordination, and on-the-ground support resources to improve the quality of care.

VillageMD says it now works with 2,500 primary care physician partners across six states. The startup said it will use the funding to expand into more markets and invest in its technology.

Article: https://www.americaninno.com/chicago...md-raises-80m/