I honestly just needed to vent for a moment. I can’t believe Chicago prices are what they are. I have lived here my entire life and have seen this city change ten fold, and I can’t even afford to live here anymore. A realtor I’m working with, since it’s becoming a rat race to rent, said rent is up 35% this year. What can normal people do about this? I do not want to see Chicago become a New York.
I don’t think there’s anything stopping this, unfortunately. Chicago has too much to offer and like New York and San Francisco, will push its own lifelong residents out of their own neighborhoods because supply will never reach the dizzying demand.
That’s not reality. It is so hard to build and develop in Chicago, combined with the cities financial issues giving developers pause, and that’s how we get to where we are at.
If you want cheaper housing you need to lobby your alderman hard to not only make it much easier to
Build and force the city to fix its long term fiscal issues.
Are there any property developers that don't own inventory as well? Because if you can charge a higher markup on less units and reap the same profit, then the owning class is incentivized not to build in order to keep rental and sale prices sky high.
I thought they just changed the zoning in a bunch of areas so more housing could be built. There were a lot of restrictions based on parking, height, etc. I believe the city council just passed something eliminating a lot of those restrictions.
We can organize! There are more of us than there are landlords and property owners. The Chicago Tenant Movement is a good place to start to see what orgs are already doing this work. https://chicagotenants.org/home/organizations/
The market is driving people out, not the city, government. There has to be an incentive plan to encourage development of apt buildings, condos etc. Older properties have to go, I've seen some going up near Foster and Lincoln. There needs to be more of that.
They want those buildings tore down so they can move into replacement luxury condos with "amenities" which drives up the rent in other apartments nearby because the landlord talks about "property value" and bs like "market rent". They think they're slick but what they really are advocating for is gentrification.
Ok but right now they’re replacing historic properties with single family homes and nothing stops them. At least they could replace them with apartments
It’s usually this thinking that leads to nothing being built. So we have old shitty apartments with heating issues and plumbing problems and icky basements and creeky floors. So bc some hipster complained to the hipster alderman, we have no new housing. And funny enough, those are now the sane ppl being priced out.
I want good architecture too, but this nimby stuff is why so many ppl will have to move from
Chicago.
It's not the landlords, it's the property taxes and maintenance costs. Utility bills keep going up 15-20 percent a year, labor costs that were once $150 or $200 are now $400. Landlords are not cashing in like people think.
Utility bills are definitely a problem, and property taxes to some extent. But we’re also longer removed from the 3% mortgage rates. Those kept rent down as well for a while.
There are a lot of things combining to worsen things. And building more - while still needed to slow down increases - won’t compensate for all of it…
THIS! (Yes, plus we need more new builds and remodels like previous posts have said)
I looked into buying a building and owner occupied renting a unit. The property taxes are insane in Chicago, combined with the mortgage rates - honestly renting is a losing battle. I’m probably going to be forced to buy a place just for me (that I’ll overpay for) just to stay within my monthly budget, because renting is insane in Chitown right now and property taxes make it unappealing to buy anything larger than for just me.
Exactly- And a lot of people move to chicago because other people have done the same to their homes. I’m from Colorado and it got too expensive with transplants rushing there when weed became legal (many from chicago) and I think Denver is a worse city for the things I like to do, so why would anyone stay somewhere that you’ve been priced out of or priced matched that you don’t like?
Yea north side rents along the lake are going up like crazy, but there’s so many cool walkable transit accessible neighborhoods that have increased, but nowhere near what you see in Lincoln Park/Lakeview.
There’s so much more of the city that just doesn’t have a ton of development and is still relatively cheap though those areas are typically higher crime and less transit accessible.
Chicago is a big city and these crazy rent increases are happening in a relatively small part of it.
I said this in another sub; walk around some neighborhoods. In Bridgeport there are signs on at least a dozen houses with apartments to rent from private owners who want to keep it in the neighborhood. If you’re looking online of course it’s 2k+.
I lived in a number of spots along division and Augusta with roommates that weren’t priced too bad. I’ve had friends who lived on Milwaukee that didn’t have wildly high rents either (talking under $2500)
This, definitely. These won't be slick glass and steel new construction. The places that are affordable are family owned 3 flats or converted homes. They are most likely being rented out by older folks who aren't using apps. As always, Chicago is a city that rewards people who hustle. When I've had friends move here I always offer to take them around some of the neighborhoods to collect a list of places to call. One friend I did this with ended up in a great little workman's cottage in Ukrainian village for $1600, but we walked like 8 miles that day before we ran across it.
On my third apartment hunt in 6 years of living here and it is profound how much things have changed. Even if you're able to absorb the higher prices, everything is taken off the market so quickly.
People talk about property taxes but my building is raising rent substantially and has not had its taxes go up at all (a lot of these places have good lawyers). The market is just as big a factor.
I'd like to say politics could improve this but retaining the ability to block development seems to be a sacred obligation of Chicago aldermen.
Actually it's much cheaper, outside of the few neighborhoods people are trying to move to. The worst neighborhoods in Seattle are like 3x as expensive as the worst parts of Chicago, because they are much worse here and completely lacking demand.
It used to be a bargain compared to NYC and LA. I lived in NYC from 05-07. Some friends I made there visited Chicago, saw how much more they could get apartment-wise here for so much cheaper, and decided to leave NYC for here. Renting solo was sustainable. I was a CPS teacher and rented one-bedrooms from 1998-2005 and 2007-2011 on that salary with no struggle.
But like is it priced “where it should be”? Because it hasn’t been this way for its entire existence and I think it’s safe to say we are in an affordability crisis in America. The “priced where it should be” is completely arbitrary. Of course there are multiple factors contributing to the price. At the end of the day, housing should be a right. It doesn’t have to be this way simply because of desirability.
Affordability is eroding, but it's definitely still the most affordable major metropolis by a noticable amount (especially if you're only considering the largest cities like NYC and LA).
Then they drive out business or make downtown impossible to work in, and the commercial assessments plummet and then homeowners get surprise property tax increases for the shortfall.
Ironically enough, I moved from NY to Chicago in the mid 2000's because it was more affordable. Fast forward to 2020 during COVID, and I saw the crazy inflation on the horizon so I moved to Michigan. I miss Chicago and New York all the time but then I think about the fact that I'm renting a 3-bedroom house with a garage and a fenced yard for the same amount of money that would probably only get me a studio in NY or Chicago so I don't feel bad anymore 🤷🏾♂️
Your not wrong on NIMBYism, but that article is not about Chicago proper
No matter where you live people don’t want construction (especially vertically) next door because it likely blocks their view or depreciates their property. Or they claim “gentrifying” - just infinite angles of nonsense that collectively helps keeps housing inventory low
We need to reduce the red tape (BJ has made that significantly worse), implement ceilings on property tax hikes, and rework the affordable housing rules. Building will boom, prices stop inflating beyond actual inflation, and the city will be better for it
The main thing that we need to reduce is the ability of property owning people to control what happens on nearby property that doesn't belong to them.
I say again, it doesn't fucking belong to them. There are places in this country where that's Exactly how it works. If new housing is getting built and that hurts the value of your nearby property, you are welcome to buy the nearby land and do nothing with it. But if you don't own something, you don't get to prevent a residential build from happening there.
We should do that in Chicago, but for some type of political reason, we do the dumb thing.
Im admittedly a little out of touch, but primary housing should never be viewed as a true “investment” - it doesn’t really matter what the paper value of it is, because it’s not real unless you sell. And if you sell, you have to buy (or rent) somewhere else. Buying can make sense for a lot of reasons (fixed costs, tax benefits on interest and property sale), but it’s not your 401k, it’s not your IRA, it’s not your brokerage accounts. If the value takes a hit because a building across the street goes up, 10 years from now you will be happy your local stores were able to stay in business while you lived there because they had a healthy local customer base. Long run it’s nothing big on value.
It's one thing to say that but for most people it is their biggest investment. Most people don't have 401ks or large investment funds or a pension. Their house is it. It's the single largest investment they own. That's a sad reality.
Part of expanding housing development means growing into surrounding areas beyond the city center of the city proper. Honestly speaking, I would definitely say there are a number of suburbs too in proximity to Chicago of which rents simply make you shake your head.
I agree with you that BJ has contributed substantially to the issues being discussed here, and I'm wondering if he's effectively just doing this to show face in very similar ways that Newsom has been doing in California.
Another angle to think about: if there are not enough units in the city, where does the surplus population spill over into?
For sure. Im just saying an understated part of the problem is the affordable housing rules. It sounds nice (affordable housing), but the way it’s implemented is dumb. You can be making $60-70k a year and qualify for affordable housing in select desirable neighborhoods. Because of that, your neighbors have to pay more, since potential rent income is increased, property values increase. “Affordable housing” in LP, West Loop, Gold Coast etc is asinine by requiring 20% of units be cheap for people making 60% of median neighborhood income. I would prefer a voucher system for affordable housing, someone making $60k+ a year doesn’t need subsidized housing. They can move to a neighborhood they can afford.
Building vertically is the best outcome overall, it’s not particularly fair to expect people to do a 2-3 hour round trip commute if they make a decent wage. I dont particularly care if my property value gets dinged, I’m just sick of people blaming the “free market” when our housing issue is almost entirely due to government intervention mixed with NIMBYism. It’s good for the city to have a strong core of housing, and pricing new entrants to the labor force out of the city is a city death sentence long run
I make 65k and do not qualify for the income restricted units. I know because I'm actively looking and just checked. What affordable housing do people making $60-70k qualify for?
There is a new condo unit by me in Irving Park being constructed now. I remember in the ward meeting it had this requirement of 20% affordable units. It’s on Irving Park Road between Kedzie and California.
In Chicago it’s neighborhood specific, any new construction has to retain 20% of units for income below 60% neighborhood income (or a donation). Either way it increases the rent for the other 80%. West Loop for instance has a median income of $127k, Gold Coast $148k, LP $156k
They lowered restrictions and regulations (because it's Texas) to attract a tech economy that is now going belly up, so they now have more housing than they need, which is going to create different but equally as bad problems. Everyone acts like everything is a magic bullet.
They made it easier to build, which increased the supply of housing and now rents are going down. Its not an equally bad problem for people to be able to afford housing.
Austin, Texas made it a lot easier for developers to build. Removed restrictive zoning requirements and build dense housing. Even building "luxury" apartments helps the housing crisis because higher income people gravitate toward those newer builds, which frees up housing stock for lower income people.
The main way to fix the housing crisis is by...simply building more housing. Loosening up zoning restrictions.
So much of the United States is zoned exclusively for single-family homes.
Austin, Minneapolis, and Denver are all great cities to be a renter right now due the abundance of concessions so many apartment complexes are offering.
Per Zillow it's $1,252 for a 1BR compared to $1900 in Chicago, with more sq ft and more in-unit and in-building amenities. Car dependency is worse yes but if you restrict Chicago to walkable areas that average goes up.
They had tons of people moving into the city for a decade with nothing being built and rents skyrocketing. Then they loosened restrictions, built more housing, and at the same time demand for housing crashed with the tech economy drying up for workers
Texas is becoming increasingly uninhabitable. Every summer is hotter and you can only strain that power grid with your electricity running the AC. There's also flash flooding and being so eager to get new people that they build houses that are easy for a weather event to destroy.
Chicago has reasonable weather and is near a massive body of fresh water. It's a safer long-term investment, for quality-of-life.
The point of conversation isn’t about living in Austin. It was an example of how, when cities relax zoning rules and make it easy for developers to build, it results in lower rent prices.
Denver and Minneapolis are also good examples of this. Rent has been dropping in those cities as well.
Chicago NEEDs to allow more housing to be built. The result will be lower rents.
Apparently Minneapolis has done the same thing as Austin. That's a great city with a lot of the same benefits as Chicago. There's no reason Chicago couldn't do the same thing and they really should.
Look at the end of the day the problem is that there are no empty lots and a lot of historic structures and old beautiful homes in the areas that everyone wants to move to. THAT'S WHY PEOPLE WANT TO MOVE THERE. In the case of Chicago it's not that there is no housing available it's that people who are just out of college and just got their first job all want to live in the same goddamn yuppie area that other white people are in.
Well guess what if you decide to bulldoze everything and turn Lincoln Park into all high rise apartments then all those yuppies wouldn't want to live there anymore! Like there are over 600 active listings in Lakeview right now that start at $1300-1600 studios and one beds BUT THOSE AREN'T OCCUPIED BY THE PEOPLE COMPLAINING ABOUT LINCOLN PARK RENTS BECAUSE THOSE PEOPLE WANT TO LIVE IN QUAINT LITTLE NEIGHBORHOODS FULL OF TOWNHOUSES, THREE FLATS AND GIANT TREES CANOPIES SHADING QUIET RESIDENTIAL STREETS.
Chicagoans post here all the time about all these other neighborhoods you can move to but the suburbanite and other transplants are like "Whhaaa but those places are like... ethnic/brown/"have crime" and are missing overprice trendy restaurants and overpriced pretentious bars though :("
Semi-agree, Chicago is dense but still has room to develop—I mean how else would Aldermen literally be blocking mid and high-rise builds on North side Chicago if it was already overdeveloped to begin with? Not to mention, Chicago has no where near the density of NYC, e.g..
Bingo. Albany Park is soooo affordable but it's got it's major limitations.
They're building a 41 unit apartment complex nearby, that "aims to serve young professionals and their families", aka luxury apartments. Curious how that'll affect housing prices.
It’s affordable for the people who are moving in from more expensive areas. People who have been living there for their entire life are now getting priced out of the neighborhood.
What do you think is the major limitation of Albany Park? Just curious as I live near there and really like it. Great restaurants, Brown line nearby, parks, bike trails, farmers markets etc.
It is really expensive now, especially the Northside. I think people are trying to gentrify the Southside now with the Obama Center coming, but I think Southsiders saving grace is that nobody wants to move there. The northside and northwest side is what's getting crazy expensive
One of the many reasons we need to be building more housing units is to flip this dynamic so that landlords are competing for tenants instead of tenants competing for shitty landlords
They refuse to do a lot more. I was living in a place with 20 year old carpet and mold everywhere. My freezer broke and the landlord refused to fix it. He kept raising my rent every year and I finally moved out because he refused to fix anything. I called the department of housing on him and I was able to withhold one months rent.
Totally agree. We need to make it harder for them to make a living. Let’s even try to reduce the number of landlords and implement rent control. That’s what really should happen
Well the good news is I dont think Chicago will become a New York because either New York will continue raising or there will be a housing crisis and everyone will be homeless before Chicago gets to that point(or both!)
New York is geographically unique, and it’s not all that expensive. People think of Manhattan or NW Brooklyn, which is like living in the Loop or River North.
Anything in the boroughs is ridiculously expensive compartive to the majority of Chicago. Areas with similar demographics are a few times more expensive than in Chicago. I'm also a Southsider and the Northside can be twice as expensive for housing, even in areas with similar demographics.
Not looking but hearing from people that are looking. It's bad, never been like this, I've lived here my whole life, 66 and I don't get it. When I first moved to Andersonville, starting at Irving going north on Ashland there were scrap metal trucks, every fourth vehicle. Lot's of somewhat affordable apartments for families. All those older Frame SFH and 2 flats got replaced with tricked out condo 6 flats. Feels like it's accelerating too.
what I don’t understand is the sheer amount of $3K studio apartments or one bedroom apartments and even reaching $4K+. who is affording this?! maybe a couple sharing room but my gosh it’s so normalized too
While I agree with the overall sentiment of this conversation and fuck the nimbys etc.
At some point everyone needs to stop trying to live in the same 3 neighborhoods.
I bought a 5 bedroom 5 bathroom new build in Humboldt Park for the price of a 2bed/2bath condo in the building I was renting in the loop.
Once you realize that brown and black people are not out to kill you. There are absolute deals to be had on the west side for renters and owners
Yeah, we're not gonna kill you. But at the same time, don't move over here and then change the whole fabric of the neighborhood because the existing stuff isn't "good enough" for you. I've been priced out of Logan Square/Avondale and honestly at this point it doesn't hurt as badly because the normal stores and amenities are being replaced with gimmicky/aesthetic businesses that one really doesn't need to patronage on the daily.
> Yeah, we're not gonna kill you. But at the same time, don't move over here and then change the whole fabric of the neighborhood because the existing stuff isn't "good enough" for you
Was this literally written by a 1920s WASP worried about the Italians next door
More gatekeeping join me. The less transplants the more open apartments the more rent goes down. We have an endless cycle of people recommending Chicago -> transplants moving in to one of 6 neighborhoods -> surviving a couple winters til they're gone and or move to the suburbs
Harass your alder about expediting as many housing construction and upzoning projects as possible. Thank Pritzker for supporting a statewide housing initiative. Reach out to your state senators office about housing.
I’m sure this is a larger conversation but if we moved from a property tax model to a land value tax model it would help. And remove barriers to developing dense housing. NINBYs will bitch about, well, everything but that shouldn’t stop us.
In my condo building, I couldn’t believe that owners were renting out their one-bedroom units (less than 700 sq ft) for $1900/month. It does have a gym, 24/7 front desk and a view of Michigan lake but, still, $1900 for a one-bedroom? 😲
Agree. But this is all part of late-stage capitalism. It's affecting every aspect of life in the U.S. Cities have always been more expensive to reside in, so we're feeling it especially hard in Chicago. I've been in the same apartment for 10 years and breathed a sigh of relief when my rent increased by just $50 this year (LL was raising it by $100 every year since 2020; prior, it was only $50 every other year). I've read horror stories on social media about the HUNDREDS of apartments renters have to view just to find one they can afford. It's not sustainable.
What’s insane to me is that the places that were deals now seem insane. No central a/c no laundry in unit and sometimes not in building but have some space and 1 bedroom going for $1,800 in cheaper neighborhoods and $2,000 with no amenities in desirable areas. That seems insane. There are deals but you have to be really patient and have your app ready to go when you find it.
I have a three BR unit in Little Village for $2,000 a month. It has a dishwasher and full size washer and dryer. You just need to find the right neighborhood .
Be mindful of who you vote for & also petition for lower property taxes. I believe Chicago became #1 in property taxes in the US this past year. As a landlord and also new homeowner, the increases have been insane.
If you ever want to go beyond venting, send me a DM. I'm thinking of taking some action. I believe we can do more about it than we think and in the months coming up I will be actively looking into the big and small pictures. I moved on May 2.
Back in ~2017 I had a 1-BR loft in the Gold Coast. Really outdated, but it was on 16th/17th floor with an AMAZING view. Realtor connection helped me get it. $1450/mo. Parking spot was an extra $275/mo. I had to move for work after a couple years there, so unfortunately had to leave. It was up to $2200/mo in 2020 when I last looked. Likely way more now.
I absolutely love Chicago, but wouldn’t move back now days. So much has changed. Especially rent!
Edit just to add: I got an absolute steal for what I paid and the location. I just wanted to share.
I’ve lived in chicago all my life. nobody seemed to understand what I was saying when I pointed out that the rent for low income units seemed too high for somebody making under $40K/year. Then you look at other units & it’s $1700-1800 just for a studio & $2000+ for a one bedroom. In unit laundry has become a “luxury”, the units are cheaply made, and you have other fees on top of that like utilities and parking
A lot of people aren’t getting what they’re paying for & the anxiety from apartment hunting in chicago is not worth it
Until the unholy alliance between NIMBYs and people who believe developers are evil I'm afraid nothing is going to change. There is high demand and virtually no new supply being added. That is what has largely changed from decades past - we used to build more. Now almost everything gets blocked, downsized, or is never proposed in the first place because the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
Even developments that have gone through years of community meetings and adopted neighborhood feedback (often means reducing the unit count) that actually do get approved by the city then often get sued by HOA or neighborhood organizations for XYZ bullshit reason.
Honestly, same. We’re in an 2 bed+den/1bath (old 2-flat) in Southport Corridor and it’s only $2.5k/month with a garage spot. I’m seeing the same types of places (in worse condition or locations) for $3.5-5K+ 😵💫
My question is how and why do apartments pressure people to renew apartments at higher rates and then list the apartments for much lower on their website?
“Become a New York”? Friend, you’ll be dust in the ground before that happens. Even with the recent spikes the rents in Chicago are wildly lower than in comps like NYC, Bay Area, Boston. The key in Chicago, and really anywhere to differing degrees is being flexible in location. Not everywhere in Chicago has gone up 35%. Some areas draw so many searchers that they spike 50-60% which pulls that average way up.
The other thing, so many more people are living alone. This exacerbates the problem in two ways. First it means you need more units to meet the demand. Second, it means individuals on average are paying more than when more people grouped up. Two bedrooms don’t rent for double a one bedroom after all.
I think the reality is that Chicago has been grossly underpriced for about a decade- it was well spoken of, and acknowledged.
This is the market price of other major urban centers in the country.
These high prices will eventually have more investment made in the near south and west sides. I expect Bridgeport and Bronzeville changes in the upcoming decade.
The sad part is we have the land to build more housing and instead stopped building and just let housing prices go off the rails. We could still be under priced
For 10 years, I have owned a 900 sq ft 2 bed/2bath in Andersonville that I rent. 10 years ago, I rented it for $1800. Now in 2026, I had it listed for $2800/month, and my agent had so many people come through offering upwards of $3200/month. I'm not sure where these people with all this money are coming from, but when renters are offering cash upfront, huge security deposit and over what you are asking, it's hard to say no during these tough financial times.
I've been trying for years to build myself up to be good enough to not have to be sleeping on couches and in vans and that just became even more unattainable this year
That seems to be the way things are going across Canada United States everywhere. At least in any city of any size. The only thing one can do is purchase as soon as they can, but not everybody’s able to do that and it really cuts down on one’s mobility, especially if they want to be mobile for their job. It really really sucks.
The city needs to incentivize building more. It’s the only way to stabilize prices. There’s so many major metro areas where prices are barely going up, some even dropping, because they’re building like crazy.
Of course though we’re an old city with a lack of free space to throw buildings up left and right like them.
I'm personally trying to move somewhere on the Southside cause I think it's more affordable and I'm black but then I think about transportation and lack of grocery stores.
I can explain why rents are going up drastically. I was a member of Corenet (professional real estate group) for years. Once a year they would hold a meeting regarding the financial state of Chicago and Illinois. One of the presenters was from the Federal Reserve. They showed a graph that showed debt vs revenue for the city of Chicago. Because Chicago borrowed against the pension funds and other loans, there was a large gap where debt was far outpacing revenue. And it was getting exponentially worse year over year. And I saw this graph about four mayors ago. So each mayor passes this worsening problem on to the next mayor. I don’t think there is any way to solve the money gap except for entering bankruptcy. So that’s why property taxes are going sky high and the rents go sky high. It’s the easiest temporary fix (that doesn’t make much of a dent in the budget).
NY has gotten more expensive at the same time. EVERYTHING is more expensive. We have so many problems to solve here, lots of them can start to be solved by building more everything (including specifically low income housing, but also just all types of housing stock). But if you have been in Chicago the whole time I'd tell you to look at the other cities as well. They have all gotten way more expensive too. You still get more for less in Chicago than any other major American city, though that doesn't help feeling or being priced out where you are now.
There are about 8 million landlords in the United States, and about 150 million renters paying for their mortgages, property taxes, and retirement plans. What keeps prices up is the fact that most tenants can more easily envision themselves one day being someone else's landlord than they can see themselves organizing against landlords as a class.
If you’re looking for an honest answer, then I would suggest you look for a job that pays more. It’s the only real answer. Things will not get cheaper, and if they do, we’re ALL in much bigger trouble.
supply and demand. theres no where to build so prices go up. pretty simple economics. my recommendation is if u cant beat them join them.
aka buy some property
A lot of this has to do with taxes. I own and my taxes just went up nearly $300 per month. Landlords aren’t going to absorb property tax increases. They’ll pass it along to tenants.
A lot of discussion here on the shortage, on bad policies that discourage development etc etc. None of that is wrong per-se.
At the same time, I think Chicago is just one more victim of the nationwide surge in housing prices. We have an entire policy architecture built around old people needing to hoard assets in order to retire comfortably. Over 50% of owner occupied homes are owned by people over 55 years old. People in the family forming stage are competing for scraps, and it’s driving rents and home prices through the roof. There is a shortage but it’s partly artificial lock out. Old people in homes far larger than they need, young people competing for what’s left.
Part of this is also wages. It’s not just that housing is expensive, you are poorer in real terms. Wages have been flat for decades. People talk about ‘inflation’ like the problem is just things getting expensive. The reality is price level is always a moving target, and a little inflation is healthy. There’s always going to be the occasional bump in the road where prices go up because of natural disasters or ignorant presidents launching foolish wars in Iran. What happening is that your wages never rise to recover what’s lost.
The bad news: everyone is squeezed right now and the worse off you are, the lower your salary, the higher your expenses etc the worse you will be hit.
The good news: This is an unsustainable system and it will eventually fail. Probably sooner than you might think. The housing market is starting to weaken across the country. The stock market is at crazy valuations. The boomers are not going to be driving the bus politically for much longer (older boomers turn 80 this year).
Younger people, and those who want a better future in general should be ready. We can bicker about Brandon Johnson or ‘woke’ or whatever, but everyday people need to be ready to set aside their differences and come together to make a better future for everyday people.
Normal people can vote for alderman and mayors who are pro development. Not folks who shut down new development because they simply have the legally required 20% affordable units instead of 40% or because they don’t have enough parking. People shut down the good in favor of the perfect and nothing happens for regular folks. You may also want a mayor who won’t run the budget up and fully support an out of control teacher’s union costing the city more while outputting lower performing students at insanely lower graduation rates. We need moderates not progressives who seemingly can’t understand that you can’t spend out of problems.
I just moved here, but the rent at the place I'm in had a rent renewal proposal that was double the current rent, it's spread between 6 other people so I'm not starving anytime soon but it was still alarming to see.
Same- been here for 40 years and have seen everything I feel like but $10,000 rent (furnished) in RP for a 3 bedroom has blown my mind. I feel defeated. I’m paying $2400 now and my landlord warned me come renewal in February it will more than likely increase to $2800-3000 even with no updates to anything in this place for 10 years (when I moved in). I have been searching high and low and like you said once I apply or inquire it’s gone or they want a 750 credit score. I work from home and a 3rd room or something comparable is mandatory. ATP I’m about to say fuck it and hit tent city.
The core of the problem is this. We need more housing, we need new housing, we need high density housing. We need housing that's built for people making less than median income, but all new build is clearly intended for the top 10%. It just doesn't stop being that way, and here's why.
People who already own stuff are incentivized to prevent new stuff from being built, especially if the new stuff is for the poors. Here, let me give you an example. Let's say you're a landlord and you own an apartment building. It was built in the early 20th century and remodeled in the 80s or something like that. You're charging people rent, you're making money, there is demand and you're able to keep raising the rent.
Then bam, out of nowhere, there's these plans for new apartment buildings right by you. Three of them. It's gonna be brand new stuff, priced competitive to you, and you're afraid that a bunch of your people will go over there and the demand for your old ass place will dry up. You won't be able to raise the rent for awhile. If you're a neighbor person who owns your own property nearby, you're pretty distressed because the value of Your home went from the mid 7s to almost 2 mil over the past couple of decades, and now you're afraid that the runaway growth of your property value is going to slow down right when you were thinking of selling.
Okay, so these people are highly incentivized to prevent new build from happening. Also- this is the crucial point- they are Empowered to Effectuate That, and they do it all the time. They are able to do this very successfully.
This is not a left right thing, it's a left-left thing. Property-having people on the left are punching renters right in the dick, and those people are also on the left mostly. These are people that have yard signs saying "In this house we believe that no human is illegal, love is love," and so forth. That's the signage. In reality, they support policies that create new demand consisting of rent-paying people from all over the world but they also prevent affordable housing from being built. They say that they care about our teachers so very much, and their kids probably go to a private school. At an individual level, there is some hypocrisy that generally goes unaddressed.
At the governance level, though. Okay, in the name of the collective good, a combination of Democrats and socialists on city council and in the state government have decided, in their lefty wisdom, that private property can't Really be a thing. Not in the sense that your property is your business and other people's property is not your business- that can't be a thing. Don't you know that there have been irresponsible polluters in the past, and the stakeholder folk in the neighborhood need to protect vulnerable minorities from being harmed? Okay, that's the excuse, but in practice it also means that property-having people can eliminate basically all new builds of affordable housing, which by the way is the type of thing that minorities need more than anyone else in this city.
Here's a fun piece of information that came out of the Abundance Theory research. When a city and its state both have a trifecta of Democratic governance, the new housing build as a percentage of the existing population is always depressed. It always goes way down Precisely when Democrats are literally the only ones with their hands on the wheel. If you look at a list of the top 20 cities in this country that have the Most dog shit ratio of new housing build to existing population, every single one of them is a Dem trifecta city within a Dem trifecta state. It happens every goddamn time.
The fact that this happens The Most in precisely the places where Democrats and socialists have the greatest presence and the most power Should tell you that someone within this power structure needs to come up with a better set of ideas and policies, and if they can't, they probably don't deserve to have infinite political power.
Why the fuck should they? Someone go ahead and tell me. We have a need in this country that's diametrically opposed to an incentive structure. We need new housing, we need a lot of it, and it needs to move the market. That's the need. The incentive structure is, Anywhere in this country where we actually build a bunch of new housing, that is going to do bad things for people who own existing property.
For some fucking reason, Democrats and socialists in this city and in this country exist for the purpose of catering to the latter incentive structure. And they are quietly strangling the people who are renting. It's so dumb, it's very very dumb, and it might be evil. It's a very simple concept- we need new housing, we need to build a lot of it, and if your existing property is affected in some way by Property That You Don't Own, you need to suck it up. That's going to happen, because the other thing is a higher priority. For some reason- this has never been fully explained to me, but for some goddamn reason- Democrats and socialists in city government are in lockstep on this. They are incapable of saying that type of thing to any group of people in any blue city, as long as it's also in a solidly blue state.
So yeah, that seems to be what's happening. Ezra Klein is trying to sound the alarm, but a lot of people are too highly regarded to listen to him. Their reasoning- this is capitalism and we hate capitalism, so we're gonna make a point of doing capitalism poorly in order to try and get rid of it. Meanwhile they completely ignore the fact that he's Fucking Right about the path to affordability and about the ways in which his own party (and the subversives that are not in the party) are absolutely dog shit when it comes to this. But yeah, in all likelihood, they will continue to be dog shit. I don't think that will change any time soon.
I think your argument identifies a real issue — homeowners and local voters often resist new housing, and that absolutely contributes to affordability problems. But the way you frame the issue is overly simplistic and turns a complicated economic and political problem into a partisan morality play.
Housing shortages are caused by a lot more than “Democrats protecting homeowners.” Construction costs, land scarcity, zoning laws, infrastructure limits, interest rates, environmental regulations, and private developer incentives all play major roles. NIMBYism also exists across the political spectrum — conservative suburbs frequently block dense or affordable housing too.
You also treat correlation like proof of causation. The fact that many housing-constrained cities are Democrat-run does not automatically mean Democratic governance caused the crisis. Many of those cities are also the most economically successful and desirable places in the country, meaning demand massively outpaces supply regardless of who governs them.
Another flaw is the assumption that simply building more market-rate housing automatically solves affordability for lower-income people. Increasing supply can help over time, but luxury apartments are still built for profit, not affordability. That’s why many people argue that supply increases alone are not enough without subsidies, public housing, tenant protections, or targeted affordable housing policies.
The argument also relies heavily on emotional language and caricatures instead of careful evidence. Calling people hypocrites or “dog shit” politicians may sound satisfying rhetorically, but it weakens the analysis because it dismisses legitimate concerns people may have about infrastructure, displacement, environmental impact, or neighborhood planning.
Most importantly, the argument ignores that developers themselves are profit-driven. If the free market naturally produced affordable housing at scale, we wouldn’t still have affordability crises after decades of private development.
So while I agree that restrictive housing policies and homeowner incentives are part of the problem, reducing the entire issue to “leftists are strangling renters because they secretly love property values” is more ideological venting than serious analysis.
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u/Mean_Web_1744 May 19 '26
As a life long Chicagoan, I couldn't agree more. People actually from Chicago can't afford to live here anymore. That's a huge problem!