LIGHTFOOT: As the mayor’s national profile rises, so do the online attacks. PAGE 23
REAL ESTATE: Here are the homes Chicago architects love. PAGE 17
CHICAGOBUSINESS.COM | JULY 6, 2020 | $3.50
THE PRICE OF POLICING Chicago spends more than most big cities
BY A.D. QUIG
GETTY IMAGES
BETWEEN A LOOMING BUDGET GAP in Chicago and a nationwide debate over “defunding police,” the Chicago Police Department’s spending practices are likely to come under renewed scrutiny. On paper, CPD appears beefier than most other large police departments, deploying more officers per capita than any big city in the country: According to 2018 FBI data, Chicago has 48 cops per 10,000 residents, compared to New York City’s 42, Philadelphia’s 41 and just 24 in Los Angeles. Chicago also spends more per resident on policing than eight of the 10 largest cities, according to a U.S. News & World Report analysis of 2020 budgets. Chicago’s $660 per capita police spending trails only New York’s $671. Further down the line are Philadelphia ($488), Los Angeles ($436) and Houston ($403). Like any big organization, CPD spends most of its money—94 percent in recent years—on personnel. Cutting CPD’s $1.7 billion budget down to match L.A.’s per capita spending for last year, for example, would save the city $500 million— but whether Chicago could reach that level depends on where and See POLICING on Page 19
Homebuying season shifts to summer
Facebook boycott slow to click here
People who sat out the market during spring’s stay-home orders are listing and buying now in big numbers June and July usually bring a lull in the housing market, as the peak activity of spring eases up. But 2020 is no ordinary year. In the wake of 10 weeks of stay-home orders, “the spring market got shifted into summer,” says Sharial Howard, an @properties agent. That’s in part because during the shutdown, although home sales qualified as an essential business, many buyers and sellers decided it wasn’t essential for them and put off entering the market.
As reopening began at the end of May, “everybody who waited was getting busy,” Howard says. That showed up in a rush of buyers’ contracts and sellers’ listings, which have continued their upward trajectory week after week, during a season when they’re typically headed down. In each full week of June, the number of homes in the Chicago area that went under contract to buyers rose, according to weekly reports from Midwest Real Estate Data. The swell turned into a surge: In the first week of June,
BY STEVE DANIELS JOHN R. BOEHM
BY DENNIS RODKIN
Why have local consumer-facing brands been so reticent to join the effort? There are theories.
Annie Bauer, an @properties agent, is among those seeing a rush of pent-up activity. contracts were up 18 percent from the same time a year earlier; in the fourth week, they were up 33 percent. See HOMEBUYING on Page 19
Well over 300 companies in the U.S. and around the world have joined a growing campaign to boycott advertising on Facebook, as pressure builds on the social-media giant to better police hate speech and misinformation on its platform. Corporate Chicago, however, is only now just starting to join in. The lack of Chicago-area corporations on the expanding list of firms saying they will stop or
pause advertising on Facebook prompted Crain’s to contact 10 local consumer-facing companies to see where they stand on the issue. Three—Walgreens, BMO Harris Bank and Conagra Brands—told Crain’s they’re joining the effort and will stop advertising on Facebook and Instagram, which Facebook owns. Conagra is halting ads for the remainder of 2020, going beyond most U.S. companies, which typically are halting See FACEBOOK on Page 20
NEWSPAPER l VOL. 43, NO. 27 l COPYRIGHT 2020 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC. l ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
HEALTH CARE
OPINION
Cook County’s public health system faces a financial reckoning due to COVID-19. PAGE 3
For companies wanting meaningful change, community-building projects are more beneficial than one-off volunteer campaigns. PAGE 10
Interim CEO Debra Carey