It’s been years since I have been to Chicago, but I was honored to get an invite from the Chicago Association of Realtors to talk with them about rent control. As I was putting together my comments I noticed two things, first, rents are going down in Chicago. The city seems to be producing enough housing over the last year to absorb demand. One report from rent tracking website Per Zumper found rents dropping about 15 percent.

From that article:

In Chicago, “both bedroom types are down over 15 percent since this time last year, which are the largest rent dips in the nation,” said Zumper Marketing Manager Crystal Chen.

“This steady downturn in prices the past year is most likely due to the influx of newer apartment buildings with move-in specials and an overall increase in inventory, which may be a relief to renters.”

But here’s something else that is happening in Chicago: a movement pushing rent control.

From the Chicago Tribune:

The coalition’s efforts have already resulted in a question about rent regulation slated for the March primary ballot in nine wards and about 100 precincts around Chicago, Malone said. Couple that with state Rep. Will Guzzardi, D-Chicago, introducing a bill to the state House last year repealing the rent control ban and Democratic gubernatorial candidates J.B. Pritzker and Daniel Biss expressing support of a repeal and you have a number of people optimistic about the repeal coming to fruition.

And how did that question about rent control fair on the ballot in March? About 75 percent of Chicago voters said, “Yes” to the question of whether to repeal the state prohibition on rent control at the local level.

Again from the Chicago Tribune:

Another 75 percent of votes, most of them in traditionally Latino wards seeing a dramatic rise to the cost of living, aim to get rid of an existing prohibition on rent regulation that goes back to 1997.

The majority of voters in participating precincts said “yes” to lifting the ban on rent stabilization as a way “to stop gentrification and rapidly increasing rents in Chicago”, the ballot read.

Proponents said they are not interested in freezing rents or hurting homeowners, but in finding state-sanctioned solutions directed mainly at real estate developers, in order to keep properties affordable for families

So rents are going down, but interest in rent control is up. I’ll see what I can find out. Meanwhile, here’s Carl Sandburg’s paean to the city.

The poem, Chicago, first appeared “in Poetry, March 1914, the first of nine poems collectively titled “Chicago Poems”. It was republished in 1916 in Sandburg’s first mainstream collection of poems, also titled Chicago Poems . . . One of Chicago’s many nicknames, “City of the Big Shoulders,” is taken from the poem’s fifth line.” — From Wikipedia