In “How high
can you go?” (Nov. 16, 2017) I looked at the various proposals to lure
Amazon’s proposed second national headquarters to Chicago.
The issue of economic development subsidies looms large in the debate. I’ve done my share of complaining about them. ((See “Such a deal” from Jan. 26, 2012, and “Pennies and nickels” from Oct. 10, 2013, at illinoistimes.com.) But public investments to stimulate private enterprise of all
sorts is sound in principle, as long as they are made with the same prudence that, in theory, governs private investments. I’m not against incentives, in other words, but I am
against incentives that cost more than they realize over time. So make a deal
with Amazon by all means, but make it a good one, with triggers and clawbacks to
protect taxpayers from another Sears deal. I despair that the deal will be
good, however. Amazon has smarter people on its negotiating team and more of
them than does Team Rauner.
A good deal also will protect taxpayers against the City of
Chicago. Amazon will make Chicago a richer city but not a better one if the city builds the infrastructure Amazon needs and not what Chicagoans need. The city has pandered to the corporati before this, with unhappy
results. A good bad example of this impulse was Richie “Call Me Baron
Haussmann” Daley‘s absurdly costly Grand Central-style subway station in the Loop, from which suits
with suitcases would be whisked to O’Hare in less time than it takes to falsify
an expense report. And don’t forget Daley’s pursuit of the 2016 Olympics, in
anticipation of which the city bought the old Michael Reese hospital grounds at
a cost of $86 millions (more than $100 mill in today money), which has lain
vacant ever since.
None of the several projects so far laid at the feet of Jeff Bezos matches Daley’s in folly, but several of them are more than merely not bad. I expect that Amazon has better planners than the city does. I
know that the firms involved in some of the proposed HQ2 sites, like
Sterling Bay or Related Companies, have better planners, which I why I insist
on being optimistic.
This article appears in Nov 23-29, 2017.
