Editorial: It's not the messaging, Mr. Mayor. Your policies and governance are the problems.

Chicago Tribune

18-05-2025

We're halfway through Mayor Brandon Johnson's term, and the city the mayor described in a series of recent interviews to mark the milestone hardly resembles what we see.
We agree with the mayor that Chicago is a great American city, made so by the people who live, work, play and love here.
But in many other respects — a transit system that continues to perform unacceptably, public schools that cost too much and do a poor job of teaching our children, violent crime levels well above peer American cities and a local economy needlessly deprived of the dynamism that produced our uniquely beautiful skyline — Chicago is ailing.
For all the unfair shots ideologically motivated critics take at the city, Chicagoans who've grown up here and made adult lives here know something has gone wrong these last two years. They've seen what this city looks and feels like when things are going well. And, judging from Johnson's rock-bottom public-approval numbers, many of them have concluded he's a big part of the current problem.
The job of mayor is tough no matter who's in the office, but Chicago could be doing so much better with a different brand of leadership — and, really, a wholly different philosophy — than Johnson has brought to the fifth floor.
Before we discuss what we think is wrong, let's recognize what Johnson has done well. Topping that list is appointing Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling, who has helped restore some measure of morale to the force, overseen a noteworthy reduction in violent crime and led a smooth Democratic National Convention in which protesters were allowed to have their say without sparking chaos.
Likewise, Johnson's recent choice of Michael McMurray in the crucial post of aviation commissioner was solid.
On the policy front, his Cut the Tape initiative, aimed at reducing the inexcusably long time it takes to win city approval for development projects, is laudable. The execution, however, has been too slow.
And, more generally, no one doubts Johnson's love for Chicago and his honest desire to lift up neighborhoods that long have been neglected.
But the losses and setbacks have far outnumbered the wins despite the City Council being populated with record numbers of self-described progressives, who (on paper at least) are allies of the mayor. Leave aside more moderate aldermen who from the start were unlikely to back Johnson's agenda; the mayor has struggled time and again to win support even from fellow progressives for high-priority initiatives. Many of those progressives have openly feuded with his administration.
Likewise, when they've had the chance, voters have clearly expressed their displeasure with the mayor. The most striking example was the March 2024 rejection of his Bring Chicago Home referendum, which would have allowed the city to dramatically hike taxes on the sale of higher-priced residential and most all commercial property to fund homelessness programs. The school board elections last November were another warning sign. Improbably, candidates not endorsed by the mayor's most important political ally, the Chicago Teachers Union, won six of nine contested elections — a clear rebuke of the mayor.
In interviews, Johnson's message at the halfway mark has consisted largely of the time-honored political tradition of acknowledging mistakes in the same way a job applicant responds to the question of describing their biggest flaw by saying they work too hard at times. In the mayor's telling, it's not any of the policies or their execution that explain his unpopularity; it's that he hasn't done enough to communicate all the wonderful things that are happening on his watch.
He points to city initiatives like the so-called green social housing ordinance — one of his few victories in the City Council — which will have the city financing and for the first time taking direct ownership of affordable housing projects. He mentions early-term policy changes like eliminating the subminimum wage for tipped employees and imposing paid-leave mandates on businesses — initiatives that raise costs for existing businesses and discourage the creation of new ones.
While the intentions behind these policies were mostly good, they don't make up for the lack of confidence private investors and job creators feel in the city under Johnson's leadership. It's not even close. The oft-cited dearth of cranes in Chicago's sky represents tangible evidence.
More generally, the numbers confirm what Chicagoans see and feel as they move about the city. With the exception of a few retail strips in affluent neighborhoods, Chicago isn't thriving. It's not growing. It's lacking energy. And it's losing ground to competitors.
Every year, on behalf of state government, Moody's produces a detailed and illuminating report on Illinois' economy. Those reports tell a damning tale of Johnson's term so far.
In February 2023, three months before Johnson took office, Moody's pointed to Chicago employment growth of 3.5% over the previous year and observed that the performance 'outpaced' the Midwest and the U.S. as a whole. A year later, in February 2024, nine months into Johnson's term, Moody's said, 'Chicago's economy is showing signs of fatigue.' Job growth had slowed to just 0.8%, with most private-sector industries other than health care lagging. Wage gains also were worse in Chicago than in the country as a whole.
The most recent report, from February 2025, was sadder still. 'Chicago's economy is trailing its large peers and the U.S. overall,' Moody's said. Employment was 'relatively flat for the past year and a half.'
Throughout Johnson's tenure, the city's unemployment rate consistently has been about a percentage point above the national rate.
Johnson describes himself as 'pro-business' and told Crain's Chicago Business he will 'put his record up against' any past mayor with a business-friendly reputation.
Very few people actually doing business in Chicago would agree with the mayor's self-assessment.
Johnson still doesn't seem to understand that economic development doesn't emanate mainly from City Hall and its programs — or shouldn't, anyway, in a healthy commercial ecosystem. Far more jobs and economic opportunity, including for people living on the South and West sides, are created when the city provides essential services at a reasonable cost and engenders confidence in those considering establishing new businesses or expanding existing ones that stability along those lines can be expected in the future.
Thus far, the Johnson administration has failed in that basic task. On his watch, the city's debt rating has been downgraded for the first time in a decade. Unlike in past years, the administration last week barred journalists from attending any part of a two-day gathering with investors in which Johnson's finance team attempted to persuade them to buy hundreds of millions in new bonds the city wants to issue this year. Hardly inspires confidence.
Facing a daunting budget deficit last year, the mayor proposed a $300 million property tax hike, summarily rejected by the City Council, thereby breaking a categorical campaign promise while refusing to consider layoffs or even furloughs to make ends meet.
He's piling more debt on a city awash in IOUs and even pushed hard — again, failing so far, thankfully — for Chicago Public Schools to take on hundreds of millions in more debt despite being the largest issuer of junk-rated municipal bonds in the country.
The mayor could be considered the epitome of a tax-and-spend Democrat, only he's typically unable to persuade fellow officeholders with similarly progressive views to green-light the taxes. So he's become a borrow-and-spend Democrat.
For any mayor, the job entails two primary tasks before all else: public safety and financial stewardship. On the latter count, this mayor has been deeply disappointing so far. In our view, that's a major reason why Chicago's economy is stuck in the mud.
It's not that Chicagoans haven't understood what you're selling, Mr. Mayor. The problem is what has been on offer.