It could never be...

Fair enough, buisnesses and corporations large and small all respond to incentives, the same as individuals

""We have large corporations. Seventy percent of large corporations in the city of Chicago — in the state of Illinois, did not pay a corporate tax," Johnson said during a Thursday appearance on CBS Mornings. "

Lets assume for a moment that thats true. Lets also assume theyre large enough that they keep things in the tax department pretty above board, using no fewer exemptions etc etc etc than they are allowed.

The incentive structure is therefore because the city of chicago has offered way too nice of a low tax environment for these corporations.

Thats a Self-made problem for sure.

 

What do corporate tax breaks have to do with poverty/violence? Gotta love the way they try to justify blaming all the local politics problems on those "evil corporations."

 

Corporate tax breaks leads to lower city revenue, thats simple to see.

But that revenue is to put it in truck terms, the cities preventative maintenance budget. (Roads, police, firefighters, sewer, water, etc)
The larger the budget shortfall, the less in services they can offer, so because rich people complain to the right people, their roads get fixed, their area is policed, their sewer amd water lines are fine. And other "undesireable areas" are put on the backburner. You reduce budgets for metropolitan transit, the guy with 3 bmws doesnt care, the guy with no car and a 15 mile commute is the one affected.

Cities are very complex ecosystems and taxes for infrastructure DO have a large role in which areas are successful and which are not.

Something is probably giving a much bigger impact, that "etc" also includes schools and schooling. Again, the guy paid 250k a year can afford a private school, or to live in the area with nice schools, low crime, good teachers, the factory worker more or less has to take the public school option for their kids, the school that is dilapidated, has far fewer resources, has worse teachers only there for a paycheck. And more than that, school is socially run by the students, and frequently grades and educational ability of the teachers can be pulled down by a few rowdy students.

Im not saying chicagos problems arent mostly self inflicted, im saying taxes are an important element to run one and its not as simple as youre making it out to be.

 

Looks like chicago can blame the corps for more poverty as they close up shop and move out of the state. But the buildings can be used as free housing for crack heads so that’s a plus.

 

Who owns the city officials? It's not the voters.