A few nights ago I was taking a connecting flight in Chicago and there was a layover and I had to rent a hotel room for the night. When I taking an uber to the hotel I saw something strange, there was this huge open field right in the middle of downtown, it must have gone on for miles, I couldn't see the end of it. Why does America complain about there being a housing shortage when there's literally room right there to build cheap affordable public housing in the east side of Chicago? Completely insane, that's your brain on capitalism, hope I never have to step foot in shitcago again!
i dunno about chicago but I'm from the suburbs of IL. Cook county has insane property taxes, so house prices haven't really gone up much there over the past decade or even two.
The reason people build houses or condos in capitalist countries is so they can profit from it. There's lowish demand for houses in Chicago and its suburbs in part due to property taxes.
There are multiple 50+ apartment buildings under construction and multiple smaller ones currently.
Condo and house construction is down because megacorps with deep pockets look at renting apartments as a line that will go up forever.
The condos and houses that can sell, tend to sell.
Cook County has high property taxes that are progressive, because they can’t have progressive income taxes.
The property taxes vary a lot, as it’s not based 100% on the value of the building, as it’s also scaled by area and stuff. It’s still high, but it’s all a workaround in theory because the rich just suck up wealth and complain.
Why doesn't Chicago just nationalize the land to the east of it so they can build on it? I mean there's literally nothing there. Just a prairie.