The Housing Affordability Crisis in Chicago Is Really a Public Safety Crisis
Politicians keep talking about affordability. But they refuse to talk about the reason so much affordable housing has become undesirable
Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias has begun talking about Chicago’s housing affordability crisis, echoing one of today’s favorite Democratic talking points. Housing, we’re told, has become too expensive. The answer, inevitably, is more government intervention, more subsidies, more programs, and more spending. But that diagnosis misses the underlying disease.
Chicago’s housing problem is not fundamentally an affordability crisis. It is a public safety crisis. That distinction matters because if you misdiagnose the illness, you’ll prescribe the wrong medicine. After decades of doing exactly that, Chicago is paying the price.
A revealing Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED) analysis comparing Chicago home prices with inflation shows that lower-priced homes have appreciated dramatically in real terms since the Great Financial Crisis. At first glance, that appears to support the conventional wisdom that affordable housing is disappearing. But the graph raises a more important question: if Chicago supposedly has a housing shortage, why are there thousands upon thousands of houses sitting empty throughout large sections of the South and West Sides?
The answer is obvious to anyone willing to acknowledge the elephant in the room. There is no shortage of physical housing stock. There is a shortage of housing that middle-class families consider safe enough to buy.
Drive through neighborhoods such as South Shore, Englewood, Austin, Garfield Park, or portions of the West Side. You’ll see beautiful brick bungalows, classic Chicago two-flats, handsome greystones, and solid housing that, in many cases, could be restored to their former glory. The structures exist. The streets exist. The utilities exist.
Schools, parks, churches, and commercial corridors already occupy many of these neighborhoods. What doesn’t exist is the confidence that an ordinary family can raise children there without worrying about violent crime, carjackings, burglaries, gang activity, or deteriorating public order. You see it right before your eyes every night on the local news. How could anybody play "See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil" about these atrocious acts of carnage that we are confronted with every single day?
Economists often say markets price risk, and housing markets are no exception. Every prospective homebuyer performs a calculation, consciously or subconsciously. They ask whether their children will be safe walking to school, whether their car will still be in the driveway the next morning, whether nearby businesses will remain open, and whether the neighborhood will be stronger or weaker 10 years from now. Those perceptions influence what buyers are willing to pay just as surely as interest rates or mortgage availability.
The market discounts risk. When public safety deteriorates, property values decline. When property values decline, the tax base shrinks. When the tax base shrinks, city revenues weaken. When revenues weaken, sidewalks don’t get repaired, parks deteriorate, storefronts remain vacant, infrastructure ages, and neighborhoods become what politicians euphemistically call “disinvested.”
Disinvestment is often presented as the cause, but it is the consequence. That distinction matters because it changes the policy prescription. If disinvestment is the disease, then government spending appears to be the cure. But if disinvestment is largely the result of declining public safety and weak governance, then pouring more taxpayer dollars into neighborhoods without restoring order treats the symptoms while leaving the underlying illness untouched.
The Great Financial Crisis illustrated another lesson that politicians often overlook. During the housing bubble, credit standards deteriorated dramatically. Speculators accumulated multiple properties with minimal down payments, assuming prices would continue rising forever. That experiment ended disastrously. The subsequent tightening of mortgage underwriting was not some arbitrary act of financial cruelty; it was a necessary correction after years of reckless lending. Today’s affordability debate often ignores that history, as though the answer is simply to recreate the easy-credit conditions that helped produce the largest housing collapse since the Great Depression.
Chicago’s deeper problem lies elsewhere. A city can have abundant housing and still experience an affordability problem if much of that housing is located in neighborhoods where buyers are unwilling to live because they perceive the risks as too high. That’s not a housing shortage. It’s a governance failure.
The consequences ripple outward through the entire local economy. Businesses hesitate to open where customers are reluctant to shop. Banks become more cautious about lending. Insurance premiums rise. Employers find it more difficult to attract workers. Families who have the financial means to leave often do so, taking with them purchasing power, property tax revenue, civic leadership, and volunteer activity. Those who remain are left with fewer services, fewer opportunities, and fewer private investments. The cycle feeds on itself.
The opposite is also true. When crime falls and public order improves, private capital begins flowing back into neighborhoods almost automatically. Homeowners invest in renovations because they believe they’ll receive a return. Entrepreneurs open restaurants, coffee shops, and retail businesses because they see customers rather than risk. Lenders become more willing to finance projects. Property values rise because more families want to live there. The tax base expands without raising tax rates simply because the underlying assets become more valuable.
Yet, Chicago’s political leadership consistently avoids confronting the issue directly. Instead, the conversation shifts toward subsidized housing, rent assistance, government-owned grocery stores, free transit, or other interventions that do little to restore the basic conditions under which neighborhoods flourish.
None of this is to suggest that every housing subsidy is inherently misguided. Temporary assistance can help families through difficult circumstances, and targeted redevelopment projects may have a role to play. But no subsidy can permanently persuade people to invest where they believe their safety or their property is at risk. Governments can offset market signals for a time, but they cannot eliminate them. Eventually, private investment either returns because conditions improve, or it continues to seek safer, more stable communities elsewhere.
Meanwhile, residents living in those communities continue to bear the costs of persistent crime and disorder. Businesses close. Grocery stores leave. Investment slows. Families with options relocate elsewhere. The cycle repeats itself.
Chicago Flips Red has been documenting what many politicians seem reluctant to acknowledge: residents across the city repeatedly identify crime, disorder, and declining quality of life among their greatest concerns. Empty storefronts, food deserts, and neighborhood decline do not emerge in a vacuum. They reflect broader economic and social conditions that discourage private investment. Businesses do not generally abandon profitable markets out of indifference. They leave because the economics no longer justify remaining.
The city’s fiscal problems are tied to the same dynamic. Chicago has substantial spending obligations, while many critics argue that a weakened property tax base constrains revenue growth. As neighborhoods lose value and investment shifts elsewhere, maintaining services becomes increasingly difficult. Regardless of one’s preferred fiscal policy, declining property values reduce the resources available to support local government. That, in turn, places greater pressure on the neighborhoods that are still generating tax revenue, creating yet another feedback loop.
History offers a different model. Chicago did not become one of America’s greatest cities through government ownership of businesses or endless public subsidies. It became a global commercial center because entrepreneurs invested, businesses expanded, neighborhoods prospered, and families believed their investments would be protected by the rule of law. Public safety was not merely another municipal service. It was the foundation upon which private investment could flourish. That lesson remains relevant today.
If Chicago wants more affordable housing, more investment, stronger neighborhoods, and healthier public finances, it must first create the conditions that encourage families and businesses to invest with confidence. Public safety is not separate from economic development. It is one of its essential prerequisites.
The debate, therefore, should not begin with the question, “How do we make housing cheaper?”, because the answer — maybe for some of the less enlightened — is that you make it more dangerous. There is nothing like crime to lower the dime you have to drop for the rent. To a certain extent, that sick philosophy prevails in some of our politicians, empty heads.
It should begin with a more fundamental question: “How do we make more neighborhoods places in which families once again want to live, invest, and build their futures?” Solve that problem, and affordability improves naturally because demand spreads across a larger share of the city’s existing housing stock. Ignore it, and Chicago will continue spending billions treating symptoms while the underlying condition steadily worsens.
Until political leaders are willing to confront that reality directly, Chicago will continue debating affordability while neglecting what many residents believe is its true housing challenge. Restoring public safety is not simply about reducing crime statistics. It is about restoring confidence, rebuilding neighborhoods, strengthening the tax base, attracting private investment, and giving families a reason to believe that buying a home in Chicago is once again one of the best investments they can make.
The sad reality is it's no surprise our brain-dead City Hall is unable to fathom these eternal verities because 40 percent of them are lobotomized democratic socialists who take Karl Marx seriously. When you have that kind of pretzel logic running your city, there is no hope.
So the only thing we can do to get our most fundamental problems fixed is to evict those who currently reside in the halls of power. That is our job in March.
George Shay is a conservative activist and writer. You can find his Common Sense Substack here: https://open.substack.com/pub/terry264
