Chicago has multiple crises that more housing could mitigate
June 23, 2025
By Josh Chodor
Link to full article at Steven Can Plan
Chicago currently faces a dire financial crisis that could leave the city with a $1.2 billion budget deficit in 2026 and a potentially higher deficit in 2027. One way the city can attempt to chip away at this deficit is by expanding access to affordable and abundant residential housing across the city. This article by Joshua Chodor focuses on the communities impacted by Chicago’s shortage of affordable residential housing, why more home choices will be needed and the potential strategies that can create housing abundance.
In his 1999 book Homeland Earth, French philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin developed a term that would encapsulate the interconnectivity and complexity of modern crises across the world. Spurred by growing fears of global warming, resource depletion and environmental destruction leading to novel diseases, Morin defined his concerns through the term “polycrisis“.
As Morin projected, today’s modern polycrisis is defined by the convergence of climate change, international migration and humanitarian crises, the increasing rise of authoritarian governments and misinformation driving civil and social unrest globally. To call Chicago’s myriad issues a polycrisis may diminish the word’s more complex meaning. However, when identifying Chicago’s critical issues – a budget crisis, a housing crisis, a cost of living crisis and the political target that the current presidential administration has set on the city – polycrisis emerges as a valid description of the situation.
Chicago must follow a common sense agenda that creates an abundance of housing at all price points in order to alleviate these intertwined crises.
