The New Chicago Way

Uncorrected manuscripts of The New Chicago Way are available to review. Please be advised that this copy is still under review and may contain spelling and grammatical errors that will be fixed before its release.

When compared to other big cities in America, Chicago stands out. It has the highest homicide rate, the highest pension and municipal debt, below average school performance, conspicuous corruption, and glaring social ills and inequality. Chicago is also the only major city that is totally dominated and controlled by the office of the mayor. This has led to consistently poor decisions that result in outsized problems.

The book looks at these problems, explains the poor decisions, and then looks at how governance is the cause. Other major cities evolved from a mayor-centric model decade ago after tireless energy and wisdom from thousands of smart, committed reformers. Meanwhile Chicago’s leaders have insulated themselves from such change and now suffer the consequences.

In chapters that look at the mayor-council relationship, elections, schools, finances, pensions, corruption, the convention center, policing, and state law the authors explain city government, describe illustrative poor decisions, and then present comparisons among the fifteen largest U.S. cities. The book is not an ad hominem screed on individual mayors and is not a lament of past problems. Instead, it is an objective appraisal of big city governance in America today that points out Chicago’s shortcomings. It concludes with specific recommendations for change and spells out the specific steps that local and state officials must undertake to implement them. It is a blueprint for reforming city government.

“This book is a thoughtful recitation of the problems of one of our greatest cities. If more intelligent, articulate citizens like Ed Bachrach and Austin Berg would take the time and make the effort to understand and publicize the fiscal realities, we would at least have a chance of finding real public support for solutions. This book is an urgent plea for change. It should be read.”—Richard Ravitch, former lieutenant governor of New York

“The New Chicago Way reveals how serious Chicago’s government problems are and how they are related to each other. More important, it provides a comprehensive solution to those problems. It should be read by scholars, public interest groups, and the public.”—Dick Simpson, author of The Good Fight: Life Lessons from a Chicago Progressive

About the Authors:

ED BACHRACH is the retired CEO of Bachrach Clothing Inc. and founder and president of the Center for Pension Integrity in Chicago. He is a CPA and has a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and is a board member of the Illinois Policy Institute. His op-eds have been published in The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times, among others, and served as a commentator on Chicago-area television broadcasts. AUSTIN BERG is a writer, editor and photojournalist who focuses on the stories of Midwesterners and public policy. He has won two Lisagor Awards, the top honor in Chicago journalism, for his work at the Illinois Policy Institute. He contributes opinion columns to the Illinois News Network and wrote the documentary film Madigan: Power. Privilege. Politics. He graduated from Tufts University in 2014 with a bachelor’s in political science and economics and spent one year studying PPE at Oxford University.