Monday, May 08, 2023

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN BY HOWARD TULLMAN

  

Some Big Cities Need to Get a Grip on Crime

Or they're going to become small cities. In Chicago, the daily havoc is ruining downtown businesses and prompting some companies to leave town. "Progressive" policing isn't helping. 

 

BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS@TULLMAN

 

Anyone who's been paying attention knows that you'd have to be a confirmed masochist to try to open a business or a new store in the central business districts in a number of the largest cities in the United States. Ground Zero these days for urban unrest and the constant dashing of good intentions is undoubtedly San Francisco, where even foolishly optimistic corporations like Whole Foods have basically given up fighting against the continued assaults on their people, non-stop and largely tolerated shoplifting and overt thefts, open-air drug markets and mentally ill homeless wandering the streets.

Only weeks after Whole Foods shuttered a nearly brand-new store in San Fran, Nordstroms, a longtime and legendary retailer, announced that it is closing two downtown locations as well. Seattle and Portland, Oregon don't even pretend any longer.  Their streets, sidewalks and parks are virtual war zones and no one running any kind of business there thinks they're going to be able to survive much longer. Street crime and drugs are rampant and basically ignored by the progressive municipal administrators; and the disease is spreading.

We're seeing the same kinds of issues and problems in Chicago, and we've also got insane levels of carjackings by armed groups of 13-year-old kids.  In addition to the retail marketplace collapsing in downtown and commercial real values plummeting, we're seeing a growing exodus of major corporations, which has even worse implications for the city's long-term health and viability. Having just elected a new mayor who has absolutely zero business, management, or operational experience  to follow in the footsteps of the last angry, nasty and grossly incompetent occupant of that office, we're seeing firms reducing their presence or leaving town, most recently Guggenheim Partners.

This should be a warning to the incoming mayor, Brandon Johnson, as well as to other "progressive" mayors across the country that the tech and business community's exodus to greener and safer pastures is moving forward at lightspeed. In fairness to Johnson, the rush to the exits started with Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who abruptly and aggressively turned her back on the business community and largely ignored the needs of the downtown business district whose stores, restaurants, hotels and theatres are among the largest drivers of the city's economic success. Companies are voting with their feet as they seek out safer, more corporate-friendly and better-managed communities.

Someone needs to reach out in a hurry to stem this tide or there won't be much of a CBD or an economy left in Chicago. To date, if anything, the confused and hostile messaging -- largely leftover threats and promises from the campaign -- which the mayor-elect has promoted has done exactly the opposite. Sadly, the more that these progressive and inexperienced novices pontificate about their grand visions and future (albeit undetailed) programs, the more difficult it becomes for any rational business leader to make forward-looking plans that include Chicago and cities like it in the equation. You can't build a solid business on a foundation of fast talk and fantasies.  

The COVID-19 pandemic and the largely irrevocable behavioral changes it precipitated have provided an amazingly convenient excuse for two or three different kinds of corporate action that in earlier times were simply not viable alternatives given the likely civic and political blowback they risked. Shrinking or entirely abandoning substantial downtown office spaces in the name of a newly liberated workforce that wants to work from home is one example. Which means that threatening to tax those commuters who were planning to return to the city for work is a stupid start if the goal is to rebuild a thriving downtown.

Not bothering to rehire entire middle-level tiers of white-collar workers - especially of a certain age - is another ongoing corporate process because the tasks those workers performed have been outsourced, compressed by new A.I.-driven tools like ChatGPT, or eliminated by automation. That turns out to be very convenient cover for headcount shrinkage as well as the conversion of large segments of the workforce from fixed infrastructure costs into variable and often outsourced expenses -- conversions that have direct and highly attractive impacts on the bottom line. The insane idea in this kind of environment of reinstituting an employee head tax, as Mayor-elect Johnson suggested, is exactly the worst kind of disincentive to encourage new entrants and retain the few big businesses we still have.

So are the convenient knee-jerk rationalizations for constant shoplifting and the wanton weekend trashing of city buses and police cars as well as looting of downtown stores.  Apparently, we don't want to run the risk of "demonizing" any of the little darlings who simply have no other way or place to express themselves. This is simply an invitation to a summer full of mischief and mayhem, which will also help to make sure that our downtown restaurants and hotels continue to suffer from the tourist drought that has threatened their very existences for the last several years.

When the small stores, shops and food outlets in the Loop close their doors at 3 or 4 in the afternoon and thereby forfeit what little homebound commuter traffic there might have been to avoid the risks of staying open, the message should be clear to even the most oblivious observers. Chicago is simply not the place to be after dark. When big store operators like Walmart, which just announced the closure of four Chicagoland stores, and Target start to determine whether it even makes sense to stay open in certain parts of the city, we know that we are on the cusp of even more challenging times.

But, to return to the ongoing departure of major firms in the city and  the direct and  indirect ways that they are hollowing out their offices, warehouses and other activities, there's an even bigger and far more impactful problem with their disappearance. Many of these firms are the very organizations, enterprises, and entities that funded, supported, supplied manpower to, and otherwise encouraged the very essential civic, charitable, and philanthropic activities designed to serve the underserved populations that the new mayor says are so critically in need of assistance.

As these companies, their people and their attention shifts elsewhere, Chicago and every other major urban city that doesn't respond effectively to these problems will be much the worse for their leaving, in ways that simple headcount and revenue numbers can't begin to calculate.