has tourism declined in chicago

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Our Chicago: How tourism is recovering nearly 3 years after start of pandemic

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Last spring, Lynn Osmond became the new President and CEO of Choose Chicago, the city's tourism arm.

She stepped into the role two years into the pandemic, which had a huge impact on the city's hospitality industry.

According to Choose Chicago, more than 60 million tourists visited the city in 2019. That fell to fewer than 17 million in 2020. As we wrap up 2022, we're looking at how those numbers are rebounding and what's ahead for 2023.

"Well we had a fabulous summer. We had about a 90% recovery rate in the summer," Osmond said. "The hotels were packed, the streets were full, the attractions were busy. And this fall we're actually doing very well. We'll probably end the year somewhere around 82% of 2019, and 2019 was the most successful year that we'd ever had."

She said that's 9 million room nights were filled. Her hope is that 2025 will be the final year that we come out of the pandemic tourism losses.

As for how the recovery has come about, "Well there are two arms that we really focus on, getting conventions to return and we've had a very successful year with that because we had a lot of conventions that were already booked," Osmond said. "And then we had a few of them that had to reschedule from the COVID years. And so they were back. So we had a lot of conventions coming back, their numbers were very strong. They were looking at as high as 80-85 percent recovery many of them. And so that was great to see them coming back. Then with leisure, we've certainly had a lot of dynamism with leisure and really pushing the city, its incredible architecture, its lakefront, its positioning. We had best big city for the sixth year in a row by Conde Nast Traveler. But really talking about all we have to offer, the cultural attractions, the sports, the restaurants, it's just really an exciting place to be."

In 2023, one of the first big events is Chicago Restaurant Week which begins January 20 and runs for two weeks. It will feature more than 300 of the city's top restaurants.

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Chicago’s record tourism numbers in first half of 2023

Thursday, August 3, 2023 Favorite

Lollapalooza returns to Grant Park on Thursday, and as music fans flock to Chicago, the city is already having a banner year for visitors, but a slight slowdown might soon be coming.

NASCAR, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and small armies of conventioneers that are back have helped Chicago shine in a post-COVID spotlight.

Like a mega-watt musician, Chicago is topping the charts this summer, with the city ranking the #1 American city for meetings and events volume for the months of April, May, and June, according to the hospitality industry tracker.

From January to June, hotel revenue in Chicago hit $1.12 billion, up 24% from last year, and 102% from pre-pandemic 2019, setting a new record for the city.

Over that period, Chicago’s hotel tax generated $62 million in revenue, also a record breaker.

But the artists who sell records aren’t the only ones fueling this surge in visitors.

And this is before Lollapalooza begins the first festival of a new 10-year commitment to Chicago.

Since Illinois was largely shut down during COVID, while other states remained open, some conferences looking to secure 2025 and 2026 venues passed on Chicago.

Will NASCAR come back to Chicago next year for a second run of its first-ever street race?

The city and NASCAR have a contract to bring the race back to Grant Park next year, but both sides have the option to terminate the agreement within 180 days after the end of this year’s race.

Mayor Brandon Johnson, who inherited the NASCAR deal from predecessor Lori Lightfoot, has said he will evaluate the impact of the event, and on Wednesday said he has yet to make a decision on the future of NASCAR in Chicago.

As for Lollapalooza, where 15,000 more people are expected this year than last, stages are being set, and many street closures have begun in and around the South Loop, with 115,000 people expected for each day of the festival Thursday through Sunday.

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As pent-up travel demand explodes, chicago's tourism arm is struggling.

Danny Ecker is a reporter covering commercial real estate for Crain's Chicago Business, with a focus on offices, hotels and megaprojects shaping the local property sector. He joined Crain’s in 2010 and previously covered the business of sports, as well as the city's convention and tourism sector.

Chicago's tourism industry is desperate for visitors. But the group meant to lead the charge to bring them back is dealing with its own pandemic-induced distress.

As the city prepares for a summer that's expected to unleash pent-up demand from leisure travelers, Choose Chicago is operating as a shell of its former self: The normal $30 million-plus annual budget for the city's nonprofit tourism arm—which relies heavily on COVID-19-drained hotel tax proceeds—has been slashed to just under $16 million. A wave of layoffs early in the pandemic has left it with less than half of the 81 staff members it had before the crisis, all of whom are still furloughed one day per week. And if that weren't shaky enough ground, the group's chief operating officer just announced he is leaving next month and its board of directors disclosed this month that it won't renew CEO David Whitaker's contract when it expires in July, raising the new question of who will lead the city's tourism promoter out of a crisis that has left the local hospitality sector in tatters.

But that's just where the challenge begins for Choose, which now has to overcome real and perceived concerns that the city isn't a safe or inviting place to visit during the pandemic. It's a gloomy backdrop for local tourism sector stakeholders facing the herculean task of reviving visitation, with hundreds of millions of dollars in tourism-related tax revenue and tens of thousands of local jobs on the line.

"We need (Choose Chicago) more than ever to make sure people are thinking about Chicago," says Michael Jacobson, CEO of the Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association. "Unfortunately at a time when we need them the most, their hands are tied behind their back."

Chicago tourism was rolling before the pandemic, with nearly 61 million visitors to the city in 2019—the eighth consecutive record-breaking year, according to Choose Chicago data. Those annual increases came despite years of national headlines spotlighting the city's issues with violent crime that threatened to keep tourists away.

But the pandemic has exacerbated some of those issues. Periodic carjackings and robberies have recently plagued the heart of the city. Much of the central business district remains sparsely populated during the day, while many hotels and restaurants remain shuttered.

Choose Chicago, which declined to make any of its executives available for comment on its strategy for luring visitors, is now trying to thread the needle of broadcasting that the city is open for fun but also safe and still under significant COVID-19-related restrictions.

That will require more than just promoting the city's normal tourist destinations like Navy Pier or Millennium Park, says Michael Fassnacht, who has worked with Choose Chicago over the past year as the city's chief marketing officer.

"We can't just tell people we're open now again. We have to give them concrete reasons to experience Chicago again," Fassnacht says, citing ongoing discussions with the city's Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events and downtown neighborhood associations about staging outdoor events to help draw visitors. The Chicago Loop Alliance, for example, recently asked the city to shut down part of State Street for up to 12 Sundays this summer to highlight local art, culture and retailers.

"I'm very optimistic starting in May that we'll have a cadence of weekly events and reasons why you should come, all flanked by this overall message that we're open again," Fassnacht says, though he warns the comeback won't be at the same speed as other cities "that are going from zero to 100. That is not us. That is not smart, that's not thoughtful. It's a dimmer switch."

Funding promotion for such events will also require some creativity, though Choose could still get some emergency help from public coffers—especially with $7.5 billion in federal COVID-19 stimulus money rolls in. Sylvia Garcia, acting director of the Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity, says that her agency is planning a tourism marketing and promotion campaign this spring or summer. Gov. J.B. Pritzker's proposed budget for the coming fiscal year also includes pre-COVID levels of spending for tourism promotion regardless of hotel tax collections that normally back such marketing efforts.

Choose is running some regional ad campaigns this spring and summer—pooling resources with other Chicago-area towns in some cases—to promote attractions that are open or that will be soon.

Early returns have been positive: Average occupancy at downtown hotels that were open during each of the last two weeks of March and first two weeks of April was higher than 30 percent, according to data from research firm STR. That's still a fraction of the 70 percent occupancy rate that would be typical for early spring during a normal pre-pandemic year, but an improvement from the first year of the pandemic, when occupancy never rose higher than 27 percent for a single week, STR data shows.

More advertising will help continue that momentum, but the trajectory of the pandemic and safety of city streets will ultimately determine the fate of businesses that rely on tourists, says Andrew Sargis, chief of operations for Wendella Tours & Cruises.

"Our employees and patrons need to feel safe coming and working downtown," says Sargis, whose fleet of vessels for boat tours and water taxi rides drew 700,000 passengers in 2019. The company suffered a 75 percent hit to its annual revenue last year. "We need to make sure there aren't continually high levels of crime, and people need to feel like they're not going to get sick."

Another prong to Choose's strategy while it waits for international and business travel to come back will be pushing more Chicago-area residents to explore city neighborhoods. The tourism group last month hired Rob Fojtik, a former adviser to Mayor Lori Lightfoot, as its senior director of neighborhood strategy and announced liquor giant Diageo will donate $2.5 million to help build and promote more outdoor dining spaces, with a focus on disinvested South and West Side communities.

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Health | Is Chicago tourism done until 2021? Facing…

Health | Is Chicago tourism done until 2021? Facing fewer visitors and the possibility of losses, some venues are closing early.

Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune

Navy Pier is seen from a Wendella Sightseeing Co. tour boat on Aug. 21, 2020. The popular Chicago tourist attraction is planning to close for the season on Sept. 8, 2020.

Kate Sorensen, foreground, and her friend Victoria Freire, right, who is visiting from Boston, ride a Wendella Sightseeing Co. tour boat Aug. 21, 2020, on Lake Michigan.

The Ferris wheel at Navy Pier seen from a Wendella Sightseeing Co. tour boat on Aug. 21, 2020.

The locks on the way out to Lake Michigan from the Chicago River seen from the Wendella Sightseeing Co. tour boat on Aug. 21, 2020.

Juan and Jessica Moreno, of Phoenix, take photos aboard a Wendella Sightseeing Co. tour boat on Aug. 21, 2020. The couple is in town to visit family for the weekend.

Craig Wenokur, tour guide and vice president of Wendella Sightseeing Co., conducts a tour on Lake Michigan, Aug. 21, 2020.

Navy Pier, which is planned to close for the year on Sept. 8, 2020, is seen from a Wendella Sightseeing Co. tour boat on Aug. 21, 2020.

Chicago Athletic Association hotel at 12 S. Michigan Ave.

Wendella Sightseeing Co. Vice President Craig Wenokur conducts a tour of the Chicago River on Aug. 21, 2020.

The Chicago Athletic Association hotel has shut down again, with plans to reopen in the first quarter of 2021. Wendella Sightseeing Co. said it’s considering winding down its seasonal boat tours early. And on Tuesday, Navy Pier announced it would close Sept. 8 until the spring. Industry leaders say the effect of the early closures will ripple through the local economy.

Michael Jacobson, president and CEO of the Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association, said Navy Pier’s closure is a “precursor to other tourism entities.”

“As in the case with Navy Pier, they tried to reopen but the math doesn’t add up. We’re heading into the winter months, and it won’t make sense for some of these places to stay open,” he said.

Navy Pier is seen from a Wendella Sightseeing Co. tour boat on Aug. 21, 2020. The popular Chicago tourist attraction is planning to close for the season on Sept. 8, 2020.

Jacobson said social distancing recommendations, which are likely to continue through the end of the year, and the coming colder weather will make it harder to attract travelers. Chicago’s quarantine rules regarding states with high infection rates further hinders hotels’ chance to rebound, he said.

“It won’t surprise me if they don’t open until next year. Some might choose not to reopen until the demand is there. Hotels might be losing more money to stay open,” Jacobson said.

Some hotels have lost about 50% of their revenue from group and business travelers, and without those visitors, the costs of operating a hotel become too high, Jacobson said.

More than 140 trade shows scheduled to take place at McCormick Place have canceled since March because of the pandemic. Those shows would have brought a collective 1.4 million visitors and accounted for an estimated 1.3 million hotel room nights, according to McCormick Place officials.

The Chicago Athletic Association reopened in June after a weekslong shutdown. But the hotel retreated from those plans and closed July 22.

In an emailed statement, Patrick Hatton, the hotel’s managing director, cited the cancellation of the Chicago Marathon and conventions through 2020, the current restrictions on restaurant occupancy and event size, and the prolonged international travel restrictions as reasons for the shutdown.

The hotel won’t accept reservations until after March, Hatton said.

Meanwhile, hotels like the Palmer House Hilton, one of Chicago’s oldest and largest hotels in the Loop, remain closed.

Hilton Worldwide said in a statement it plans to reopen as “travel restrictions are lifted and business demands increase,” but the hotel chain declined to say when that would be.

The drop in visitors follows nine consecutive years of tourism growth in Illinois, according to the state’s Office of Tourism and Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. Last year, Illinois saw more than 120 million visitors, the agency announced Friday. Those tourists spent a record $43.1 billion, the agency said, citing figures from the U.S. Travel Association.

“While it’s unrealistic to expect the same results in 2020, we are looking forward to safely welcoming travelers back to Illinois and rebuilding our industry,” Karla Flannery, deputy director of the Illinois Office of Tourism, said in a news release.

Some small signs of life have come back to the downtown area after weeks of no visitors and empty streets.

Pedestrian activity on State Street in the Loop was down by 66.7% for the week ending Aug. 9 compared with the same week last year, according to the latest data from the Chicago Loop Alliance. That’s an improvement from May and June, when pedestrian activity was down by more than 84%.

Though the hospitality industry is starting to see an uptick in regional and local travelers, businesses say it’s not nearly enough to stay open.

Craig Wenokur, tour guide and vice president of Wendella Sightseeing Co., conducts a tour on Lake Michigan, Aug. 21, 2020.

Wendella is considering ending its boat tours early this year, said Andrew Sargis, chief of operations for Wendella’s Chicago Water Taxi service. Wendella announced last month that it won’t resume its Water Taxi service , which shut down in March, until next spring.

Wendella didn’t shut its architectural cruises and other leisure tours down last winter because the weather was so mild.

But this year, the company plans to suspend operations at the end of December like it usually does, or sooner given the pandemic-related drop-off in tourism.

The onset of cooler weather, which will make it difficult for Wendella to accommodate social distancing, is also a factor.

“In the winter, the open deck becomes less desirable. We’ve been able to do it in the summer and maintain a 6-foot social distance. … With current social distancing recommendations expected to last until the winter, it’ll be hard to operate and keep everyone spaced out inside,” he said.

Uncertainty about when business travel might pick up or when large gatherings can resume is also creating challenges for McCormick Place and its workers.

The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which operates McCormick Place, Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, Marriott Marquis Chicago and the Wintrust Arena, has laid off and furloughed 2,602 employees across its business units, spokeswoman Cynthia McCafferty said.

An additional 379 employees, including the Authority’s CEO and other senior leadership, have been asked to curtail their work weeks and are being paid less as a result, she said.

McCafferty said the convention venue has been quiet in the past few months, but expects a strong demand once local public authorities give the green light on large gatherings.

“Once it is safe, we expect a pent-up demand. We hear that virtual meetings are no substitution for large in-person meetings,” she said.

Jacobson, with the state’s hotel association, said the closures paint a stark picture for the tourism industry for the remainder of the year.

“Tourism is a top employer for the city. We can’t afford if they go out permanently,” he said.

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Chicago is a tourism mecca? Take a closer look

Other cities and regions are bigger visitor draws or growing faster. based on hotel-room demand growth, downtown chicago has done better than los angeles but is well behind new york city..

Chicago skyline as seen from Soldier Field.

Chicago has a thriving tourism industry — but so do other American cities.

Sun-Times file

Like an unusually early spring robin, the headlines have appeared every January for most of the past decade:

“Chicago sets new tourism record with nearly 58 million visitors in 2018.”

“Record-breaking number of tourists visit Chicago in 2017.”

“Chicago welcomed a record number of tourists in 2016.”

According to figures from Choose Chicago, the city’s convention and tourism office, the number of visitors — including business and pleasure travelers — has been rising steadily since the 2010 post-recession low.

“We didn’t just ride the national wave; we’re ahead of it,” outgoing Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in January when the latest figures were released. “No city has seen that kind of exponential growth, from 39 million to more than 57 million.”

OK, so tourism in Chicago is on the rise. But is it really increasing faster than everywhere else? Probably not.

Tourism booming all over

To get a handle on tourism trends nationally, search online for “record tourism [insert random U.S. city].” You’ll get results like this:

“NYC’s record tourism streak continued in 2018 with 65 million visitors.”

“Eighth consecutive year of tourism growth for Los Angeles.”

“Tourism in Cleveland sets record for visitors in 2018.”

Since the recession, tourism has been booming all over.

Determining whether Chicago is seeing more growth than elsewhere is tougher than you might think.

WorldAtlas, a web resource for travelers, lists Chicago as No. 2 among the most-visited cities in the United States, with 54.1 million visitors in 2016 — behind New York with 59.7 million and ahead of Atlanta with 51 million.

No disrespect to WorldAtlas, but that makes no sense. New York City has three times the population of Chicago. It can’t possibly have just 10% more visitors.

Hospitality industry experts have an explanation for the discrepancy: There’s no reliable list of the most visited U.S. cities because there’s no standard way of counting visitors. Overnight travelers only? Or do you include day-trippers, too? Visitors to anywhere in a metro area? Or strictly within city limits?

On top of that, each of the firms used by cities to track tourism has its own methodology.

Apples and oranges

As a result, the numbers touted by local tourism bureaus — the most common source of visitor data — are a classic case of apples and oranges that can’t be compared.

A spokeswoman for NYC & Company, the New York visitor marketing bureau, was miffed that the number of visitors reported by her agency — 65.2 million for 2018 — is for the city’s five boroughs only, while the number claimed by Orlando, Florida, gateway to Walt Disney World, which isn’t actually in the city — 75 million visitors in 2018 — is for the entire metropolitan area.

Choose Chicago reported 57.6 million visitors for 2018. Asked whether that was for the city only or the whole metro area, the agency wouldn’t say.

“The focus of the survey methodology . . . is more on what panelists did (activities) during their visit as well as the purpose of visit (business, leisure, etc.),” a spokesman says. “It does not focus on what specific hotel they may have stayed at nor a specific address if they stayed in an Airbnb, friends’ or relative’s home.”

Given the lack of specifics and the disparity between the size of the cities and the tourism numbers each cites, the only reasonable conclusion is that Chicago’s figures reflect visits to anywhere in the metropolitan area, not just the city.

Comparing cities’ success in attracting visitors isn’t impossible. The one metric reported by virtually all cities is demand for hotel rooms. That omits day-trippers or overnight visitors who stay somewhere other than a hotel. And it doesn’t distinguish between captive business travel and discretionary visits. Still, it offers a reasonable basis for gauging how well cities are doing relative to one another over time.

The hospitality industry’s go-to source for hotel data is STR, a Tennessee travel research firm.

According to hotel-room demand figures for the 25 largest U.S. metro areas for 2008 and 2018 that STR provided, the Chicago region ranks No. 4, with 31 million so-called “room-nights” sold in 2018. That puts the Chicago area behind metro New York (61 million), metro Los Angeles (47 million) and metro Orlando (35 million).

Las Vegas would top all of the cities on the list. But its hotels report data only to the Nevada Gaming Commission, not to STR, so the firm doesn’t include Las Vegas.

Hotel-room demand growth in the Chicago area — and regional growth is what the city’s reported visitor numbers most likely indicate — grew by 21% between 2008 and 2018. That was good for only 19th place on STR’s list.

Hotel-room demand growth in downtown Chicago was much stronger — 38% between 2008 and 2018. That was better than Los Angeles/Long Beach (23%) but well behind New York City, where hotel demand grew by a remarkable 61%. For sheer volume, the hotel markets within the city limits of New York and L.A. are both much larger than Chicago’s.

New York is tourism king

So, by objective measures — and hotel-room demand is the only such measure there is — Chicago isn’t actually ahead of the national wave when it comes to tourism. Other cities and regions are bigger visitor draws or are growing faster.

Setting aside Las Vegas, the most dynamic tourism market in the country surely is New York.

The point here isn’t to pop the Chicago hospitality industry’s bubble but instead to offer a reality check. The city isn’t blowing away the rest of the country. It’s doing reasonably well in a competitive business.

Chicago’s strength clearly is its booming downtown — increasingly dominant in tourism, counting both business and pleasure travel, as in so much else in the urban economy.

This is part of the series City at the Crossroads by journalist Ed Zotti, who looks in-depth at trends affecting Chicago and critical choices the city faces.

Email comments to: [email protected] .

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Chicago’s downtown hotels in distress as conventions, travel remain slow

Hotel revenue from business travelers is on pace to fall short of 2019 by 86 percent

A t Chicago’s McCormick Place, America’s biggest convention center, organizers had hoped the Sept. 13 return of Fabtech, the metal fabricating convention that had been canceled in 2020, would be a return to normal for the third-largest U.S. city’s hospitality industry.

Instead, it was a sign of the new normal — 1,000 exhibitors occupying 500,000 square feet of the convention center, down from 1,700 in 850,000 square feet in 2019.

Still, it was one of the biggest events in a difficult year, with a total of 57 conventions scheduled for McCormick Place. In 2020, 214 events were canceled, with an economic impact on the city of about $3 billion, according to McCormick Place data.

Hotels in Chicago, a manufacturing and transportation center in the middle of the country, are dependent on business travel and conventions like Fabtech, and the pandemic has left them struggling to survive. This year, Chicago hotels’ revenue from business travelers is expected to drop by about $2.1 billion compared with 2019, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association — an 86 percent decline from the $2.5 billion they made that year.

“The reason why we are in Chicago every other year is because it is the hub of the Midwest,” said Mark Hoper, senior vice president of Fabtech’s media and exhibitions. “There are still more machine tools sold in the Midwest than any other region.”

Resort cities such as Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Miami and Tampa, Florida, have done better, with Virginia Beach hotels expected to see revenue from business travel drop by about $280 million, Tampa by about $165 million and Miami by almost $500 million from 2019. Nationally, the lodging association doesn’t expect business travel revenue to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2024.

Hotel occupancy plunges

Hotel occupancy in downtown Chicago was 53.6 percent in the month ending mid-September, a drop from 82 percent from the same period in 2019, according to data tracking firm STR. For comparison, nationwide hotel occupancy came in at 61.4 percent in the month ending mid-September this year, a little less than the 66.8 percent occupancy rate from September 2019.

The average daily rate for Chicago hotels in the central business district dropped to $195 this month from $211 in 2019. Revenue per available room logged $104.47 in September 2021, dropping nearly 40 percent from $173 in 2019.

Those precipitous declines have meant increasing distress for Chicago’s hotels. As of Sept. 21, 62 percent of Chicago hotel loans packaged in commercial mortgage-backed securities had gone into special servicing, with a total unpaid balance of $1.2 billion. That compares with zero loans in special servicing at the end of 2019. Prominent downtown hotels that had CMBS debt include the 1,641-key Palmer House Hilton, the second-largest downtown hotel; Hilton Chicago Magnificent Mile; and JW Marriott Chicago.

The carnage could get much worse. It depends on how long lenders are willing to wait for some kind of recovery, said Jon Peck, president of Peck Hotel Consulting.

“The question will be lender patience, how patient lenders are going to be,” Peck said. Lenders “will have to make a decision on how much they are going to take on their note. What they want to sell that for and when is the right time to do that.”

The drop-off in convention and business travel has made the city’s lodging industry more dependent on tourism.

“Chicago has always been very reliant on convention business, in particular, major citywide conventions,” said Stacey Nadolny, managing director of hospitality consulting at HVS Chicago. Referring to the city’s hospitality industry as a three-legged stool consisting of leisure, commercial and group travel, Nadolny said leisure travel did the heavy lifting for hotel occupancy this year.

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Lollapalooza a rare bright spot.

Among the bright spots was the Lollapalooza music festival July 29 to Aug. 1, when room occupancy soared at 85 percent, according to Choose Chicago, the city’s official tourism organization. That was followed by a surge in the Covid-19 delta variant that slammed the brakes on leisure travel across the country.

Choose Chicago created an online “Seize Your Summer” campaign to lure travelers.

Officials said the campaign generated more than $79 million in hotel revenue between May 1 and Aug. 11 (Choose Chicago gave no explanation for choosing this particular date range) and that summer demand for hotel rooms is expected to exceed 2 million room nights. For comparison, that number represents only 60 percent of the rooms booked in the summer of 2019.

“Leisure travel was good to have, and it really helped us get through the summer and there was good growth in that area,” said Michael Jacobson, president and CEO of the Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association. “But a market like Chicago cannot rely solely on leisure travel.’’

The Fabtech convention shows the challenges faced by the city’s convention industry. Hoper still recalls the endless meetings to decide how to make the convention center safe for visitors — the masking and social distancing and testing. The planning started almost a year earlier, just after the 2020 convention was canceled.

“We definitely felt the effect of Covid for sure,” said Hoper. “We probably lost 15 percent of our audience when people were told they had to wear masks.”

With the pandemic still raging and travel still a fraction of its 2019 level, it’s not clear when or if the return to normal the city’s lodging industry has hoped for will come.

Even before Covid, conventions were on a downsizing trend, with technology enabling them to use less floor space.

Growing convention competition

“Conventions getting smaller and using less floor space means there’s more complications for Chicago,” said Ted Mandigo, a hotel analyst in Chicago. “Conventions that were held in Las Vegas, Chicago or Orlando could be held in Nashville, Tennessee, or Denver, Colorado. Competition has gotten stronger, and uncertainty has impacted the market.” Mandigo expects that even when conventions resume full-scale, they will be down 10 percent because of competitive factors.

No new hotels opened in Chicago between 2008 and 2013, while the city continued to grow, said Nadolny of HVS. From 2015 to 2018, 7,500 rooms were added, a growth rate of about 4 percent a year over the four-year period.

Even if the city sees resurging demand for lodging, it would remain a difficult place to build.

“The market was already showing signs that it was more challenging to develop here based on construction costs, high property tax, labor costs,’’ Nadolny said. “It became more difficult to bring in hotel projects.”

Even so, there are seven hotels under construction that are expected to be completed by 2022, according to Peck. Considering that there are about 50,000 hotel rooms in Chicago’s central business district, analysts say that’s statistically insignificant, but hospitality officials take it as a positive sign for the future.

“We are still seeing hotels break ground now,” said the Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association’s Jacobson. “These are savvy investors who are not taking risky gambles unless they know they are going to eventually succeed. I think there is still confidence in the future of Chicago tourism.”

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The Semi-Elite City

Chicago’s core problem is that it struggles to lure top talent away from coastal superstar cities.

Hell hath no fury like a Chicagoan who thinks his city has been scorned. Blow-ups over insufficiently laudatory media coverage of the Windy City are a semi-regular occurrence. The most recent round occurred late last month, when Matthew Yglesias posted an article expressing his worries for Chicago’s future . Predicting decline for the nation’s third-largest city, he said remote work was “a dire threat to places like Chicago that were affordable but slow-growing before the pandemic.” He continued: “The problem facing Chicago and other midwestern cities is that low demand is not an affordability strategy—it’s a recipe for failure.”

I managed to divert some anti-Yglesias blowback to myself when I noted, in a Twitter thread defending the city’s prospects, that its core problem was that it attracts “B” grade talent in comparison with the “A” talent drawn to the coasts. This resulted in millions of Twitter impressions’ worth of scorn directed my way.

In truth, headlines about murders, carjackings, and businesses leaving town overshadow lots of objective data attesting to Chicago’s strength. A group of local researchers recently detailed some of these stats in Crain’s Chicago Business . Despite losing population, the city actually gained households over the past decade and is close to an all-time record in that regard. The city has seen 68,000 new homes built in the last decade, while downtown jobs grew by 153,000 (pre-pandemic), and the number of college grads in the city grew by 203,000 (third-highest in the nation).

Chicago also has huge assets, including a large corporate HQ base, the world’s most important financial exchange (the CME Group), elite universities (Northwestern and the University of Chicago), a major hub airport (O’Hare), and more. The city has a magnificent lakefront setting and a big expanse of true urbanism in a nation where high-quality urban neighborhoods are in short supply. As someone who lived there for many years, I can attest that it is a fantastic city.

Yet we shouldn’t ignore Yglesias’s critique. Chicago’s real estate prices have lagged for years and barely edge out Detroit and Cleveland in the Case-Shiller Home Price Index. Though prices rebounded in the post-pandemic boom, they grew more slowly than in other cities and trailed the overall inflation rate.

Many have long seen Chicago’s affordability, relative to coastal cities, as an asset. It’s the only genuinely big city where you can enjoy a humane quality of life without being wealthy. An average professional couple can afford a spacious condo there—parking space included.

But recently, Chicago’s housing affordability has become eyebrow-raising in some respects. For example, new construction or fully rehabbed urban real estate in desirable neighborhoods of my current city, Indianapolis, is often not much less expensive than in Chicago—and what you get for that price is markedly inferior in terms of city urbanism. Indianapolis is mostly urbanism-lite, with much less economic opportunity than Chicago. Properties in Nashville, meantime, can even be more expensive than Chicago. One unit I looked at there recently—on a street with no curbs or sidewalks—was worth more than my old Chicago condo, situated in a prime location in the Lakeview neighborhood.

Chicago’s quality-adjusted real-estate prices might possibly be the lowest in the country today. Why is this? Undoubtedly, Chicago benefits from a more permissive building environment than the coasts. But Yglesias is right to suggest that low demand is also a likely culprit. And that’s not a good sign.

Urban planner Pete Saunders has become famous for observing that Chicago is “1/3 San Francisco, 2/3 Detroit.” Chicagoans like to point out that a large sub-city is in fact thriving. The authors of the Crain’s piece note that the “core” of Chicago is prospering and has a population of 1.37 million people, which would make it one of America’s largest cities on its own. But concentrated thriving areas are what one would expect to find in a declining market. As regions or states or nations go into decline, people and businesses pool into islands of success, as with Tokyo in Japan or Columbus in Ohio. Large parts of the city of Chicago, as well as increasing numbers of suburbs, are experiencing moderate to severe decline. Thus, we see concentrated success.

Can a city, metro area, or state be carried by one sub-district? Chicagoans bristle at Detroit comparisons, but remember that, even as the city of Detroit collapsed, Oakland County, at 1.26 million people (about the same size as core Chicago), prospered as one of America’s premier upscale business-oriented suburban counties. The success of Oakland County did not stop value destruction on a large scale in other parts of the region, nor did it mean that the Detroit region was somehow not in major decline. Chicago is by no means Detroit, but the same principle applies: the success of a sub-district can’t be used as evidence for the health of the whole.

Which brings us back to talent. One reason that demand, and thus prices, are lower in Chicago is that the city does not attract the same caliber of talent as the coastal superstar cities and thus generates lower-value economic activity. Peter Thiel caused a stir when he said, in Chicago no less, “If you are a very talented person, you have a choice: You either go to New York or you go to Silicon Valley.” This is hyperbole, to some extent, but it is true that the highest-value industries and highest-talent people have tended to cluster in a few cities. Chicago gets some of this but not nearly enough to compete with the coasts. As Charles Murray wrote in Coming Apart :

It is difficult to hold a nationally influential job in politics, public policy, finance, business, academia, information technology, or the media and not live in the areas surrounding New York, Washington, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. In a few cases, it can be done by living in Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Dallas, or Houston—and Bentonville, Arkansas—but not many other places.

In detailing the geography of talent, Murray also showed where graduates of Harvard, Princeton, and Yale (HPY) reside:

As mature adults, fully a quarter of the HPY graduates were living in New York City or its surrounding suburbs. Another quarter lived in just three additional metropolitan areas: Boston (10 percent), Washington (8 percent), and San Francisco (7 percent). Relative to the size of their populations, the Los Angeles and Chicago areas got few HPY graduates–just 5 percent and 3 percent, respectively. Except for the Philadelphia and Seattle areas, no other metropolitan area got more than 1 percent.

Again, Chicago is on the list, but clearly at a level below the top cities.

Attracting “college graduates” is good, and it’s an easy statistic to track, but not all graduates are created equal. Chicago draws heavily from Big Ten-type schools—good, but not the best. Even there, the cream of those schools is often skimmed off and sent to the coasts, such as the engineering talent from the University of Illinois that built some of Silicon Valley’s most famous companies like Netscape, YouTube, Yelp, Siebel Systems, and AMD.

While there is genuine world-class talent in Chicago, the city overall is semi-elite. It lacks the gravitational draw of the coastal superstars, as well as the high-value sectors that spin off the oceans of cash keeping those cities afloat even in the face of terrible governance. The demand to live in Chicago is qualitatively different. This is not a popular statement in the Windy City, but it’s the truth.

It is possible to be a very successful semi-elite city. There are many reasons to believe Chicago will pull it off, despite the bad headlines. But Yglesias’s decline scenario is one that local leaders and citizens dismiss at their peril.

Aaron M. Renn is a contributing editor of City Journal and an economic-development columnist for Governing magazine.

Photo By Raymond Boyd/Getty Images

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Why Are America’s Three Biggest Metros Shrinking?

After a post-recession boomlet, the New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago areas are all seeing their population decline.

Empty red chairs in the middle of New York's Times Square

Is this the age of the great metropolitan exodus? In 2018, the New York City area lost more than 100,000 people to other cities and suburbs—that’s 277 people leaving every day . The Los Angeles and Chicago areas lost, respectively, 201 and 161 residents each day. It’s quite a change from the post–Great Recession period , when an urban renaissance was supposedly sweeping the country and all three metro areas were experiencing a population boomlet.

To understand any metro’s migration picture, you have to know that the census keeps track of two types of movers. First, there are “domestic migrants,” or people who move from one U.S. address to another. Second, there are “international” movers, which mostly means immigrants. (Populations can also, of course, add new human beings the old-fashioned way: births. U.S. fertility rates are at record lows, and this statistic varies less from city to city.)

Derek Thompson: The future of the city is childless

For many years, the New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago areas have seen more departures than arrivals among nonimmigrants. Domestic migration to these metros has been negative for most of the 21st century.

Also for many years now, America’s biggest metros have attracted high-income firms and young, highly educated workers. On the one hand, this phenomenon had led to the sparkling revitalization of many downtown areas, a golden age of fine dining , and an eerie urban selfsameness with green-plant-and-exposed-brick coffee shops and lunch-in-a-bowl restaurants. But on the other hand, this urban blossoming has also made many desirable downtown areas too expensive for non-rich people to start a family , forcing new parents to move out to the fringes of the metro, or leave entirely.

There’s little mystery about where people are heading, or why: They are mostly moving toward sun and some semblance of affordability. The major Texas metros—Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin—have collectively grown by more than 3 million since 2010. The most popular destinations for movers are now Phoenix, Dallas, and Las Vegas, which welcome more than 100,000 new people each year.

Until recently, domestic out-migration was counteracted by international immigration. From 2010 to 2018, immigration accounted for more than 100 percent of population growth in the New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia metros, and more than 80 percent of population growth in the Los Angeles and Boston areas, according to analysis by the Brookings Institution demographer William Frey.

What was celebrated as an urban renaissance was in large part an urban-immigration renaissance. In New York City’s five boroughs, the foreign-born share of the population increased from 18 percent in the 1970s to nearly 40 percent today, approaching its early 20th century highs. Following the 1965 Immigration Act, Los Angeles County’s immigrant population saw almost the exact same increase. Incidentally, this is a good thing: Families and young people moving to the U.S. from places such as the Dominican Republic, China, Mexico, and Vietnam enrich their new neighborhood’s culture, provide necessary labor—both “high skill,” like engineering, and “low skill,” like home health assistance—and generate a disproportionate share of new businesses.

In the past few years, however, population growth in the New York and Los Angeles areas has stalled. For the first time in decades, the nation’s two biggest metros are getting smaller at the same time. Immigrants aren’t coming in at the same rate they used to, and native-born Americans are leaving even faster. Why?

An easy answer is that America’s smaller metros have cheaper houses. This is especially true recently for Los Angeles, where insufficient housing development has contributed to a 75 percent increase in housing prices since the end of the Great Recession. What’s more, smaller cities and suburbs now offer similar knowledge-work jobs in a familiar residential aesthetic. In the past decade, urban developers, working off the Instagram blueprint, have standardized an MVMP —Minimum Viable Millennial Product—so that the move from Brooklyn to Boise means trading one set of hipster coffee shops, fast-casual joints, and cocktail bars for another set. Even the ground-floor retail differences between various metros becomes less important as more shopping moves online, where residents of every zip code are looking at the same social-media catalog and visiting the same digital mall.

To see what’s more deeply afflicting these metros, it’s useful to understand the plight of Chicago, whose growth after the Great Recession was just a blip in an otherwise long period of decline. Some of Chicago’s problems are unique among large metros. It sits on the far hip of the Rust Belt, hundreds of miles from the coastal economic juggernauts, and it has a homicide rate twice that of New York or L.A.

Read: American cities are booming — for rich young college grads without kids

But in many ways, Chicago’s problems make it a canary in the metropolitan coal mine. Immigration to the area has declined by half since the early 2000s. High earners have swarmed the Chicago River banks, revitalizing the downtown area, but the more diverse middle class, especially the city’s African American population, is evacuating Chicago’s suburbs. During the Great Migration of the 20th century, when millions of black Americans moved to northern cities, the population of Chicago went from 4 percent black in 1920 to nearly 40 percent black by 1990. But this century has seen a “Reverse Great Migration,” as the metro black population is on pace to halve from its peak of 1.2 million by 2030. This could reflect a flight from high-crime neighborhoods and the racist legacy of redlining throughout Chicagoland. Less pessimistically, it might be a sign that a lot of young black families would just rather live where they can afford more house , like in the suburbs of Atlanta and Houston.

Each of these Chicago phenomena—declining immigration, revitalized downtowns coinciding with a middle-class exodus, and the specific decline of the black population—has spread from the heartland to America’s largest coastal metros.

First, immigration to both New York and Los Angeles has declined by 30 percent in the last five years. This could be for a variety of reasons, including the fear, and reality, of more restrictive immigration policies; richer and safer home countries; and a less affordable housing stock in these metros.

Second, higher-income residents bidding up the price of housing in both cities has accelerated the middle-class exodus. Earlier this decade, Los Angeles was the fastest growing county in all of southern California. But in 2018, it was the only major county in the region to shrink , even as its median home price set a new record —which strongly suggests the county could use more housing. As more middle-class families leave the Los Angeles area for cheaper markets in the West and Southwest— their preferred destinations : Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Dallas—California’s population growth has slowed to its lowest rate in state history . This might have something to do with the recent tax law, which, in capping the state and local deductions, effectively raised the cost of living in these places for the upper-middle class. (The next few years will tell us more about whether high earners are fleeing high-tax metros for the South, as well.)

Third, the black population of both New York and Los Angeles peaked in the early 2000s and has since been in steady, and perhaps accelerating , decline. The political implications of the first Great Migration were immense, as blacks moving into northern cities forged an alliance with urban liberals and pushed the Democratic Party to prioritize civil rights in the middle of the 20th century. The political implications of the Reverse Great Migration could be equally ground-shaking, if blacks moving south redraw the political map for the second time in 100 years. The slow decline of America’s largest metros may also mark the beginning of a new political movement in the suburbs of the South and Southwest.

In the 2020s, as in the 1960s, it may be said that movements begin with movers.

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Climate Fwd:

Chicago’s Big Climate Problem

It’s not heat or drought. It’s the level of Lake Michigan.

We’re also covering a mass die-off of marine animals and the dangers of nighttime heat .

By Dan Egan

Chicago has picked up a lot of nicknames over the past two centuries that have stuck with varying degrees of success. The Windy City. The Second City. The City of Big Shoulders.

But a lesser-known sobriquet that might have the most staying power as we head deeper into a century of climate chaos is Chicago’s first: Mud City.

It comes from the fact that the city grew up on a swamp sandwiched between Lake Michigan on the east and the Mississippi-bound Des Plaines River on the west. Native Americans and European traders found the place better than any to lug and tug their canoes between the Mississippi and Great Lakes. It was a natural crossroads.

Chicagoans eventually blasted a rail-straight canal between the two watersheds, allowing commercial vessels to float all the way from New York City Harbor to the Gulf of Mexico.

The swamp was drained and paved along the way, but Chicagoans have been hustling ever since to keep dry. First, they raised the downtown area by as much as eight feet. Later, they reversed the flow of the river so all the human and industrial waste it carried flowed out of Lake Michigan (the city’s source of drinking water) instead of into it.

This did wonders for Lake Michigan water quality, but it didn’t stop the chronic flooding that has plagued the city from the start. Still, Chicagoland has managed well enough over the past century that today more than nine million people call the place home, and their feet are usually dry.

But what about the next 100 years? The city’s drainage system depends on the relatively steady level of Lake Michigan, and there are signs that climate change is leading to unprecedented swings.

The lake hit a record low in 2013, so low it was in danger of not being able to feed the river that carries the wastewater out of town. But by 2020 the lake level was more than six feet higher. Two or three feet more could have unleashed havoc downtown, and beyond.

What’s driving the lake level swings? More evaporation, because of warming temperatures. And more rain, because of warming temperatures.

The question now: will these opposing forces balance each other out?

Or will Mud City make a comeback ?

Europe’s new blueprint for a carbonless future

By Somini Sengupta

European officials on Wednesday introduced a package of ambitious legislation designed to wean one of the world’s biggest and most polluting economies off fossil fuels far more quickly than other nations have pledged to do. The proposals include:

Eliminating the sales of new gas-powered cars by 2035

Raising the price of using fossil fuels

Imposing tariffs on polluting imports — an idea with the potential to set off global trade disputes

“Our current fossil fuel economy has reached its limit,” the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said at a news conference in Brussels.

Unlike pledges by many other countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to net zero, or not adding more carbon pollution to the atmosphere than can be removed, by midcentury, these proposed laws create a concrete blueprint on how to get there. There’s sure to be many months of political wrangling among the 27 nations in the bloc and in the European Parliament. One key obstacle is to address inequity, and European officials repeatedly said they would create a “social fund” to help struggling households and small businesses.

The heat is devastating marine wildlife

By Catrin Einhorn

Seashores and rivers are often favorite places for humans to keep cool in the summer heat. But for a staggering number of animals this summer, they’ve been the opposite.

A mass die-off along the Pacific Coast — more than a billion shellfish and other animals killed, by an early estimate — underscores the effects of human-caused climate change on other species . And scientists say warm rivers farther inland could be deadly to some kinds of salmon.

Quotable: “I want to find the positives and there are some, but it’s pretty overwhelming right now. Because if we become too depressed or too overwhelmed, we won’t keep trying. And we need to keep trying.” — Christopher Harley, a marine biologist at the University of British Columbia.

Hundreds of people have died from extreme heat out West.

A rapid analysis of the Pacific Northwest heat wave found that it would have been virtually impossible without the influence of human-caused climate change .

E.P.A. quietly approved toxic chemicals for fracking

By Hiroko Tabuchi

Scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency raised grave concerns in 2011 over three new chemicals proposed for use in oil and gas fracking: They could break down into toxic substances known as PFAS, they said, and pose a threat to people and wildlife.

But the agency approved those chemicals anyway, according to documents we reviewed, among the first public indications that PFAS — long-lasting, toxic compounds known as “forever chemicals” — can end up in the ground as a result of drilling and fracking.

For more, r ead our investigation .

Why it matters: PFAS have been linked to cancer, birth defects, and other serious health problems.

Also important this week:

You can track wildfires and air quality on this interactive map .

New types of energy storage could help the Biden administration’s push for more wind and solar power , but only if they get much cheaper.

Scientists have found that parts of the Amazon have switched from absorbing carbon dioxide to emitting it , marking a troubling sign for the fight against climate change.

Irrigation canals are running dry in New Mexico, a sign of how climate change is upending farming traditions across the Southwest.

Big long-distance power lines, or local energy solutions? The nation is facing once-in-a-generation choices about energy .

Here’s why the New York City subway has a water problem .

And finally:

The danger of nighttime heat.

By Aatish Bhatia and Winston Choi-Schagrin

Days have been hot in much of the United States recently, but nights have been setting even more records. It’s part of a dangerous global trend that’s being fueled by climate change.

Unusually hot summer nights can lead to a significant number of deaths, according to climate scientists and environmental epidemiologists, because they take away people’s ability to cool down from the day’s heat.

Typically, that cooling would happen while sleeping, when body temperature naturally dips. After a hot day, “it’s really important that people have an opportunity to bring their core body temperature down,” said Kristie Ebi, an environmental health scientist at the University of Washington. “When it’s really hot at night, you don’t have that relief and it puts more physiological strain on your body.”

Heat waves are particularly deadly when the temperature rises suddenly. To find out why, you can read more here .

If you’re not getting Climate Fwd: in your inbox, you can sign up here

We’d love your feedback on the newsletter. We read every message, and reply to many! Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected] .

Learn More About Climate Change

Have questions about climate change? Our F.A.Q. will tackle your climate questions, big and small .

Cattle ranches have ruled the Amazon for decades. Now, new companies are selling something else: the ability of trees to lock away planet-warming carbon.

Paris is becoming a city of bikes. Across China, people are snapping up $5,000 electric cars. Here’s a look at a few bright spots for emission reductions.

In theory, online shopping can be more efficient than driving to the store. But you may still want to think before you add to cart.

“Buying Time,” a new series from The New York Times, looks at the risky ways humans are starting to manipulate nature to fight climate change.

Did you know the ♻ symbol doesn’t mean something is actually recyclable ? Read on about how we got here, and what can be done.

Watch CBS News

Illinois tourism brings in more than $44 billion in 2022

By Shardaa Gray

July 10, 2023 / 5:32 PM CDT / CBS Chicago

CHICAGO (CBS) -- When you think of Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and NASCAR, economic growth doesn't necessarily come to mind.

But these past and future events bring lots of people into the city.

CBS 2's Shardaa Gray reports the state has seen record-breaking growth in Illinois tourism.

My Chicago has been on Michigan and Monroe for several decades. Manager Jose Bahena said he's seen more out-of-town people visiting the city.

"Especially May, June July has been really busy. A lot more tourists, a lot more people. NASCAR brought in some people. So that helped a little bit," Bahena said.

He sees visitors like Heather Moore and Zack Shannon who are from Kentucky.

"Oh, we're going to ride the Ferris wheel tomorrow," said Shannon.

"This is probably my third time being here and it's one of my favorite cities and you all have a lot to offer," added Moore.

Governor JB Pritzker announced record-breaking hotel revenues for the fiscal year of 2023 and extraordinary growth in Illinois tourism.

"The 111 million visitors who filled our hotel rooms in 2022 spent over $44 billion. That's great for business," Pritzker said.

The overall economic impact amounted to a staggering $78 billion, a 30% increase from 2021.

Chicago Loop Alliance President and CEO Michael Edwards said downtown is led back by a couple of sectors: students, residents, and visitors.

"A lot of them are local. They come down for the shows and 800,000 people came down to see the shows for the first quarter of the year," Edwards said.

The Chicago Loop Alliance does pedestrian count through street levels. They said State Street is 80% of what it was pre-pandemic."

"When things like NASCAR is here or Lollapalooza coming up, we've been at 100% of 2019 levels, which means people are downtown," said

Shannon said he plans to enjoy Chicago's unique views.

"The arts are alive and thriving here. That's really what brings us here," Shannon said.

According to the tourism economics report, state and local tax revenue from visitor spending generated $4.2 billion. This has helped directly support 270,600 jobs in the state's tourism and hospitality industry.

We are thrilled to have @Macys at #SundaysOnState this year as Supporting Sponsors. Our Sundays on State events are made possible with Macy's continuous support. We can't wait to check out their vendor booths this year on July 16 & August 13. See you on State Street! pic.twitter.com/XmGre595Xz — The Chicago Loop (@ChiLoopAlliance) July 10, 2023

JB Pritzker

Shardaa Gray is a Multimedia Reporter for CBS 2 Chicago. She joined the team in December 2021. She was born and raised in the south suburbs. She's happy to return home to report on her community.

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THE CITY – NYC News

Reporting to New Yorkers

Tourists Are Flocking Back to NYC, But Fear of Crime May Be Keeping Day-Trippers Away

Who’s Afraid of Crime?

In something of a surprise, a sizable chunk of missing visitors are those from the New York metro area, a deficit tourism officials attribute to new fears of crime sparked by a constant drumbeat in the media. Crime has risen in the city’s pandemic era, but remains historically low compared to previous decades; fear of crime , however, has risen steadily.

“We need the suburbanites to be comfortable coming into the city to support Broadway, to eat in our restaurants, to go to Little Italy in the Bronx,” Dixon said. Historically, such day trippers account for half of all visitors, he added.

Dixon took a media tour of Europe in the spring, a week after the subway shooting in Brooklyn , sure that the journalists he talked to, especially those in France and the United Kingdom, would be preoccupied with the incident. He prepared himself for a barrage of questions on crime and gun violence.

“Over five days it didn’t come up one time,” he said.

But in the New York metro area, residents are carefully following media coverage of crime, he added, and the agency’s sentiment tracking surveys show they are concerned about their safety.

Mark Fox, who runs the Fox Lifestyle Hospitality Group, which owns restaurants like Manhattan’s White Oak Tavern, agrees. He lives in Nassau County and his friends there question the choices made by the professional office workers who are Fox’s core customers.

“Those that have not or are rarely in the office have a very dim view of public safety,” he said. Not only don’t they venture into Manhattan, “they do not allow their 18- to 22-year-olds to come to the city,” he said.

Survival of the Fittest

Further complicating this summer’s tourism boomlet is the fact that fewer businesses — and fewer workers — are benefitting from it. Jobs in the leisure and hospitality sector remain far below pre-pandemic levels .

The survivors of the pandemic are better off because of the hollowing out of the tourism industry. The sharp uptick on hotel rates, for example, is partly a result of the hotel rooms that closed during the pandemic and which have not reopened, estimated at about 10,000.

It is the same story for restaurants.

Fox notes that his eateries are seeing business travelers, weekend visitors from elsewhere in the country and now international travelers, who have come in increasing numbers since the U.S. government dropped its requirement for negative Covid tests before boarding inbound flights.

Fox’s six-unit group was down 60% from 2019 revenues last year. Now it is 20% ahead of that year.

“A lot of places closed and the places that were able to reopen and maintain strong Covid policies have enhanced consumer confidence,” he said. “As the economy recovered, they benefited from that confidence and fewer competitors in the market. That’s the main driver of our success.”

In part because of all those closed hotels and restaurants, employment in the sector remains depressed.

An analysis prepared by the Center for an Urban Future shows the city remains 66,000 leisure and hospitality jobs below the 2019 record, and that doesn’t include positions at airports and retail stores that haven’t been restored. The sector accounts for about a third of the city’s gap with the 2019 peak.

The loss of those jobs is in large part the cause of the city’s inequitable recovery. Two-thirds of all leisure and hospital jobs are held by people of color; half are immigrants. Nine of out 10 jobs in the industry are open to people without a bachelor’s degree, the Center notes.

And while soaring and persistent inflation has yet to cut into travel demand, Dixon thinks that 2023 will see only modest growth. Pent up demand will be met, and higher prices will deter some people from expensive trips, he predicts.

But many businesses that cater to tourists remain confident about the future.

The lack of office workers in Times Square remains a problem for Virgil’s Real Barbeque and Carmine’s Italian Restaurant, the famed family style eatery. But Virgil’s is back to 2019 revenue and Carmine’s has slightly exceeded its 2019 volume, said owner Jeff Bank.

Later this year, Bank plans to open a 13,000-square-foot fish restaurant on West 43rd Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues.

“Absolutely I’m optimistic about Times Square. Otherwise we would not be doubling down on this location,” he said.

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Chicago’s response to migrant influx stirs longstanding frustrations among Black residents

Chicago has spent more than $300 million to provide aid to thousands of new migrants. The speed with which these funds were marshaled has prompted Black Chicagoans to ask the city to do more for their communities that have faced decades of neglect.

The Rev. Dr. Chauncey Brown poses for a portrait at Second Baptist Church, Sunday, April 14, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

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Richard Wallace, founder and director of Equity and Transformation, poses for a portrait at the Westside Justice Center, Friday, March 29, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

The Rev. Dr. Chauncey Brown speaks during an interview at Second Baptist Church, Sunday, April 14, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

CHICAGO (AP) — The closure of Wadsworth Elementary School in 2013 was a blow to residents of the majority-Black neighborhood it served, symbolizing a city indifferent to their interests.

So when the city reopened Wadsworth last year to shelter hundreds of migrants without seeking community input, it added insult to injury. Across Chicago , Black residents are frustrated that long-standing needs are not being met while the city’s newly arrived are cared for with a sense of urgency, and with their tax dollars.

“Our voices are not valued nor heard,” says Genesis Young, a lifelong Chicagoan who lives near Wadsworth.

Chicago is one of several big American cities grappling with a surge of migrants . The Republican governor of Texas has been sending them by the busload to highlight his grievances with the Biden administration’s immigration policy.

AP AUDIO: Chicago’s response to migrant influx stirs longstanding frustrations among Black residents.

AP correspondent Donna Warder reports on the Black community in Chicago, and how some say the needs of recently-arrived migrants are being put ahead of their needs.

To manage the influx , Chicago has already spent more than $300 million of city, state and federal funds to provide housing, health care, education and more to over 38,000 mostly South American migrants who have arrived in the city since 2022, desperate for help. The speed with which these funds were marshaled has stirred widespread resentment among Black Chicagoans. But community leaders are trying to ease racial tensions and channel the public’s frustrations into agitating for the greater good.

Pallbearers bring in the casket of Chicago police officer Luis M. Huesca for his funeral at St. Rita of Cascia Shrine Chapel in Chicago, Monday, April 29, 2024. Huesca was shot to death while off-duty and heading home from work. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune via AP, Pool)

The outcry over migrants in Chicago and other large Democrat-led cities is having wider implications in an election year: The Biden administration is now advocating a more restrictive approach to immigration in its negotiations with Republicans in Congress.

Since the Wadsworth building reopened as a shelter, Young has felt “extreme anxiety” because of the noise, loitering and around-the-clock police presence that came with it. More than anything, she and other neighbors say it is a reminder of problems that have been left unsolved for years, including high rates of crime, unemployment and homelessness.

“I definitely don’t want to seem insensitive to them and them wanting a better life. However, if you can all of a sudden come up with all these millions of dollars to address their housing, why didn’t you address the homeless issue here,” said Charlotte Jackson, the owner of a bakery and restaurant in the South Loop neighborhood.

“For so long we accepted that this is how things had to be in our communities,” said Chris Jackson, who co-founded the bakery with his wife. “This migrant crisis has made many people go: ‘Wait a minute, no it doesn’t.’”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson declined to comment for this story.

The city received more than $200 million from the state and federal government to help care for migrants after Johnson appealed to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and President Joe Biden. The president will be in Chicago in August to make his reelection pitch at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

Some Black Chicagoans are protesting the placement of shelters in their neighborhoods, but others aim to turn the adversity into an opportunity.

“Chicago is a microcosm to the rest of the nation,” said the Rev. Janette C. Wilson, national executive director of the civil rights group PUSH for Excellence. Black communities have faced discrimination and underinvestment for decades and are justifiably frustrated, Wilson said. The attention the migrants are receiving is deserved, she added, but it’s also a chance for cities to reflect on their responsibility to all underserved communities.

“There is a moral imperative to take care of everybody,” Wilson said.

After nearly two years of acrimony, the city has begun to curb some accommodations for migrants – which has caused its own backlash. The city last month started evicting migrants who overstayed a 60-day limit at shelters, prompting condemnation from immigrant rights groups and from residents worried about public safety.

Marlita Ingram, a school guidance counselor who lives in the South Shore neighborhood, said she is concerned about the resources being shared “equitably” between migrants and longtime residents. But she also believes “it doesn’t have to be a competition” and sympathizes with the nearly 6,000 migrant children now enrolled in Chicago’s public schools.

As the potential for racial strife rises, some activists are pointing to history as a cautionary tale.

Hundreds of thousands of Black southerners moved to Chicago in the early 20th century in search of greater freedoms and economic opportunities. White Chicagoans at the time accused them of receiving disproportionate resources from the city, and in 1919 tensions boiled over.

In a surge of racist attacks in cities across the U.S. that came to be known as “Red Summer,” white residents burned large swaths of Chicago’s Black neighborhoods and killed 38 Black people, including by lynching.

“Those white folks were, like, ‘Hell no, they’re coming here, they’re taking our jobs,’'' said Richard Wallace, founder of Equity and Transformation, a majority-Black community group that co-hosted in a forum in March to improve dialogue between Black and Latino residents.

He hears echoes of that past bigotry — intentional or not — when Black Chicagoans complain about the help being given to migrants. “How did we become like the white folks who were resisting our people coming to the city of the Chicago?” he said.

Labor and immigrant rights organizers have worked for years to tamp down divisions between working class communities. But the migrant crisis has created tensions between the city’s large Mexican American community and recently arrived migrants, many of whom hail from Venezuela.

“If left unchecked, we all panic, we’re all scared, we’re going to retreat to our corners,” said Leone Jose Bicchieri, executive director of Working Family Solidarity, a majority-Hispanic labor rights group. “The truth is that this city wouldn’t work without Black and Latino people.”

Black Americans’ views on immigration and diversity are expansive. The Civil Rights Movement was instrumental in pushing the U.S. to adopt a more inclusive immigration policy .

About half of Black Americans say the United States’ diverse population makes the country strong, including 30% who say it makes the U.S. “much stronger,” according to a March poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Many leaders in Black neighborhoods in and around Chicago are trying to strike a balance between acknowledging the tensions without exacerbating them.

“Our church is divided on the migrant crisis,” said the Rev. Chauncey Brown, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Maywood, Illinois, a majority-Black suburb of Chicago where some migrants are living in shelters.

There has been a noticeable uptick of non-English speakers in the pews, many of whom have said they are migrants in need of food and other services, Brown said. Some church members cautioned him against speaking out in support of migrants or allotting more church resources to them. But he said the Bible’s teachings are clear on this issue.

“When a stranger enters your land, you are to care for them as if they are one of your own,” he said.

Matt Brown is a member of the AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Follow him on social media .

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here . The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Hottest New Restaurants In Chicago, May 2024

W ant to discover the latest must-try spots in Chicago's world-class dining scene? From see-and-be-seen spots to buzzing neighborhood boîtes, these are the hottest new restaurants in Chicago right now.

Fulton Market continues to heat up with the debut of French-Mediterranean spot La Serre. Set in a bohemian-inspired space, the DineAmic Hospitality eatery has already made a splash with plates like crab croquette topped with jumbo lump crab salad and espelette pepper aioli, charcoal-roasted escargot with lemon herb butter and duck chinoise served table side with fresh crepes-all crafted by chef Nikitas Pyrgis from Cannes and chef/partner Athinagoras Kostakos from Monaco. 307 N. Green St.

The second restaurant/bar to debut inside the new St. Regis Chicago is opulent Italian eatery Tre Dita. Helmed by James Beard-nominated chef Evan Funke (who has catered Vanity Fair 's Oscar party for three years), the restaurant serves Tuscan-inspired plates like handmade pastas, wood-fired specialties, a selection of steaks and more. Early menu highlights include the Schiacciata Bianca (a housemade rosemary and sea salt focaccia toscana) and Fiori di Zucca (squash blossoms with ricotta fresca and Parmigiano Reggiano). 401 E. Wacker Drive, Second Floor

Sunda New Asian

Emmy award-winning restaurateur Billy Dec (The Underground Cocktail Club, The Underground Nightclub) opened the doors to Chicago's second Sunda New Asian location in Fulton Market. The debut coincides with the 15th anniversary of Sunda's debut in River North. Stop by the new Fulton Market eatery to dine over popular bites like spicy tuna crispy rice, truffled chicken siu mai and roasted duck hash. 333 N. Green St.

La Grande Boucherie

River North's dining scene heats up with the opening of French eatery La Grande Boucherie. Spanning 10,000 square feet across two floors, the spot, helmed by chef de cuisine Michael Woodhal, serves classic and modern French dishes like large-format meats and raw bar offerings-all designed by corporate executive chef Maxime Kien. 431 N. Dearborn St.

El Che chef John Manion recently debuted his South American spot Brasero. Flavorful Latin-inspired shareables like black-eyed pea fritters and scallop ceviche are served alongside mains including lobster and Wagyu, plus handmuddled cocktails. The real star? Brasero's impressive wine list of more than 100 South American bottles. 1709 W. Chicago Ave.

Akahoshi Ramen

From Ramen_Lord (AKA Mike Satinover), who has nearly 50k Instagram followers, this Logan Square eatery calls itself a "humble ramen spot." But the buzz its made since opening in late 2023 has made it one of Chicago's hottest new spots. All ingredients are made in-house, and the fare is influenced by both Japanese and American ideals in cooking. Simply put: You'll get a great bowl of ramen here. 2340 N. California Ave., Ste. B

Lamb al pastor tostada from the taco omakase menu

From chef Norman Fenton (Brass Heart, WILD Tulum and Michelin-starred Schwa) and co-owner Karen Young (owner of WILD Tulum) comes their debut fine-dining destination, Cariño. The new 20-seat Latin America eatery in Uptown is named after the Spanish term for "beloved," a fitting designation for a restaurant that showcases his appreciation for the vibrant region. Diners can indulge in a 12- to-16-course, Latin-focused tasting menu or the late-night taco omakase experience served at the 7-seat chef's counter. And with a selection of agave-based spirits, craft beer and Latin American wines curated by Jean Banchet Award-nominated sommelier Richie Ribando-all served in an intimate space accented by vibrant artwork and the sound of reggaeton, Latin hip-hop and contemporary flamenco on deck-Cariño is a hit. 4662 N. Broadway St.

Costera Cocina Tulum

In the heart of Fulton Market District, Parker Hospitality recently unveiled its 12th restaurant, offering a melting pot of Tulum's flavorful coastal cuisine with a bohemian atmosphere that transports diners to the lush jungle and serene beach while simultaneously incorporating Tulum's nightlife. Renowned chef Rick Tramonto and executive chef Aldo Ayala curate the Mayan and coastal-inspired menu, which is packed with dishes like the flavorful pork shank pibil, cooked in ‘Yucatan style' and served with tortillas, black beans, salsa verde, and xnipec. 850 W. Fulton Market

Inspired by Italian-American red sauce joints, this eatery was introduced to the Lincoln Park neighborhood by Ballyhoo Hospitality. Across the street from its iconic flagship concept, Gemini, DeNuccis extends Ballyhoo's widespread footprint. With an old-school charm, the menu features classic dishes like mozzarella al forno, veal marsala and chicken scarpariello. Complemented by an all-Italian wine list, you're guaranteed to find the perfect pairing. 503 W. Dickens Ave.

Located on Chicago's iconic Magnificent Mile, The Evie is an upscale gem with playful twists on American classics complemented by a dynamic bar scene. The restaurant is spearheaded by George Archos of Wildberry Café and Verano Holdings, chef Nick Nitti and executive chef Phil Rubino. Diners can select from a wide array of dishes from slow-roasted signature prime rib dip and American Wagyu Chicago-style hot dogs to the signature Mag Mile roll. 537 N. Michigan Ave.

Marina's Bistro and Rum Bar

Marina's Bistro and Rum bar offers a vibrant taste of Puerto Rican dishes in the Uptown District. Chef and owner Eric Roldan prides his establishment on sustainability and local sourcing. Iconic Puerto Rican dishes are showcased on the menu-think mofongos, chuletas fritas and lechon asado. Says Roldan, "Marina's Bistro and Rum Bar is a celebration of my family's traditions and recipes, and I am excited to welcome diners to our restaurant." 4554 N. Magnolia Ave.

Nisos Prime

A modern Mediterranean steakhouse presented by Parker Hospitality offers three distinctive dining and lounge experiences: Prime Bar, The Lounge and Nisos Prime, all located in West Loop. On the main floor is Prime Bar, perfect for a casual comfort meal like the popular wood-grilled steak frites. Celebrate the menu's intersection of land and sea at Nisos Prime with quality cuts and whole roasted fish. End the night at the hidden cocktail lounge reminiscent of Mediterranean nightlife with a unique craft cocktail program and DJs on Fridays and Saturdays. 802 W. Randolph St.

Photography by: La Serre photo courtesy of dineamic; tre Dita photo by Eric Wolfinger; Sunda photo by John Stoffer; Boucherie photo by Sandy Noto; Carino photo courtesy of KELLY SANDOS; DeNucci's photo by Nathan Michael; Evie photo courtesy of Nick Holmes; Marina's photo by Matthew Reeves; Ummo photo by Neil Burger Photography; all photos courtesy of brands

The Hottest New Restaurants In Chicago, May 2024

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Glendale Heights man charged with harboring suspect in Chicago police officer’s murder

A Glendale Heights man has been charged with a felony, accused of harboring a man suspected of murdering a Chicago police officer.

Malik M. Murphy, 23, of the 500 block of Gregory Avenue, was charged Thursday with concealing or aiding a fugitive, according to DuPage County court records.

He is free on pretrial release. The charge is not a detainable offense. His next court date is May 28. He is to have no contact with Xavier Tate Jr., who is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Officer Luis Huesca.

Suspect in slaying of Officer Luis Huesca arrested in Glendale Heights — with Huesca’s own handcuffs

The charge alleges that Murphy allowed Tate to stay in his apartment Monday through Wednesday, knowing that Tate was wanted as a suspect in the murder of Officer Luis Huesca. Tate was arrested at the apartment Wednesday.

At a news conference on Friday, Chicago police declined to say if Murphy was related to Tate or exactly what led them to believe Tate was in Glendale Heights.

Tate, 22, of Aurora, has been accused of shooting Huesca as he returned home after work on April 21. Tate also is charged with aggravated vehicular hijacking and possession of a stolen weapon.

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A pedestrian walks past a display showing the foreign exchange rate between Japanese yen and US dollar.

Why has the yen fallen to a decade’s low and what does it mean for Japan’s economy?

The accelerating slide in the value of Japan’s currency could ultimately be bad news for people in Japan who are heavily reliant on imports

The value of Japan’s currency has tumbled so much, that its value is back to where it was in 1990, shortly after Japan’s famous “bubble economy” burst. For a moment on Monday it was trading at 160 yen to US$1. A few years ago, it was closer to 100 yen to US$1.

The yen’s accelerating slide could ultimately be bad news for people in Japan. A weaker yen squeezes households by increasing import costs. Japan is heavily reliant on imports for both energy supplies and food, meaning inflation could rise.

A weaker yen is however a boon for Japanese exporters’ profits – and for tourists visiting Japan who find their currencies going further.

Why has the yen fallen so far?

The yen has been steadily sliding for more than three years, losing more than a third of its value since the start of 2021.

One factor behind its fall is momentum: the yen falls because investors are selling it – and investors continue to sell it because it is falling. In such instances, the market enters a self-fulfilling loop.

As a result of the falling currency, exporters are discouraged from converting foreign proceeds into yen, further decreasing demand.

However there are also major policy reasons for the currency’s sharp decline.

For years, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) has kept interest rates extraordinarily low to encourage more inflation in its economy, as well as to boost bank lending and spur demand.

In February, in the face of widespread labour shortages and a weakening yen, Japan was overtaken by Germany as the world’s third-biggest economy and slipped into recession .

With low interest rates seen as a key factor in the rapid decline of the yen, last month the BOJ ended its policy of keeping its benchmark interest rate below zero, lifting its short-term policy rate from -0.1% to between zero and 0.1%.

After that decision, markets were then focused on the pace of further rate rises. On Friday, the BOJ announced it would hold interest rates steady, signalling that further increases weren’t imminent. This precipitated another round of selloffs in the yen, putting more pressure on the currency.

It was this wave of selloffs that drove the currency down to 160 yen to the dollar for the first time since 1990.

What effect is it having?

The decades-low value of the yen means tourist dollars are going further than they have for generations, leading to a boom in the industry. As well as the US dollar, the yen has also hit multi-year lows against the euro, the Australian dollar and the Chinese yuan – all strong tourism markets for Japan.

In February, Japan recorded 2.79 million visitors – a record for the month.

Domestic consumption, however, remains a major weak spot. Households tend to be net importers and are facing higher prices due to the weak yen.

The weakening yen is also a factor in the decision by big Japanese investors’ to keep their cash abroad, where it can earn better returns. This trend is exacerbated by an unusually strong US dollar which has meant that American investments and assets offer far better returns for major financial institutions.

What are Japanese authorities doing?

In recent years, Japanese authorities have intervened to prop up the value of the currency , because a weak yen complicates its objective of achieving sustainable inflation, and strengthening it could help increase domestic consumption and local investment.

Japan intervened in the currency market three times in 2022, selling US dollars it holds in reserve in order to buy yen. Tokyo is estimated to have spent around $60bn defending the currency at that time.

On Monday, after briefly hitting its multi-decade low, the yen rose sharply, leading traders to suspect that after weeks of threatening to intervene, Japan had stepped in to support its currency.

Japan’s top currency diplomat, Masato Kanda, declined to comment when asked if authorities in Tokyo had intervened.

“Today’s move, if it represents intervention by the authorities, is unlikely to be a one-and-done move,” said Nicholas Chia, Asia macro strategist at Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore.

“We can likely expect more follow through from [Japan’s Ministry of Finance] if the dollar/yen pair travels to 160 again. In a sense, the 160-level represents the pain threshold, or new line in the sand for the authorities.”

Reuters contributed to this report

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