CHICAGO BRIEFING January 2005

News this month

Alive and well

As the year came to a close, fewer than 500 people were murdered in Chicago for the first time in almost 40 years. The city's 447 murder victims marked a 25% drop from the previous year's 598 (a number that made the city America's “murder capital”). Police attribute the fall to new tactics, including putting more officers in troubled neighbourhoods and installing surveillance cameras in public places to deter drug-dealing. Still, a poll found that 19% of residents in Chicago's troubled south and west sides say they felt less safe in 2004 than in 2003.

Other cities that recorded a drop in their murder rate in 2004 were Phoenix, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Las Vegas and Washington, DC. Meanwhile, Baltimore, Detroit, Boston and St Louis all saw a rise. Now Chicago's police are worried about plans to parole 25,000 inmates from Illinois jails—over 70% of murders are committed by ex-prisoners.

Money in, money out

The minimum wage in Illinois jumped from $5.50 to $6.50 per hour on January 1st 2005. The rise means that the state's 450,000 minimum-wage workers can expect to earn $13,520 per year, assuming they work a 40-hour week. Those in other states earning the federally mandated minimum wage of $5.15 per hour will make just $10,712: well below the poverty line of $12,500 for a two-person household. Illinois is one of only 14 states—and the only one in the midwest—with a minimum wage above the federal mandate. A study by the University of Illinois at Chicago found that the increase won't damage the state’s competitiveness—minimum-wage jobs are concentrated in local services that do not compete across state lines. Restaurants, day-care centres and hotels will feel the pinch of the wage-hike most.

New Year's Day also brought a host of new taxes. Tolls on local highways will double for drivers without an I-PASS toll account; state identification cards now cost $20 instead of $4; and drivers who fail to register their vehicles on time face a new $20 fine. Cigarette taxes will rise from 16 cents to 48 cents per pack, while liquor taxes will rise from 30 to 37 cents on a bottle of spirits.

Unconventional

America's competitive convention-industry passed Chicago by in 2004. The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, known as McPier, operates McCormick Place, the city's convention centre, and Navy Pier, a complex of shops and restaurants that tends to attract tourists. But for the year ending on June 30th it reported a $123.7m loss—quadruple the previous year's losses. More tough times are predicted for 2005: early convention bookings still look anaemic.

McPier's woes stem not merely from conventions fleeing to other cities, but also from payments it began on bonds sold to finance an $800m expansion of McCormick Place. Without debt refinancing, the authority will turn to state sales-taxes to cover payments. But there may be light ahead: McCormick Place's convention bookings for 2006 are the highest since 2000.

Don't shoot

In America's gun culture, celebrations often demand bullets. Chicago's police enforced a “zero-tolerance policy” on celebratory gunfire on New Year's Eve, noting that a bullet fired into the air can travel up to two miles high and fall with enough speed to kill. In years past, some victims of celebratory gunfire had been shot while walking home from church. David Palmer, a police chief in the suburb of Lynwood, said such gunfire had grown more frequent in the city's southern suburbs, although few damages and injuries have been reported. Cook County police arrested 15 trigger-happy revellers on New Year's Eve, charging them with reckless discharge of a gun (a felony). Weapons seized in the clampdown included rifles, revolvers and a 12-gauge shotgun.

A saviour...

Southwest Airlines, America's most successful budget-carrier, has bailed out ATA Airlines, a troubled rival. On December 16th, ATA agreed to a $117m offer from Southwest for 27% of its stock. In exchange, Southwest will get six of ATA's 14 gates at Midway, Chicago's second-busiest airport and ATA's onetime hub. ATA tickets will also allow travel on Southwest. ATA, which filed for bankruptcy protection in the autumn, will reduce its service and eliminate some routes. Some suspect that Southwest bought the troubled airline to prevent AirTran, its strongest competitor, from gaining a foothold in Chicago. ATA's fall may allow Southwest to raise the cost of its flights to and from the city.

Bank fire

Investigators blamed faulty wiring for a fire at the LaSalle Bank building that raged for more than five hours on December 6th. The historic structure, which houses an important bank in the city's financial district (and has also featured in numerous films, including Brian DePalma's “The Untouchables”), was badly damaged. Hundreds of people were forced to evacuate; 39 of them were injured. Firefighters battled the blaze using new procedures, developed after a fire in downtown in October 2003 fatally trapped workers in a stairwell. Nonetheless, they announced yet more innovations in fighting high-rise fires, including the use of helicopters with infra-red beams to help pinpoint crucial hotspots.

Catch if you can

January 2005

Daniel Barenboim and Yo-Yo Ma in recital

January 16th 2005

Daniel Barenboim (pictured) may be stepping down as the music director of the Chicago Symphony, but that hardly means he's retiring: he will remain music director of the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, and continue to oversee the East-West Divan Orchestra, a joint Israeli-Palestinian youth ensemble he co-founded with the late Edward Said. His skills as a musician sometime get overlooked amid all this activity, but he still is one of the finest classical pianists alive. Yo-Yo Ma, too, has devoted himself to grand projects recently—notably the Silk Road Project, a series of concerts and recordings of Central Asian music, as well as a number of films based on Bach's solo cello suits. Together these two classical music titans return to their roots, with a chamber programme centring on Debussy, Franck and Chopin.

Symphony Centre, 220 South Michigan Ave. Tel: +1 (312) 294-3000. Performance begins at 3pm. Tickets: $58-170. For more information visit the CSO's website.