How Chicago stacks up in terms of global talent/innovation/tech (Columbia: violent crime, neighborhoods)

[mwj119]

Originally Posted by bearsmiths

This. And you misinterpreted me, I have nothing against tech. I welcome tech growth, and you're 100% right when you say this is becoming a super digital world. Lots of biotech and other companies like that moving to the West Loop which is great, just diversifies our economy even more. There's a reason Chicago was name the #1 college grad destination in the country.


I'm just against the super fast tech growth of every company move there hq or operations to one city and everybody gets priced out. Sorry, I don't want Chicago to become Seattle, Austin, SF, or Miami! We're doing good with the moderate tech growth we're getting now. I just read this article of this startup moving its HQ from silicon valley to Chicago. Love little small victories like that. Keeps us competitive but not insane.

It’s VC-backed SaaS that really tips over cities like San Francisco, Boston, Austin, Seattle.

High margin, lucrative funding, common folk running around with large equity packages.

This is the reality: You have a bunch of 30 year olds selling SaaS who make 240k between salary and commission. These same folks were given 20,000 shares when they joined at $1 strike price. Now, the post ipo stock price is $60 p/share. That’s a $1.2M pay day for simply doing your job.

This happens across dozens of companies in these markets, every year. All of a sudden you have thousands, and thousands of people playing with house money. This alone drives up the primary and secondary housing markets, and that’s just one example of what SaaS is doing to make hot markets more expensive.

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by bearsmiths

I'm just against the super fast tech growth of every company move there hq or operations to one city and everybody gets priced out. Sorry, I don't want Chicago to become Seattle, Austin, SF, or Miami! .

I think there is literally 0 risk of this.

[TBideon]

Originally Posted by personone

I believe bearsmiths may be the same poster as dtyfygiu (see his similar posts on the previous page and other threads). I agree with you that I think having a strong tech presence is very healthy for the city overall.

I think bearsmiths/dtyfgiu is saying that if it becomes the dominant industry like in SF/Seattle, it could drive up prices and make living here unaffordable. However, I don't think that will happen in Chicago. The city is waayyy too large and it has too many other established industries to be completely replaced by tech. So I don't think there should be any concern about Chicago becoming SF/Seattle. It's simply built differently and is a legacy city with deeply established core industries. However, if tech growth does occur, I think it is healthy for the city, and could help expand growth and vibrancy into parts of the South and West sides. That wouldn't make the city unaffordable imo though.

You ain't kidding. 2/3 of the city ranges from affordable to ... let's be nice and say heavily disinvested. That's about 180 square miles of not much going on. The city could easily absorb 10s if not 100s of thousands of tech jobs, and there would be still be substantial room for growth and other industries.

[Gaylord_Focker]

Originally Posted by TBideon

You ain't kidding. 2/3 of the city ranges from affordable to ... let's be nice and say heavily disinvested. That's about 180 square miles of not much going on. The city could easily absorb 10s if not 100s of thousands of tech jobs, and there would be still be substantial room for growth and other industries.

Lots of room for growth.

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by TBideon

You ain't kidding. 2/3 of the city ranges from affordable to ... let's be nice and say heavily disinvested. That's about 180 square miles of not much going on. The city could easily absorb 10s if not 100s of thousands of tech jobs, and there would be still be substantial room for growth and other industries.

Yea, there is a massive amount of room for Chicago to grow in regards to physical space and its infrastructure (though it would need to be modernized though with more money and people in the city, there'd also be more of a budget and political clout for this to happen).

I think Chicago would naturally get this by working on the fundamentals of improving public education quality, lowering recidivism and improving actually useful rehabilitation of criminal behavior, and generally making the city more attractive. In terms of specifics to the tech industry, I think better connecting the universities in the area and their departments with the workforce here and gearing the largest public universities here towards these industries would be a boost.

[personone]

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

Yea, there is a massive amount of room for Chicago to grow in regards to physical space and its infrastructure (though it would need to be modernized though with more money and people in the city, there'd also be more of a budget and political clout for this to happen).

I think Chicago would naturally get this by working on the fundamentals of improving public education quality, lowering recidivism and improving actually useful rehabilitation of criminal behavior, and generally making the city more attractive. In terms of specifics to the tech industry, I think better connecting the universities in the area and their departments with the workforce here and gearing the largest public universities here towards these industries would be a boost.

Agree on all accounts. The whole "safety" thing (and all that comes with that- better/safer schools, neighborhoods, etc), which a few posters on this board don't like when it gets mentioned, would greatly improve Chicago's overall ability to grow through industry.

As far as better connecting the Universities to develop and cultivate local talent that stays and can develop a pipeline; obviously Northwestern and University of Chicago are the key players in terms of NSF, NIH, R&D funding to stimulate sectors of tech, but UIC is ranked relatively well in Engineering and has risen significantly in terms of federal funding, especially in the health sciences and other programs. They also have a strong reach across Chicago for first generation students, across all neighborhoods. They are a large, diverse University and could play a key role in cultivating the type of pipeline with skills to sustain new and modern industries.

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by personone

Agree on all accounts. The whole "safety" thing (and all that comes with that- better/safer schools, neighborhoods, etc), which a few posters on this board don't like when it gets mentioned, would greatly improve Chicago's overall ability to grow through industry.

As far as better connecting the Universities to develop and cultivate local talent that stays and can develop a pipeline; obviously Northwestern and University of Chicago are the key players in terms of NSF, NIH, R&D funding to stimulate sectors of tech, but UIC is ranked relatively well in Engineering and has risen significantly in terms of federal funding, especially in the health sciences and other programs. They also have a strong reach across Chicago for first generation students, across all neighborhoods. They are a large, diverse University and could play a key role in cultivating the type of pipeline with skills to sustain new and modern industries.

To be fair, I think there are people, including a lot of people who probably have never been to Chicago, who very strongly overstate or overemphasize the "safety" aspect and that can be annoying. That being said, if the city ends up so extremely safe that it becomes just ludicrous for anyone to say otherwise, that'd be pretty great.


Yea, I think UIC should be fantastic. I think Illinois should strive to have the University of Illinois program be premiere universities the way that University of California schools as a whole are. UIC should have a strong STEMs background. I also think it should have a very strong design and film/tv/media production because I think there needs to be some public university in Chicago that has that.

[personone]

It ranked 9th by metro for Venture Capital investment in 2021.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...bs-are-growing

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by personone

It ranked 9th by metro for Venture Capital investment in 2021.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...bs-are-growing

Is this just tech venture capital or does it also include real estate venture capital too? If the latter, I definitely understand why Chicago's on the list. There is a lot of coastal and international investors snapping up real estate in some areas, I think primarily because the cap rates are much better than SF, NYC, LA, and so on, though that's shrinking quickly. We also don't have rent control, another attractive feature.

[Nafster]

Originally Posted by TBideon

Lol, God forbid Chicago becomes a more vibrant, safer and desirable city.

Vibrancy problem? Lmfao

That's not a problem in Chicago AT ALL.

Safety and desirability?

Those are problems.