By Taylor Casey
CHICAGO – Chicago keeps trying to rebuild what the city once was, and it needs to stop. The city should invest in neighborhoods people are choosing now, and not revive ones that it has left behind.
I know the appeal of nostalgia firsthand. My best friend and I used to walk aimlessly for miles along Michigan Avenue, the way generations of Chicagoans did before us. Eventually, the walks grew stale after the same storefronts repeated block after block, and it felt like I was a tourist in my own city. We tried Fulton Market instead and grabbed lunch at Beatrix. We kept walking in the neighborhood after our meal, past crowded restaurants and storefronts we had never seen before. The energy was undeniable, something that I have not felt on the Magnificent Mile in years.
That is not nostalgia talking; the market is changing. Chicago’s downtown vacancy rate has nearly doubled to a record high, according to The Center Square. Companies are leasing less space and bringing fewer workers downtown, and the restaurants and retailers that depended on that office traffic are being stood up by the crowd that is not coming back. On top of that, the city continues to pour resources into the Loop and what it used to be, even though the main source of vitality, the people, have left.
Water Tower Place is the clearest evidence. Macy’s pulled out of the building, even after being a Michigan Avenue destination for decades. Shoppers did not stop shopping completely; they just stopped shopping there. A ten-minute walk away to the Gold Coast provides people with trendier, more in-demand stores. The lines that stretch out the doors of SKIMS and Brandy Melville make it clear that the demand has relocated, not vanished. Trying to restore what once was a thriving retail location despite shoppers clearly moving elsewhere is simply denial.
Fulton Market succeeds for the opposite reason. People live, work, and socialize there, creating a neighborhood beyond one single purpose. It can be a morning coffee stop or a Friday night destination, and that mix creates an energy that can not be replicated. “I tend to spend more time in neighborhoods that have a lot of restaurants, attractions, and foot traffic because they feel more energetic,” says Chantelle Alfarah, a TikTok content creator. This is the demand curve in the city, which draws people to a place that provides different things, not just one.
The energy is pulling employers with it. McDonald’s opened its global headquarters on Randolph and Carpenter Streets, aiming to be closer to its customers and to urban life, CEO Steve Easterbrook said at the time. The Loop was once the default address for major employers, but it is no longer. Companies are making a judgement based on real estate budgets, and not nostalgia. The Loop is no longer the business hub it was, as companies, just like people, are drawn to where the activity is.
None of this means the Loop should be written off. It remains one of the city’s largest tax bases, and empty office towers do not stop costing the city money just because they are outdated. But the fix is not
cosmetic revival; it is adaptive reuse. Chicago needs roughly 227,000 housing units over the next five years to hold onto its population and its tax base. Converting vacant office spaces into apartments and condominiums solves both problems at once. It houses people, and it puts those buildings back to productive use. This is a better use of political capital than introducing new retail on that street to attempt to bring people back.
The city also needs more reasons, beyond commerce, to pull people downtown. Arts and festivals are lacking relative to demand, and people are looking for something creative to do that is not the same old rotation of Museums. Farmers markets, pop-ups, and street festivals are some of the ways the city can bring an inexpensive day of fun, as they give people a reason to come downtown that has nothing to do with a nine-to-five. As Loyola student and Chicago resident Aileen Ruiz put it, one of the best things about living in the city is that “there is always something happening, whether it’s a concert, a Cubs or Blackhawks game, a street festival, a farmers market, or a live theater show.”
Chicagoans are not going to return to the Loop the way they used to, and the city policy needs to stop pretending otherwise. There is not a decline, but simply a redirection of energy moving towards parts of the city that have earned it, and the buildings the city leaves behind get turned into something people actually need. Chicago does not have a downtown problem, but a downtown that is stuck fighting the last decade instead of building the next one.