the financial numbers are clear: both chicago and illinois are done. they are losing people yet adding debt, and they are not sovereign so have limited means of dealing with it. .gov will probably need to step in (federally) but this sets a real nasty precedent for the rest of the US + economy. it's certainly not getting better from a fiscal point of view.

Chicago, and by extension Illinois, are too central to the regional economy to go under. But feel free to continue believing that.

The improvement in Chicago is due to people fleeing government subsidized suburbia.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I think this is a good illustration of the news dynamic.

Everyone has their own opinion.

Everyone lives in a world where "everyone I know agrees with me on this!"

Everyone is stressed because maybe some others disagree.

And then we all fall into a pattern of engaging in almost meaningless arguments about these issues with each other. Causing even more stress.

I think what the above exchange demonstrates is that unfortunately, "politics", or whatever you want to call it, really is stressful and contentious to the point of being dangerous to society even at the local level. It's amazing how big this problem is.