“I’D JUST BE ANOTHER GUY FROM THE NEIGHBORHOOD…”

2/7/11

The residency requirement for all city workers excepting, seemingly, the mayor, is a hot topic in the mayoral race. Gery Chico has said he is willing to discuss, as part of contract negotiations, eliminating the requirement that city workers live in the city. Miguel Del Valle and Carol Moseley Braun seem to be adamantly against removing the requirement. Rahm Emanuel falls somewhere in the middle, but closer to Mr. Chico. Mr. Emanuel, for some curious reason, seems to be unusually reticent about residency requirements, but I digress.

I don’t have strong opinions on this issue. On the one hand, it seems pretty clear that perhaps the largest factor in keeping Chicago an attractive place for middle class families to live is the salubrious effect the residency requirement has had on the neighborhoods on the geographic fringes of the city. It’s not a stretch to imagine that a wholesale flight from these neighborhoods in the wake of a potential lifting of the residency requirement would leave our city a home only for the very well off and the poor, much like some of its post-industrial brethren.

On the other hand, if I were a cop, a firefighter, or other city worker, I would legitimately be asking why I had to make the financial sacrifice living in the city entails in order to keep the city viable. A logical answer might be “to preserve your jobs,” but there are many factors that go into keeping a city able to capably and effectively man a work force that have nothing to do with its workers and everything to do with its managers, as we are now seeing in Chicago. Further, since I have friends and family living with the residency requirement, it is easy for me to sympathize, and almost empathize, with the “Why me?” argument.

Two things, though, should be noted as we examine this issue. First, the immediate impact of a lifting of the residency requirement would be a decided negative for the cops, firefighters, and others who live in such places as Beverly, West Beverly, Mt. Greenwood, Archer Heights, Garfield Ridge, Jefferson Park, Norwood Park, Edison Park, etc.: a drop, and maybe a big drop, in the value of their homes as the “cop and fireman bid” vanishes. City workers know this, so let’s not assume that there is uniform enthusiasm for eliminating the residency requirement.

Second, even if the residency requirement is eliminated, it isn’t safe to assume that neighborhoods like the aforementioned will suddenly crumble. First, there is the factor posited in the last paragraph; people won’t sell their houses if doing so involves taking a big hit on the price of the home. But, probably more important, these are nice neighborhoods, great places to raise kids and just to enjoy a way of life that seems to be vanishing into the cul-de-sacs and subdivisions of the suburbs. As happy and content as I am living in the suburbs, and Naperville in particular, I have to admit to pangs of envy when visiting friends and family who still live in genuine city neighborhoods, and I know I am far from alone in those feelings. People who live in neighborhoods like the aforementioned, for the most part, like living there; their complaints have a lot more to do with the expense of living there, which arises from the artificial inflation of the prices in these neighborhoods that results from the “cop and fireman” bid wrought of the residency requirement. Thus we get back to the economic consequences for neighborhood residents of eliminating that bid.