John Stossel writes about Chicago on the brink of disaster

Here's a sensible- though bleak- analysis by conservative commentator John Stossel of the situation Chicago finds itself in as the April 7 mayoral runoff approaches.

I wish I could say that he's wrong. Chicago is the city in which I was born and raised, and in which I lived about half of my life. It's the city I love. I will always consider myself a Chicagoan at heart no matter how long I live in exile.

But the city I love is I big, big trouble, and the same corrupt and cynical political culture which once enabled Mayor Daley the Elder and his administration to cut corners and make Chicago "the city that worked" now makes it unlikely that it can crawl out of a financial hole directly resulting from decades of pandering to special interests. The candidate of those special interests- Jesus "Chuy" Garcia- will probably win. But even if Mayor Rahm Emanuel manages to pull off a narrow victory on April 7, the political culture and the realities of the politics of greed likely will make it impossible for him to turn things around.

Chicago's motto is Urbs in horto ("City in a Garden"). The late Mike Royko wrote that it really ought to be Ubi est mea ("Where's mine?"). Chicago is tottering on the brink of bankruptcy, and the politics of selfishness still reign supreme.

It breaks my heart to say it, but Stossel is likely right: Chicago- once a model for large cities all over America despite its shady political culture- has been brought by that culture to the point where it is likely the next Detroit.

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