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Byline: Greg HinzOne of the mayoral front-runners is endorsing a key economic development strategy that's been employed by outgoing Mayor Rahm Emanuel, saying that if she's elected mayor, many downtown [...] more...

Byline: GREG HINZ It's now been nearly two decades since 9/11. It seems like yesterday. Mel and I were in Michigan. He got up first, but woke me and told [...]

Byline: GREG HINZ To believe the headlines, the only statewide race that counts this election cycle is the brawl for governor between incumbent Bruce Rauner and challenger J.B. Pritzker. The [...]

Byline: GREG HINZ He smiled. He cracked jokes, about himself and others at the table. He looked relaxed, rested and at ease with himself--more so than in years. In fact, [...]

Byline: GREG HINZ Much has been written about how Chicago increasingly has separated into two cities in recent years, one notably white, educated and prosperous and the other largely composed [...]

Byline: GREG HINZ I happened to read a column the other day that struck home. The author sure seemed to know Chicago well. 'Great things are happening,' he wrote. 'Long-struggling [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz Once upon a time, when he was in the mood, my father would tell World War II stories. One was how a kid from landlocked Marquette Park [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz If you think you've been seeing a lot more bright young people living in Chicago lately, you have. Between 2010 and 2016, the city of Chicago gained [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz He's a lawyer by trade, not a truck driver or a steelworker. Colleagues call him a true progressive in the Bernie Sanders style. He'll likely put a [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz One of the best speeches I ever heard was delivered by the late Henry Hyde. The subject was term limits, at the time (1995) a raging hot [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz As I write this, Scott Pruitt--the Oklahoman who never saw an oil well he didn't want to pump dry or a first-class airplane seat he didn't want [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz Three years ago, when Rahm Emanuel was laboring to survive a mayoral runoff election with Cook County Commissioner Jesus 'Chuy' Garcia, he deployed a classic rescue device [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz He speaks fluent Russian--and, in fact, spent three years working in Moscow. His main claim to fame has been running a multibillion-dollar mutual fund, and he's a [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz When the day is done, my choice of a mellow relaxer usually comes out of a tallish green bottle. It's preferably named zinfandel, malbec or cabernet sauvignon, [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz In a Chicago where City Hall is desperate for new revenue and developers are delighted to provide it--in exchange for a fatter bottom line, of course--there's little [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz In this autumn's political drama, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is the designated heavy, the woman who ignored public opinion and put the proverbial straw on [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz All cultures, all societies have problems. They, like their governments and institutions, make mistakes, face obstacles and sometimes stumble around. But societies that work find a way [...] more...

Byline: Greg Hinz Labor Day is just around the corner, the end of summer vacation and when most of us return to work and school, presumably recharged and ready to [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz Eat your peas and carrots. Take an umbrella when the sky is gray. Don't spend money you don't have. I never did follow the first two bits [...]

Byline: GREG HINZ The other day I happened to catch 'The Iron Lady,' a flick in which the always amazing Meryl Streep plays Margaret Thatcher, the hard-willed British prime minister [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz Exact figures are hard to come by, but sources say that roughly 700 workers would lose their jobs at the Chicago area's two big national research labs [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz Confirming something that a lot of Chicago-area residents already feel in their bones, a new study concludes that rapid racial change usually means bad things for a [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz As in the business world, little gets done in government unless the key players trust each other. The lawyers can fill in only so many blanks with [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz Next time you happen to be in the West Loop--across the street from Google's new Midwest center and a couple of blocks from where McDonald's soon will [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz There comes a time when a public official has to belly up to the bar, hold his or her nose and do his or her job by [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz The debate over what kind of president Barack Obama has been is now fully underway. Politicians, historians and journalists argue about such points until they fade into [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz Like good medicine, a good election first should do no harm. Yes, the pols will brawl and say nasty things about each other and their backers. But [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz If Mayor Rahm Emanuel had any doubt that a real crisis was upon him, the illusion should have vanished a few days ago when the Wall Street [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz Here's a question to ponder as the election season enters the post-Labor Day stretch. Who's the bigger influence in down-ticket Illinois races: the bullheaded, self-minded rich guy [...] more...

Byline: Greg Hinz It's not every politician who declares that his goal is to 'take on some of our most problematic policy anomalies.' Or who, with total seriousness, will write [...]

Byline: Greg Hinz Some readers felt I went a bit overboard a couple of weeks ago when, after Crain's Future of Chicago conference, I suggested I could not be optimistic [...]