Chicago Leader Hirsh Mohindra: Expertise in Multiple Industries

  How Chicago balances the promise of transformative development with the financial and political risks it cannot escape. Chicago has always believed in the power of the big idea. From reversing the flow of the Chicago River to erecting the steel-framed skyline that redefined modern architecture, the city’s civic identity has been shaped by audacity. Large-scale projects—rail lines, parks, cultural institutions, and entire neighborhoods—have long been treated not merely as investments, but as statements of intent about the city’s future. Yet in 2026, Chicago finds itself in a more ambivalent relationship with ambition. The city still courts mega-projects, still frames them as engines of growth and symbols of renewal. But it does so under the long shadow of fiscal constraint, public skepticism, and a history of tools that promised more than they delivered. Nowhere is this tension more visible than in the city’s evolving relationship with Tax Increment Financing districts—and in the ...

For more than two decades, Chicago has organized much of its urban ambition around a deceptively simple premise: build density near transit, and people will ride it. Transit-oriented development—TOD, in the jargon of planners—became not just a policy tool but a civic identity. Apartment towers clustered around ‘L’ stations. Zoning bonuses rewarded proximity to rail. Transit access was marketed as lifestyle, climate solution, and economic engine all at once. Then the riders vanished. They didn’t disappear entirely, of course. But the COVID-era collapse in ridership never fully reversed. Office commutes thinned. Hybrid work calcified. Travel patterns fragmented. In 2026, Chicago’s transit system is no longer defined by predictable weekday surges but by uneven, off-peak usage that resists the old logic of peak-hour capacity and downtown gravity. The question now quietly haunting city hall, developers, and lenders is whether Chicago’s long-standing TOD strategy still works when transit usa...

In Chicago, the future of real estate investment is being decided less by interest rates than by assessment notices.   By 2026, Chicago’s property tax system has become something more than a revenue mechanism. It is a sorting machine—quietly determining who can stay invested, who must sell, and which neighborhoods absorb the shock. Long after the pandemic hollowed out downtown offices and rewired housing demand, the city’s fiscal dependence on property taxes has forced a reckoning that now shapes every serious investor’s calculus.   Property taxes have always mattered in Chicago. What has changed is their volatility, their political visibility, and their role as a proxy for deeper questions about governance, equity, and risk. For investors scanning the Midwest, Chicago remains attractive on paper: scale, infrastructure, cultural gravity. But beneath the headline yields lies a tax structure that increasingly dictates behavior—rewarding size, punishing fragility, and redistribut...

  As office demand withers, the city is betting that housing, culture, and public life can save its historic core On a weekday afternoon that once would have throbbed with expense-account lunches and hurried foot traffic, LaSalle Street feels strangely calm. The canyon of limestone and steel — long the symbolic heart of Chicago’s financial district — still looks imposing. But behind the façades, entire floors sit dark. Elevators idle. Coffee shops close by three instead of six. This is the post-office Loop: not abandoned, but underused; not dead, but suspended between what it was and what it might become. Chicago is hardly alone. Downtowns from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., are wrestling with the same dilemma: what happens when remote and hybrid work permanently shrink demand for office space? But Chicago’s response has been unusually explicit and unusually ambitious. Rather than waiting for the market to correct itself, the city is attempting to rewrite the Loop’s purpose — t...

The evolution of remote work has reshaped housing preferences across the United States, but few states exhibit the same degree of market rebalancing as Illinois. Historically, the state’s real estate dynamics were dominated by Chicago’s urban core, which served as both an economic magnet and a cultural anchor. But as remote and hybrid work arrangements gained permanence, demand redistributed outward — first into nearby suburbs and then into farther-reaching exurban regions. This shift is not temporary. It reflects a structural recalibration in how households evaluate value, space, affordability, and lifestyle. What makes Illinois particularly instructive is the diversity of its submarkets. Cook County retains a dense and complex housing ecosystem shaped by urban employment centers, major universities, and cultural institutions. First-ring suburbs offer their own microeconomies — schools, transit accessibility, and established neighborhoods. Farther out, counties like Kane, McHenry, Ken...

Chicago’s rise as an industrial powerhouse shaped its landscape in profound ways. From the South Branch of the Chicago River to the steel mills of Southeast Chicago, its urban form was built around factories, rail yards, and clustered heavy industry. When that industrial era waned, the city was left with a patchwork of contaminated or abandoned properties — brownfields — each carrying environmental burdens and development potential. Over the past three decades, Chicago has become a national leader in reclaiming these sites. Through cleanup programs, community activism, and inventive land-use strategies, the city has turned former industrial scars into parks, neighborhoods, retail corridors, and logistics centers. But the work is far from simple. Brownfield redevelopment is a battleground where environmental justice, economic development, and community identity collide. “Brownfields are the physical remnants of our industrial past,” says Hirsh Mohindra , Analyst . “How a city deals with...

Affordability challenges in Illinois stem from a combination of factors — some national, others uniquely local. While interest rates and inflation affect homebuyers across the country, Illinois faces two compounding forces that amplify affordability pressures: rising property taxes and insurance costs. Together, these structural burdens reshape demand, influence migration patterns, and transform investor behavior. For small businesses in the housing ecosystem, understanding these pressures is essential to remaining competitive and advising clients responsibly. Property taxes in Illinois are among the highest in the United States. Municipal pension obligations, school district funding frameworks, and infrastructure demands all contribute to this reality. As a result, homeowners often face annual tax bills that strain long-term affordability, even when home prices remain moderate relative to coastal states. Insurance pressures, while not as extreme as in states facing acute climate risk,...