Name: 73% think Chicago is on the wrong track
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73% think Chicago is on the wrong track

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Crain's political columnistChicagoans believe their city is a great place to visit. They even are pretty satisfied with their home neighborhoods. But they have enormous doubts about the city’s overall future and especially their ability to safely raise and educate children here, with in dealing with such problems at midterm.That’s the main conclusion of the first edition of The Chicago Index, a collaboration between Crain's Chicago Business and as well as broadcast partner , which asked a newly formed “jury” of more than 2,000 active voters to assess conditions in the city and nearby Cook County suburbs and to continue do to so quarterly, to track changes in public opinion.A particularly stark summation: When asked if they would say things in the city of Chicago are heading in the right direction or off on the wrong track, Chicagoans replied by a nearly 3-1 margin that the city is on a bad trajectory, with just 27 percent expressing optimism about the city's present course.While some of the findings are predictable—people often like their immediate neighborhood better than their larger municipality, for instance—some are more surprising.For instance, 89 percent of respondents said improving Chicago public schools ought to be a top priority. That’s higher than the 75 percent who prioritized changes in the Chicago Police Department—and higher than any subject respondents were asked about besides the need to reduce public corruption, which 91 percent said was important. These answers varied little between white and nonwhite respondents.MoreIn a related finding, while 44 percent of those questioned said Chicago is an at least good place to live, only 34 percent said that’s true as a place to raise children. That figure was even lower among residents in the southern half of the city, with just 25 percent approving of the current conditions for families with children.These downbeat readings may explain why the mayor garnered such low popularity numbers in the survey after nearly two years in office, years in which she endured a Chicago Teachers Union strike and continuing battles with the union over reopening schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic.ADD YOUR VOICE TO THE CHICAGO INDEXWant to participate in future Chicago Index surveys? Participation is free and signing up is easy. You can access the survey directly at  Only 4 percent of those replying gave the mayor “excellent” job-performance marks and 12 percent a “good” rating, with 32 percent finding her performance “fair” and 50 percent “poor.” Lightfoot’s rating in the Cook County suburbs actually is better (21 percent good or excellent) than it is in the southern half of the city (10 percent). There’s not much difference between whites, 18 percent of whom rated her as excellent or good, and nonwhites, at 15 percent.In comparison, Gov. J.B. Pritzker gets a much better 60 percent positive job-performance rating, though other surveys have shown his support weakens the farther you get from Chicago proper.Members of the continuing panel were selected by various means and questioned by a survey hosted by Polco, an online civic engagement platform, from March 8 through March 31. More than 2,500 randomly selected households received postcards inviting them to participate, with other outreach via social media and contact with community groups.A total of 2,174 surveys were completed, with responses statistically weighted to be representative of the area by age, race, length of residence and geography (Far North Side, North Side, Central, West Side, Southwest Side, South Side, Far Southwest Side, Far Southeast Side and suburbs) based on American Community Survey data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. With census data delayed this year, ACS may become the basis for upcoming reapportionment of Illinois congressional and legislative districts and of city wards. The Chicago Index survey is not a traditional poll with a scientifically determined error margin, but rather a newer technique that uses a self-selected but demographically balanced continuing group of respondents to gauge changes in public opinion over time. Such a method is used by the Federal Reserve Bank here for its monthly survey of business conditions, by the Wisconsin newspaper association and its members and by the Dallas Morning News. (See the complete methodology below.)Chicago-specific questions were answered only by those living in the city, not the suburbs.Among other key findings:• 76 percent of respondents said Chicago is a good or great place to visit, with a fairly peppy 61 percent saying the same of Chicago as a locale for jobs. Significantly, only 14 percent said the city is a poor place to work.• A whopping 92 percent said it’s at least somewhat important for the city to finally get a handle on its soaring pension costs. Decreasing racism was almost as high a priority at 88 percent.• Chicagoans are happy with their fire department and park district, which get 94 and 81 percent positive ratings, respectively. But ratings for police are 47 percent positive, and for CPS 24 percent, with an almost invisible 1 percent saying they are “very satisfied” with the schools. State lawmakers, like Pritzker, got decent job ratings, but just 28 percent of Chicagoans gave a positive rating to their alderman.• As unhappy as voters are with Lightfoot, they’re even more unhappy with the City Council as a whole, with 93 percent giving the body negative marks compared to 84 percent for the mayor. But they’re a tad warmer to their own alderman or alderwoman, with “only” 72 percent negative.The next round of The Chicago Index will be released this summer.4:30 P.M. UPDATE:Lightfoot’s team has been pushing back on the findings, questioning the survey’s methodology, but in her only comments thus far the mayor said she was “not surprised” by the results.“Look, we’re living at a time when people are really uncertain, and there’s a lot of anger out there. We see that played out in the toxic swamp of social media,” Lightfoot said when a reporter from ABC-7 asked her to respond to some top line results of the survey this morning prior to its official release. “What I know is, we've got to keep focused on making sure that we're saving peoples' lives, we're educating people about what they can do to protect themselves from the pandemic, and to continue to work on a robust recovery. That's what I'm focused on.”Lightfoot said polls her political organization has taken “are different.” Her team has declined to release them, but the mayor added, “The fact of the matter is, these are very uncertain times . . . it's not surprising people are feeling that weight on them. . . .We've got to just keep doing everything we that can to keep people safe from the pandemic, make sure that we're creating opportunities for jobs in a very robust recovery, and the rest of it will take care of itself.”A.D. Quig contributed.METHODOLOGY:This is the first edition of The Chicago Index. The survey was hosted on the Polco online civic engagement platform during the weeks of March 8 through March 31. Respondents were recruited through a multimode, multicontact method employing mailed postcards, online invitations and social media campaigns. The outreach resulted in a total of 2,174 surveys completed. The precision of this poll applying a Baysian credibility interval for a sample of 2,000 surveys is +/-2.5 percent. While the number of completed surveys was larger than expected during the first implementation of The Chicago Index, not all segments of the Cook County population engaged at the same level. Thus, to better reflect the greater Cook County, the dataset of survey responses was statistically weighted by respondent age, race, tenure and geography based on the American Community Survey. It is our commitment and intent to build the representation of The Chicago Index panel over time so future surveys will bring not only a larger number of respondents but greater inclusivity and diversity to the index ratings.The Chicago Index used a hybrid method. We combined a probability sample in the form of a random sample of 2,500 mailings to Chicago residents. We also used a non-probability sample and a networking non-probability sample by emailing and promoting to subscribers of the three news organizations and the social media. The team at Polco then reweighted.While a comparison of Chicago residents' ratings over time is the primary goal of the index, comparisons of Chicago's scores to national ratings also are important to help identify areas where the community is strong and faces challenges. As possible, results of The Chicago Index are compared to Polco's National Community Survey benchmark database, a dataset representing more than 500 communities across America. Crain's Morning 10: All the Chicago business headlines you need to start your day. And it's free.Crain's-Harris PollLetterto theEditorHave something to get off your chest? You can  Or tell us on our page or on  @CrainsChicago.RECOMMENDED FOR YOUSign up for newsletters

Crain's political columnistChicagoans believe their city is a great place to visit. They even are pretty satisfied with their home neighborhoods. But they have enormous doubts about the city’s overall future and especially their ability to safely raise and educate children here, with in dealing with such problems at midterm.That’s the main conclusion of the first edition of The Chicago Index, a collaboration between Crain's Chicago Business and as well as broadcast partner , which asked a newly formed “jury” of more than 2,000 active voters to assess conditions in the city and nearby Cook...

73% think Chicago is on the wrong track

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