Hate Chicago? Pack Up and Move to Houston. You'll Love It There
Want to go west to escape hard times and high taxes? It’s easier now. There are airplanes. (Library of Congress photo)
I was pleased to see the City of Chicago pass another budget Wednesday with considerably more funding for mental health.
My fellow citizens and I need the help, since we obviously are head cases. After all, we have about 943 violent crimes per 100,000 population each year. That’s a lot. We must be really nuts.
Many of our fellow Americans decry how dangerous it is here, and talk about how much they wouldn’t want to live among us. Illinois did lose 0.14% of its population in the 2020 census, while Texas, for instance, gained 16%.
Everything is bigger in Texas. That includes the crime rate, unfortunately. Houston, at 1,072 violent crimes per 100,000, is one of four Texas cities more dangerous than Chicago.
But people keep on moving there, anyway. It can’t be because of the oven-like weather. It seems mostly because of the lower taxes. Houston won’t be spending big money on public psychiatric clinics anytime soon.
Government is much better about staying out of people’s pockets there than here.
In the Lone Star State, for instance, libraries tax at an average of just under $20 per capita annually, compared to over $65 in Illinois, which wastes more on books and learning than anywhere else in America. Perhaps as a result, Illinois can’t come close to the lofty 19% illiteracy rate of Texas, which is exceeded by only three other states.
I wonder what it’s like to move to Texas just in time for it to pass a law effectively banning abortion. Maybe it’s like moving to 1950. But not in a good way.
Perhaps in reaction, Illinois is poised to repeal its law requiring young women under 18 to tell their parents before they get an abortion. To many people, this seems over the top.
Others, not so much. I didn’t like the law when my daughter was a teenager. My need to know her personal business would have been trumped by her possible unwillingness to tell me. I wouldn’t want her getting an underground abortion because she was afraid of what I might think.
Hopefully, as kindly parents, we’d be told, anyway. We’d want to know mainly so we could give a daughter emotional support. Practically, what else are we going to do, talk our kid out of it and see her become a mother at 16?
If you don’t like the repeal, however, you can vote against the legislators who backed it. It’s easy to vote here. If you’re Texan, and want to get rid of those who backed the abortion law there, it won’t be as easy. Texas had some of the most restrictive voting rules in America and made them even tougher last summer.
Stop the steal.
Oddly, while big shots in certain other parts of the country, like Texas and Florida, insist the Chicago way of life isn’t worth living, Americans keep vacationing here. About 800,000 people polled by the Conde Nast Traveler magazine in 2021 voted Chicago the best big city in the country to spend a holiday in -- for the fifth straight year. No Texas or Florida cities even made the list.
Chicago is apparently a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live here.
Or maybe Chicagoans are rigging the Conde Nast poll.
Stop the steal.
One of the big reasons for Texas’ population growth is that huge corporations move there because of tax benefits and minimal regulations. That’s not always a prescription for happiness.
The Texas legislature for years shielded the providers of its power supply from regulation. So the power grid had inadequate backup when a storm caused massive failure last February. About 450 people were sickened by carbon monoxide while using portable heaters to avoid freezing to death, and over 200 died.
In Illinois, legislators have passed laws that make it unlikely we’ll die by the dozens because we run out of juice. Power companies seeking a little relaxation of the rules have no choice but bribery.
Illinois, especially the Chicago area, is generally an easier place to stay alive than Texas. Hospitals are more numerous and fire departments are better equipped and funded. Cities here were actually planned with safety and efficiency in mind, while Houston and some other Texas towns grew up without the constraint of zoning law.
About 28% of Chicago workers ride public transportation, reducing air pollution. Houston: 2.1%.
The northeast part of Illinois actually grew over the recent census period, ranging from Chicago’s 1.9% to parts of the west suburbs that nearly doubled Houston’s 10%.
Illinois has put on a full-court press to fight the coronavirus, but Texas has done everything it can to quash local regulations and mandates intended to arrest the virus. Why this makes sense is hard to tell. Maybe it’s what happens when you don’t go to the library enough.
Right now, Chicago Federation of Police Lodge President John Catanzara is acting like Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott. He’s fighting for the right of police officers to avoid vaccines.
Maybe he needs a trip to a library, too.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another politician fighting for the rights of constituents to die from the coronavirus, has offered $5,000 hiring bonuses for out-of-state cops, including those fired because they refused to take shots. It’s odd to want to employ officers who are available because they disobeyed orders.
Maybe DeSantis should read a book that will help him understand the meaning of law enforcement.
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Thank you for the insight.