It’s a new week, Chicago. Get a jump on it with these Monday stories from WTTW News.
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Homes in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood are pictured in a file photo. (James Andrews / iStock)
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Home prices in Chicago and around the state are skyrocketing, as Illinois struggles to keep up with the demand for new housing.
The median sale price for homes in Chicago hit $425,000 in July, according to data from Illinois Realtors. That’s a 13.3% increase from last year. Across the state, the median price of $338,000 represented a 6% increase in a year.
At the same time, the number of homes for sale dropped. And the ones that did hit the market moved fast. For many looking to explain these rising costs, the issue is with supply.
“Our shortage would require us to triple the amount of new home construction every single year for the next five years, just to meet today’s demand,” said Jeff Baker, CEO of Illinois Realtors.
More context:
Although not every barrier to building new housing can be addressed at the local level, Baker said there are some important areas to focus on. Municipalities can have building and zoning codes that are decades old and haven’t been refreshed for new needs, and long review times can slow down approvals.
“All of that can add up to increase the costs of new homes and force builders to say, ‘This just isn’t worth it in Illinois,’” Baker said.
David Doig, president and CEO of the real estate development group Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives, pointed to a few challenges the city faces, including a restrictive building code, long waits for permits and access to public infrastructure.
“There’s no one thing that we can point to and say, ‘If we just fix this, that would take care of it,’” Doig said.
“If you look at other states around the country, they’re passing us up,” Doig said. “And not just marginally, but by big numbers. We’ve got to be intentional, we’ve got to be much more specific and directed around building homes at a scale and a pace that starts to meet the demand.”
After statewide legislative efforts — including the BUILD plan backed by Gov. JB Pritzker — stalled in the spring legislative session, Illinois Realtors looked at what could be done without action from the General Assembly. This month, the group released the Illinois Housing Supply Accelerator Playbook intended to help municipalities work through their own reforms.
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Silver carp caught in the Fox River of Illinois. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
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Swimming upstream can be slow going, but carp are playing the long game.
For decades, four species of invasive carp have been working their way toward the Great Lakes. On their way, they’ve left a trail of decimated native fish populations and injured boaters.
If the carp make it into Lake Michigan, they’ll likely find wide open waters, diverse habitats to fill, plenty of food and a conspicuous lack of natural predators.
What started as a faraway threat, slowly creeping up the Mississippi River, is now demanding urgent attention. Just last weekend, monitoring crews with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources found hundreds of young silver carp in the Marseilles Pool, just 80 miles away from Lake Michigan.
Meanwhile, the proposed solution — a barrier along the Illinois River — is stalled amid a rare political feud over what has historically been a point of bipartisan agreement.
“(The carp) are just really great at what they do, which is eating and reproducing,” said Katie O’Reilly, an invasive species specialist at the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant. “That could lead to the collapse of the fishery in the Great Lakes, which is about a $5 billion fishery.”
Existential threats to the Great Lakes ecosystem are not new. Sea lampreys nearly wiped out the trout population in the 1960s, while zebra and quagga mussels are straining the food chain today.
But with invasive carp, experts say there’s still a small window of time to nip the problem in the bud.
Some backstory:
Stakeholders around the region have set their hopes on a proposed barrier in southwest suburban Joliet to hold the line against invading carp.
Although construction was already underway on the Brandon Road Interbasin Project, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a stop-work order on the project in late July.
Earlier this month, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources announced that monitoring crews found hundreds of juvenile silver carp in Marseilles during routine monitoring, just 80 miles downstream from Lake Michigan.
Adult carp have occasionally made their way closer to the lake, but finding juveniles means they’re actively reproducing.
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A row of homes in Chicago’s North Center community. (James Andrews / iStock)
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Property taxes in suburban Cook County soared past the rate of inflation in 2025, according to a new report from Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas.
Homeowners will bear 80% of that increase, as the value of residential properties outpaced commercial real estate values, according to the report from the treasurer’s office.
Taxing agencies — including schools, parks, libraries and cities — sent property tax bills totaling $19.9 billion in 2025, 3.9% more than in 2024, according to a new analysis from Pappas’ research team.
The annual inflation rate in the Chicagoland region was 3.1% in 2025, records show.
Property taxes in Cook County soared at double the rate of inflation between 1995 and 2025, adding $12.9 billion to property owners’ bills, according to the report.
However, the median property tax bill in Chicago rose 2.2%, less than the increase in the cost of living, according to the report.
Chicago homeowners were likely to pay 3.2% more in property taxes, as compared with 2% for commercial property owners, according to the report.
Pappas, who is running for reelection as Cook County treasurer, is also expected to run for Chicago mayor in 2027.
This year’s increase in property taxes was concentrated in the north and northwest suburbs, where voters agreed to hike taxes to cover school, park and library improvements, according to the report.
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More From WTTW News:
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A former Chicago Public Schools principal has been sentenced to federal prison after he and two others pleaded guilty to a nearly decade-long fraud scheme that netted the trio more than $1 million.
Chicago taxpayers must pay $4.17 million to the attorneys who represented two men who sued the city after being wrongfully convicted of a 2003 murder, setting a new city record, a federal judge ordered.
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Back in the Day: August 24, 1915 - Pioneering Sci-Fi Writer “James Tiptree Jr.” Born in Chicago
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Until 1977, the science fiction author “James Tiptree Jr.” was assumed to be a man, but it was actually the pseudonym of Alice Hastings Bradley, who was born on this day 111 years ago. Hastings Bradley’s mother was a prolific author of fiction and travel books, who nurtured a love of literature for her daughter during safaris in central Africa that the family took in the 1920s. (Her nonfiction books “Alice in Jungleland” and “Alice in Elephantland” made her daughter the main character). After attending the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and a brief stint at Sarah Lawrence College, Hastings Bradley joined the United States Army Air Forces and became a major,
and embarked on careers in psychology and art. It wasn’t until her early 50s that she started writing science fiction, and she became a successful novelist, publishing several short story collections and novels. She died in 1987 but was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2012.
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This Week’s Civic Events and Meetings
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Every Monday, WTTW News highlights the best ways to get involved with local government.
Chicago Board of Education
On Thursday at 10:30 a.m., the Chicago Board of Education will host a regular meeting — their first since passing a $10 billion budget for CPS. If you'd like to make a public comment, advance registration to speak will be available beginning Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. and will close on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. Winners will be selected via lottery. For more information, check the source website.
City Club of Chicago
Doors open Thursday at 5 p.m. at the Chicago Firehouse Restaurant for a City Club of Chicago event titled “Can Bipartisanship Still Work?” Guests include U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski and former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, who will talk about “building relationships across party lines, finding common ground and the future of bipartisan leadership in Illinois.” Buy tickets here.
CCPSA Community Listening Sessions for 2026 Superintendent Search
The search is on for a new superintendent for the Chicago Police Department following Larry Snelling’s departure. This week, the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA) is holding two listening sessions to “provide residents with an opportunity to share leadership qualities, priorities, and vision they believe are essential” for the next person to take on that role. The first happens Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at Kennedy High School (6325 W 56th Street) and another Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at Morgan Park
Academy (2153 W 111th Street). For more information, click here.
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What Chicago food item would you willingly wait in line for? Tell us why.
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Email DailyChicagoan@wttw.com with your responses and your answers might be published.
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Newsletter Producer: Josh Terry
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