The City Is Up for Grabs: How Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Led and Lost a City in Crisis

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Chicago is a world-class city but it is also a city in crisis.

Crime is up, schools have repeatedly shut down due to conflict between City Hall and the powerful teachers union, and COVID-19 only deepened the entrenched poverty, institutional racism, and endless tug of war between the citys haves and have nots.

Enter first-term mayor and rookie politician Lori Lightfoot, who found herself at the center of this storm. A groundbreaking figure as the first Black, gay woman to be elected mayor of a major city and only the second female mayor of Chicago, she knew the city was at a critical turning point when she took office in 2019. But the once-in-a-lifetime challenges she ended up facing were beyond anything she or anyone else saw coming.

Chicago Tribune reporter Gregory Pratt offers a behind-the-scenes look at the tumultuous single term of Mayor Lightfoot and the chaos roiling the city and City Hall as Chicago fights to remain a global city.

Ultimately, the mayors temper, inability to build alliances, and inexperience have deepened the citys vulnerabilities, leaving her isolated and throwing the citys future into question.

Author Bio

Gregory Royal Pratt covered every day of Mayor Lori Lightfoot's term and was deeply sourced in city hall, as well as in the other offices of local, state, and national politics that shaped the mayor's administration. A Chicago native, Pratt has won several national awards for his political reporting and he is a regular commentator about the city on local and national media, including appearances on CNN and NPR.