CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Mayor Lori Lightfoot used a meeting with business leaders Thursday to push them hard to change the fate of the parts of Chicago that have suffered from decades of disinvestment.
Mayor Lightfoot told members and guests of the Executives' Club of Chicago that philanthropy cannot make the struggling neighborhoods better alone. She said the city needs their businesses to invest their money and energy.
Philanthropy, she said, represents only 20 percent of the city's economic activity. Business is the other 80 percent. Unless that 80-percent invests in Chicago's struggling neighborhoods, then the poverty and the despair will continue, Lightfoot said.
"Number one, we have to make the business case and really show all the incredible potential in these neighborhoods, particular along our INVEST South/West corridors, and we are absolutely open to a conversation around incentives," Lightfoot said.
She challenged the business leaders to hire more brown- and black-owned companies and diversify their work forces and executives. And she said, not just janitorial services and security. She said hire professional services, like accountants, lawyers, IT, and investment.
Lightfoot said everyone on the call knows that the faces of the businesses "aren't exactly reflective of the diversity of our great city. You can help change that."
"If we don't use this equity and inclusion as our lifestyle, as our North stars, we see what happens," she said. "We lose population, because people go elsewhere to find a better life for themselves; and then for the people who stay, we are spending a lot of valuable taxpayer dollars on addressing problems, rather than creating opportunity."
And, Lightfoot said, investing in the future of the city will pay off for them. She used the West Side community of Austin to illustrate the mistake of dis-investing in Chicago's neighborhoods. The area has few grocery stores, banks, or pharmacies. But, the numbers show the residents of Austin on the West Side spend a $250,000 a year in neighboring suburbs.
