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While we understand the thinking to the contrary, we have to emphasize that by almost every measure it is clearly the South Side where the casino will provide the greatest benefit to the city and our residents.

Those who argue for a downtown location see the casino as another attraction, able to maximize dollars by capturing the convention trade that already comes to the city. We, on the other hand, see the casino as an anchor to a new recreational/entertainment hub able to draw visitors new and old and provide jobs in an area of the city where they are sorely needed.

We need not to think small but big—and big is what the southlands have to offer, particularly in the farthest reaches of the Southeast Side. On either side of the Bishop Ford Freeway you have the nuclei of new entertainment/recreational hubs where a casino and hotel complex could complement the already existing amenities—Harborside International Golf Center on the east side and the Pullman National Monument and indoor sports arena on the west.

Transforming these buildable sites with ample acreage into a casino/hotel complex would be a great draw for tourists and Chicagoans alike. As important, a casino/entertainment complex would serve as a game-changer for an area that, while adding perhaps 5,000 jobs in the past decade, is still suffering from the abandonment of the steel industry nearly two decades ago.

As a longtime resident and advocate of Chicago's Far South Side, I know I speak for all when I say that we are ready to work with any operator to realize a great vision. We know, from long experience, that as the trite but true saying goes: If we build it, they will come.

THOMAS MCMAHON
Chicago

Time to flee Chicago and its taxes

My husband and I have lived in our home on Orleans Street in Old Town for 40 years. We have seen the taxes increase from about $10,000 a year in 1997 to $43,000 for 2020, more than a quarter of my take-home pay just for real estate taxes for an old frame house. The appeal made by our real estate attorneys was flatly denied. My husband is over 80 years old, and I am a year from retirement. Many of my friends are moving to Indiana and Michigan to escape the smothering tax burden. It is very upsetting that my husband and I are being forced from our home by the absolutely ridiculous taxes in Illinois. No one is listening.

This fosters income and therefore demographic segregation in the city. I love Chicago but have to go.

FELICIA WILHELM
Chicago