By Kurt Summers, huffingtonpost.com
Almost every day, Chicago is in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, from gun violence to striking and persistent segregation. As Chicago’s City Treasurer, I want to tell you that those headlines not only fail to capture the essence of Chicago’s greatest assets, but also ignore the root causes of Chicago’s greatest challenges. The truth is that Chicago’s problems are economic in nature, and they require economic solutions. That’s why my office has been leading the charge to change the paradigm of investment in our city, increasing access to capital and economic opportunity for all of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods and especially those who have been systemically underserved and have suffered from disinvestment for decades. If you live in Chicago, or anywhere in urban America for that matter, it should come as no surprise that these communities are predominately filled with black and brown residents.
