What do you think?
Rate this book
What Next, Chicago?: Notes of a Pissed-Off Native Son
In the fall of 2020, amidst riots, looting, and an alarming uptick in senseless killings, journalist Matt Rosenberg returns to his native Chicago to see if the city can dig itself out of the hot mess it’s become after decades of liberal governance.
Our nation’s big cities are broken. Urban progressive government badly undermines those it claims to lift up. Matt Rosenberg lived in Chicago for thirty years, and came back to live there again amidst the turmoil of 2020. What Next, Chicago? Notes of a Pissed-Off Native Son exposes the roots of Chicago’s violent crime, failing courts and schools, rotten finances, and ongoing Black exodus, and proposes a rescue plan for this emblematic American city.
“What has happened to Chicago? That’s Matt Rosenberg’s question, and mine as well. His loving tribute to our hometown is a moving, sensitive, humane, and trenchant critical assessment. Read it and weep.” —Glenn C. Loury, Professor of the Social Sciences at Brown University, and author of One By One from the Inside Essays and Reviews on Race and Responsibility in America
“Matt Rosenberg writes about the Chicago Way in the Chicago Style of a Mike Royko…. It’s a coherent, honest, and balanced tour of the city’s perpetual corruption, unsafe streets, gawd-awful schools, ghost neighborhoods, financial legerdemain, and the false Unified Theory of Systemic Racism that cloaks it all. Yet, What Next, Chicago? is no helpless, hopeless wail, but a powerful and useful roadmap for a rebirth of a once-great city, based on the voices of Black families and others who don’t need academia to know what to do. Must reading for Chicago lovers.” —Dennis Byrne, former Chicago Sun-Times editorial board member
Our nation’s big cities are broken. Urban progressive government badly undermines those it claims to lift up. Matt Rosenberg lived in Chicago for thirty years, and came back to live there again amidst the turmoil of 2020. What Next, Chicago? Notes of a Pissed-Off Native Son exposes the roots of Chicago’s violent crime, failing courts and schools, rotten finances, and ongoing Black exodus, and proposes a rescue plan for this emblematic American city.
“What has happened to Chicago? That’s Matt Rosenberg’s question, and mine as well. His loving tribute to our hometown is a moving, sensitive, humane, and trenchant critical assessment. Read it and weep.” —Glenn C. Loury, Professor of the Social Sciences at Brown University, and author of One By One from the Inside Essays and Reviews on Race and Responsibility in America
“Matt Rosenberg writes about the Chicago Way in the Chicago Style of a Mike Royko…. It’s a coherent, honest, and balanced tour of the city’s perpetual corruption, unsafe streets, gawd-awful schools, ghost neighborhoods, financial legerdemain, and the false Unified Theory of Systemic Racism that cloaks it all. Yet, What Next, Chicago? is no helpless, hopeless wail, but a powerful and useful roadmap for a rebirth of a once-great city, based on the voices of Black families and others who don’t need academia to know what to do. Must reading for Chicago lovers.” —Dennis Byrne, former Chicago Sun-Times editorial board member
282 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 19, 2021
7 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 14, 2022
Not agreeing with all of his opinions, nor how and in what tones he refers to groups or individuals at times, I still believe he is about 95% correct.
More to say after I recover from pure grief. Not that this taught me much that I didn't already surmise or observe myself. Chicago, Chicago.
More to say after I recover from pure grief. Not that this taught me much that I didn't already surmise or observe myself. Chicago, Chicago.
November 21, 2021
A bright shining light on why chicago is failing…and what needs to change
Matt Rosenberg has pulled the truth of Chicago’s failings from government records, newspaper accounts, and his own experiences crossing the city on foot and on public transportation. And, importantly, presents a path forward which SHOULD be achievable if undertaken by citizens of good will. A provocative, troubling, and passionate account.
Matt Rosenberg has pulled the truth of Chicago’s failings from government records, newspaper accounts, and his own experiences crossing the city on foot and on public transportation. And, importantly, presents a path forward which SHOULD be achievable if undertaken by citizens of good will. A provocative, troubling, and passionate account.
February 10, 2022
Matt Rosenberg’s ‘What Next, Chicago’ tells us what he found in his year-long trek across Chicago about the terrible troubles the city now faces. While reading it I wished that I could have torn it open and poured all its his findings into my mind like water from a pitcher onto a dry sponge.
Rosenberg spent much of his time talking with Black Chicagoans on the South and West sides about the defund-the-police movement. They absolutely want more police, not fewer. Their children are being slaughtered almost daily by gunfire meant for someone else.
The book clearly explains how the destruction of black families and the disturbingly high rate of unwed births have created an entire population of unguided and amoral youth.
Rosenberg details how the Chicago Teachers Union has a stranglehold on the politicians. Its self-serving demands are robbing the children of their only way out of poverty: a solid education.
The book records example after example of the political corruption in Chicago that would make even Chicago Outfit bosses blush.
Finally, hope for a change is offered in the book.
The failed mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, blames an imagined “systemic racism” for the Chicago’s decline. Instead, Rosenberg quotes James Brown, “I don’t want nobody to give me nothing. Open up the door. I’ll get it myself.” The door is open Rosenberg says, “It’s open enough to push through.”
I hope he’s correct. I’d like to go back to Chicago someday.
Rosenberg spent much of his time talking with Black Chicagoans on the South and West sides about the defund-the-police movement. They absolutely want more police, not fewer. Their children are being slaughtered almost daily by gunfire meant for someone else.
The book clearly explains how the destruction of black families and the disturbingly high rate of unwed births have created an entire population of unguided and amoral youth.
Rosenberg details how the Chicago Teachers Union has a stranglehold on the politicians. Its self-serving demands are robbing the children of their only way out of poverty: a solid education.
The book records example after example of the political corruption in Chicago that would make even Chicago Outfit bosses blush.
Finally, hope for a change is offered in the book.
The failed mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, blames an imagined “systemic racism” for the Chicago’s decline. Instead, Rosenberg quotes James Brown, “I don’t want nobody to give me nothing. Open up the door. I’ll get it myself.” The door is open Rosenberg says, “It’s open enough to push through.”
I hope he’s correct. I’d like to go back to Chicago someday.
July 16, 2022
I thought the book was well written and explored the numerous intricacies of Chicago’s history and its challenges. It also talked about possible solutions to many or Chicago’s problems. However, at times it felt that the author was repeating the same point too many times and the ending of the book felt a bit disjointed from the rest of the content. 4/5
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews