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

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 city’s 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 mayor’s temper, inability to build alliances, and inexperience have deepened the city’s vulnerabilities, leaving her isolated and throwing the city’s future into question.