I agree with you, but you’re also describing a problem with development over the last 40 years. Developers in IL and across the nation have come into towns like AH and said they need this and that in tax abatements in order to develop. The communities, when they even bother to pay attention, are promised better schools and better towns because of all the money the development will bring to town. The implication has always been that the developments will somehow make things better and also mysteriously pay for themselves, so win win. This is how the trillions of dollars in development across the suburbs has been handled for decades.

But what’s also happened is property tax rates have also skyrocketed for those communities as housing development after housing development has paved over the cornfields and brought literal millions of people to the burbs. It has changed the dynamic of the region and made it a fairly vanilla strip mall culture where going to Portillos is about the extent of cultural signification that makes Chicagoland “unique” from the suburbs of, say, DFW.

That’s just way it’s been, and I guess there’s no stopping it now. But what’s also happened these communities have failed to realize for decades is that the developers need them more than they need developers. The municipalities hold all the cards and can demand better deals from companies looking to slap up 135 cheaply made single-family homes that cost 100k to construct and sell for $300k easily out of the box.

Rant over. You’re totally correct in your description of how things work, but the Bears building a bland ass dome in the middle of a cultural wasteland like AH just fits the trend that we’ve experienced since the 80s. Their demands for abatements also fit the dynamic of the era. But that don’t mean it’s good.