The CEO of City Hall

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On top of that, Chicago suffers from problems afflicting most big, older cities. Its police department faces charges of corruption and brutality. Schools remain troubled: About 48% of ninth-graders never finishing high school. Chicago ranks No.3 in murders in U.S. cities, with 468 last year, and sixth in murders per 100,000 residents. Mass transit service cuts and higher costs weigh on every bus and "L" rider.

Meanwhile, the mayor is not above demagoguery—especially on racial matters. Take the recent flap about a new Children's Museum building in Grant Park. Residents of upscale condos nearby who opposed the project insist they were worried about traffic and construction in the park, but the mayor suggested they feared black children coming into the neighborhood.

Still, Daley can count on business support because he's good at finding common ground with corporate leaders. Businesses ranging from Baker & McKenzie and Ariel Capital Management to Microsoft (MSFT) and Ford Motor (F) help with the schools. Companies chip in money, mentor students, and even assist in developing curricula. They buy Daley's view that companies need schools to turn out skilled workers. And they agree that good schools will keep families from fleeing the city. "He knows that if we don't improve schools, we lose the middle class," says King Harris of Chicago Metropolis 2020, a nonprofit think tank set up by the city's Commercial Club.

One-upmanship

Daley seeks counsel from business interests—but sometimes goes them one further. For instance, when the Commercial Club's Civic Committee called for a modest expansion of O'Hare International Airport, he took a more aggressive approach: an $8.2 billion plan, now under way, will boost capacity 25%, to 1.2 million takeoffs and landings annually by 2018. The plan infuriates airport neighbors but is a winner with executives keen to make Chicago a global hub. "He just kind of knocked our socks off," says Lester Crown, who chaired the committee's aviation effort.

The mayor can take the long view on issues like education and the airport because he doesn't live from election to election. Business leaders would like him to be as permanent as Lake Michigan. His father, Richard J. Daley, who died in office at age 74, was mayor for 21 years, and Daley the son should top that during his current term. Businesses helped mightily to get him reelected last February, and with no serious opposition, he won more than 71% of the vote. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) contributed $107,000, the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) $101,000, and the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) $25,000—plus personal contributions by executives.

Daley, in turn, has helped the exchanges. In the early 1990s, his administration readily vacated a stretch of LaSalle Street to accommodate an addition to the CBOT. More recently, Daley backed the merger that united the CME and CBOT, believing it would strengthen Chicago's claim to being a global financial capital. And when an Atlanta exchange threatened to snatch away the CBOT, Daley's staff jumped in to offer a tax break worth up to $40 million—provided the Chicagoans linked up.

Tax Breaks Aplenty

Developers are also high on the list of Daley enthusiasts. The Pritzkers of Hyatt fame added at least $161,500 to his coffers in the last election. Penny S. Pritzker (page 12), head of the family's realty unit, credits the efficiency of City Hall with helping to get the 48-story Hyatt Center up swiftly from spring 2003 to its grand opening in mid-2005. "It's very easy to put up a building in this town," says Pritzker.

Many developers like the breaks they get from tax increment financing, which Daley credits for much of the recent explosion in development. Such TIF districts freeze taxes and earmark funds for improvements, though critics say TIFs short-shrift the park and school districts. What's more, Daley has been generous with incentives to woo or retain companies. He teamed up with then-Governor George H. Ryan in 2001 to put together $41 million in tax breaks to lure Boeing. More recently, electronic mapmaker Navteq got $5 million to add office space, coincidentally in the Boeing Building.

With such pro-business policies, executives say, Daley would likely be a Republican anywhere else. Private-equity investor John A. Canning Jr. of Madison Dearborn Partners swoons over how Daley slammed Democratic Governor Rod R. Blagojevich last spring over plans for a gross receipts tax. The mayor, who warned that overtaxed businesses would flee to Wisconsin, Indiana, or China, has "the right instincts," says Canning.

Of course, behaving like a businessman is anathema to some. Daley's Chicago, say critics, is peopled solely by wealthy and middle-class folks, not the poor or blue-collar workers. "His vision of the city is a thriving, prosperous place where people like him want to live," argues John D. Cameron, director of political and community relations for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Daley's fondness for gentrification, Cameron adds, has pushed lower-income residents to the city's outer reaches and beyond.

Simplistic? It seems so to business people, who see the undeniable pluses of Daley's mayoralty in the bustling Loop and on crowded Michigan Avenue. Certainly, all Chicagoans can wander around Millennium Park. And if companies plaster their names on walls throughout the park, that's just fine with business leaders. Daley's Chicago, after all, is their Chicago, too.

With Bob Reed