In The Red Zone

One of Chicago's aldermen was indicted today.

Carothers is the second alderman in two years to be charged criminally for taking payoffs from developers.

The deal is that each alderman, by tradition, gets to decide which zoning changes are allowed in his ward. Zoning changes are worth lots of money to developers. This creates an occasion of temptation.

If you want developers to leave aldermen alone,
remove the aldermen's power to zone.