Who is Drake Warren? How a Cook County Commissioner Candidate can Improve all of Chicago

Coming up in March, its your turn to vote for the future of Chicago. Drake Warren is a candidates for Cook County Commissioner District 10, but his distinct take on housing and transportation issues has earned him a staunch following of pro-growth support, including Chicago Growth Project and proudly Chicago 2100. I had a productive and informative discussion with him about his policies and why he's the best fit for Cook County Commissioner in District 10.

"I’m Drake Warren, running for Cook County Commissioner in District 10. I’m an Industrial Engineer professionally, and a housing policy advocate in a volunteer capacity. Many county commissioners choose to serve part time. I’m a distinct candidate in this race as a renter and a transit user who will serve full time and hold zero dual employment. Giving the office my full time and attention will enable me to be particularly productive. In my first 90 days in office I will use a lottery system to establish citizen committees to inform my policies on subjects including infrastructure, healthcare, and public safety"

The Cook County Board of Commissioners is the governing board and legislative body of the county. It is comprised of 17 Commissioners, each serving a four-year term and is elected from single member districts. Each district represents approximately 300,000 residents. Drake is representing the 10th district, comprising the north and northwest sides of Chicago, pictured below. Find your district here: https://maps.cookcountyil.gov/findmydistrict/

In this exclusive interview, learn more about why I am so excited for Drake's campaign and the bright future of Chicago and Cook's 10th district!

In your view, what does Chicago need to do to continue to grow? What role could Cook County Commissioner serve in that?

DW: To grow into a healthy city once more, Chicago needs to become an affordable place to live, to move to, and for life to take place all the way from childhood to old age. Two of the best ways to do that are to build more housing of all types, and to invest in transportation systems that give people multiple convenient ways of navigating our city. As a County Commissioner, I will legislate a shift in property tax burden off of residents and onto vacant land. That will incentivize more homebuilding that will grow our tax base. I also believe in using the full power of the office to pressure my colleagues in the city and state to end aldermanic prerogative and allow missing-middle housing by right on all residential lots.

What would you do in your role to improve Chicago’s affordable housing stock? How would you address concerns of resident displacement?

DW: I will legislate the proactive permitting of housing construction on County-owned vacant land, the creation of pre-approved plans for that housing, and seed a revolving loan fund for construction. People get displaced when we fail to make space for everyone who wants to call a neighborhood home. We can avoid displacement by building more housing of all types. People don’t get priced out of their old homes when we build enough new homes for new residents. We want to encourage homebuilding, so we should make homebuilding easy, but we unfortunately make it very hard in Chicago. Making it easy through Cook County policy and collaboration between governments will be a primary focus of my time in office.

What would you do in your role to improve Chicago’s transportation access and network? How would you address concerns of transit safety and reliability?

DW: Cook County has jurisdiction over 500 miles of roadways, including within Chicago. These roadways include large segments of Ashland and Western, both prime locations for BRT infrastructure. I’ll push to make that happen. Cook County runs the Access Pilot Program in partnership with the RTA. It provides reduced METRA fare to SNAP recipients. With the upcoming unified system, I will make sure that program is extended systemwide. District 10 includes Lakeview through Edgewater, and therefore much of Lakeshore Drive. It shouldn’t be an 8 lane highway. I plan to collaborate between levels of government to make it a boulevard that provides more balanced transportation options, reduces noise, and reclaims green space.

As a whole, Cook County has seen recent population gains with suburban shifts, but Chicago's core has experienced declines. What strategies would you support to promote sustainable population growth and economic development across the whole county?

DW: I love cities because they connect people like no other human invention ever has. Growth in Cook County should be underpinned by a countywide framework for transportation and land use, guided by the goal of connecting people to employment, services, recreation, culture, and each other. It should come as no surprise that populations grow where housing is built abundantly and affordably. Chicago needs to grow by building more housing and a greater variety of housing. That allow family sized units to be built in apartment buildings, and increases in by-right building permission will lower the cost of all housing, particularly of the kinds of apartments that working class people can afford. All of this taking place on the backdrop of a top-tier transit system will let Chicago accommodate the millions more people Chicago can and should grow by.

Given limited resources, how would you prioritize County investments among housing programs, transit improvements, and economic incentives to best support overall growth?

DW: First I’ll note that the underbuilding of housing and transit is a main cause of our resource limitations. One of the best parts about addressing this is that many improvements to housing policy are free, and investments in housing and transit are typically revenue positive in the long run. I’ll prioritize changes by assessing the benefit and urgency of a change against the cost and time to implement the change. That’s how we get the most done the fastest. This is why the assessment shift on vacant land is at the forefront of my platform. It’s one vote to change the assessment level, and it will fundamentally change incentives around land use in Cook County.

Thank you to Drake for taking the time out of his busy campaign to explain his platform and illustrate why he'd be a perfect fit for the role. To learn more about his campaign, visit his site here: https://drakefor10.com/