Target to pull out of Chicago?

Target is issuing thinly-veiled threats to pull out of Chicago if the City Council passes a "living wage" bill as expected on July 26th.

... Target becomes the second retailing giant to threaten to pull out of the lucrative Chicago market in a last-ditch effort to stop an ordinance championed by organized labor that breezed through the City Council’s Finance Committee by a vote of 15-to-6 and has attracted support from 33 aldermen.

Wal-Mart has threatened to cancel plans to build as many as 20 new Chicago stores over the next five years if retailers are required to pay employees at least $10 an hour by July 1, 2010.

I was amused by this comment by one of the aldermen: "If they want to lose the more than $3 billion that is not being captured in my ward, that’s a bad business decision for them.”

Based on the 2002 national Retail Census, and adding 20% or so for growth, Chicago has somewhere around $21b in retail sales annually. It also has fifty wards. What are the odds that $3b of that is in one ward?

Oh well, expecting truth (or common sense) from any politician is pretty hopeless -- how much more so from a Chicago wardheeler?