Chicago’s woes are over-hyped

For a sense of what is thriving in Chicago, it is worth visiting the offices of Hazel Technologies, a firm based in Fulton Market, about a mile west of the city’s downtown Loop. Across most of one full floor of a fancy new office building, the usual desks and cubicles have been replaced by a laboratory. Around three dozen scientists use it to design prototypes of packets of chemicals that help keep fruit and vegetables fresh by controlling the creation of ethylene, a gas that induces ripening. On another floor, commercial staff sell the chemicals to clients all over the world. Hazel, founded in 2015 by five students at Northwestern University, in the northern suburbs, has grown in the past few years to over 100 employees. In 2021 it raised $70m in venture financing, and it now works in a dozen countries.