John Barlow explains why Chicago needs a solutions-first candidate for Mayor in 2027.
MY STORY
WHY I'M RUNNING
I don't want to run for mayor. I want to raise a family in the city I love, and on the current path I'm not sure we can.
Infant care costs about $1,560 a month. Property taxes keep climbing. Families do the math, and some of them leave. The city I want to live in is slipping away, and the people in charge don't have a plan to stop it.
Chicago doesn't have a plan to fix any of this. So I built one.
HOW I GOT HERE
Every step taught me something this city needs.
GROWING UP
Two teachers' kid
I grew up in Lindenhurst, in the far northern suburbs. My parents were both special education teachers who spent their careers with the hardest-to-reach kids. They believed every kid had potential. I think the same about every neighborhood in this city.
2009
Architecture
I studied architecture at the University of Illinois. My junior year was in Versailles, France, and it was the first time I lived somewhere built for people instead of cars. I graduated into the worst job market in decades, so I taught myself to build by renovating my parents' house.
2010 TO 2012
The Peace Corps, Togo
I spent two years in Nanergou, a village in the far north of Togo with no running water and no electricity. I helped people build latrines and cookstoves that burned less wood, and plant new trees. When a nearby village asked me to find grant money for a school, I asked what everyone could chip in instead. They built it themselves, so it was theirs. I came home with a conviction I've never lost: no one is coming to save us. The only people who can fix Chicago are the people who live here.
2013
Chicago
I moved here in 2013 to manage construction projects for the University of Chicago, including Campus North Residence Hall, designed by Studio Gang. That's where I learned how the city actually works: aldermanic review, community meetings, permits, utilities. I saw the bureaucracy from the inside, as someone trying to get things built.
2014
The two-flat
In 2014 I bought a fixer-upper two-flat in East Humboldt Park, in West Town. I've been renovating it with my own hands ever since. That house is where the idea behind this plan comes from: keep the bones, replace what's failing.
13 YEARS
The owner's rep
I've spent thirteen years on the owner's side of construction: schools, research labs, offices, a cultural center. An owner's rep has one job, which is protecting the client. I own the budget and the schedule, and I get architects, contractors, city agencies and neighbors moving in the same direction when they all want different things. That's most of a mayor's job.
Along the way, I spent five years working for the lenders who finance big projects. I was the lender's own construction expert: I assessed the risk before a loan closed, then every month I audited the costs, the schedule and each request for money, and I was the lender's check on whether the next construction payment went out.
54+
major projects, as an owner's rep, a project manager and the lender's construction expert
About $7 billion
in total project value across those projects
THE SPARK
Emma's commute
My wife Emma is a labor and delivery nurse. Her hospital is five miles away, and some days the drive takes more than 45 minutes after a 12-hour shift. I started asking why. That one question led to one policy, then to ten, and in the end to the forty-six policies in this plan. Every problem I looked at had a solution, and every solution had already worked in some other city.
WHY AN OUTSIDER
The system is working exactly as designed.
Thirty-eight members of the City Council have been convicted of crimes since 1968. The city's parking meter deal runs until 2083. The city paid about $491.7 million in police misconduct payouts from 2019 to 2024. The city's pension debt is $36.4 billion.
The people who built this system aren't going to take it apart. Every reform that threatens it gets negotiated down, delayed or gutted. Most politicians aren't uniquely bad. They just owe too many people too many things. The only person who can change the structure is someone who owes nothing to it.
Zero donors
NO ONE TO PAY BACK
Zero machine
NO FAVORS OWED
Zero connections
NO DEALS PRE-MADE
Zero consultants
NO FILTERED MESSAGE
My opponents will question my qualifications. That's fair. I'd ask them the question I ask myself. It isn't what you voted on or "fought for." It's this: what exists in the world because you made it happen?
I built this plan with no consultants and no staff.
I have no obligations to donors, the machine or anyone else, and that is exactly why I'm running.
THE THESIS
No one is coming to save us.
Help won't come from the federal government, which can freeze Chicago's money in the middle of a project. It won't come from Springfield, which has been anti-Chicago for decades. It won't come from the next machine politician who tells your ward what it wants to hear.
That should make you angry, but it shouldn't surprise you. The village in Togo built its own school. Chicago can rebuild itself the same way: with evidence, hard work and the stubborn belief that good ideas should be enough. That is the idea behind the New Burnham Plan, my plan of 46 policies to renovate the city in six phases.
And honestly, I'm running because I'm selfish. I want to raise my kids here. I want my neighbors to stick around. I want the city I love to thrive.
SEE THE PLAN →
HOW I'D GOVERN →
JOIN THE MOVEMENT →