Yes, in my typing, I left off a t—mea culpa. Very good of you to note that.
There is a big leap from “unsustainable debt” (any debt that is increasing is arguably unsustainable, which places Chicago into a category with tens of thousands of other organizations) to “NEXT.”
The author is not arguing that Chicago has an unsustainable debt, the author is arguing that Chicago is NEXT.
If you don’t think that the ratio of debt to tax base is relevant, that is your prerogative, but I happen to think that it is of some concern—and so does the author of the article, at least implicitly, as he lets NY off the hook, even though its per capita general obligation debt is worse than NY’s (in the last sentence of the article as posted)—he doesn’t say why, but the very logical reason is because NY has an even higher tax base to draw off of.
>> ...any debt that is increasing is arguably unsustainable, which places Chicago into a category with tens of thousands of other organizations...
According to the author, Chicago has “... more general obligation debt per capita than any of the 10 largest U.S. cities except New York.”
Not in a category with tens of thousands... but rather, NUMBER TWO in a category with TEN.
i.e. NEXT.
Or maybe third? I’ll take next after next.