Chicago’s Surging Rents Dent Its Cheap Big City Image

Alan Lev spent almost four decades building apartments exclusively in Chicago, until new requirements for affordable housing, unpredictable taxes and stagnant population drove him south.

For the past five years, the Belgravia Group chairman has invested mostly in Arizona, a state that’s seen inflows from places like Illinois and California. His company has already completed the construction of one condo building in Phoenix, with another complex already under way.