Illinois governor Anthony Presbitero won his reelection bid on the campaign of rebuilding Chicago, and he helped newcomer Allan Brown get elected as the new mayor of Chicago on the same platform. The two have initiated an aggressive campaign called Project: Takeback ("Healing Chicago and making it safer you and your family!") to repair and rebuild the shattered city.

The first part of this is revoking the Adverse Possession ruling of the Illinois State Supreme Court that granted ownership of property to anyone who lived on a piece of land continuously for an extended period of time without the rightful owner stepping forward to claim it. As of June 1, 2075, Adverse Possession was thrown out, and the residents of the former Containment Zone and areas of the Corridor no longer have any legal rights to property they may have been living on for as long as twenty years. Needless to say, this has angered many of those living in these areas of the city. The second part is offering up a one year "reclamation period" where anyone who can prove that they had a legal claim to a piece of land prior to the Containment Zone going up or have since purchased rights to that property will be given ownership immediately. After one year, any remaining property will be auctioned off to any interested parties for immediate ownership.

There are two catches to this, however. The first is that any entities normally exempt from local land taxes due to extraterritoriality will have to pay taxes for the first five years to pay for rebuilding critical infrastructures in the area. The second is that all parties taking ownership of land have until June 1, 2077 to physically take possession, clear the land, rebuild, and start using it, or else the city will declare eminent domain and seize the property back for resale.

Many corporations both new and old are moving in to take advantage of Project: Takeback, and you can bet the residents of the Zone aren’t going to take this lying down. Everyone’s looking to hire runners, whether it’s to destroy evidence left behind before the CZ went up, reclaim lost data and tech, prove ownership of property, stop someone else from claiming the land, or simply throw a monkey wrench in the entire process. Either way, there’s a lot of money to be made, and it’s a good time to be a runner in Chicago!

Just keep in mind that Chicago was termed a Feral City for a reason. Ghouls, bugs, magical voids, toxic zones, gangs organized crime, and the government combine to make the Windy City a mess, and the sprawl made Aethernet's Five Most Dangerous Cities list the last ten years running for a damned good reason.