For most people, Labor Day is about partaking in the last barbecue of the season. For me, it's about taking a long bike ride, still the best way to experience this challenged, fascinating and often beautiful city.

This year's ride began at home, near Wrigley Field. Then south on Halsted past the University of Illinois at Chicago, and east on 18th through Pilsen and past the landmark of the Blue Kangaroo Laundromat. Hang a right on Damen and up to Humboldt Park to check for gators—none this day, sadly—then lunch at a joint a little northwest in Wicker Park, near Chez Lightfoot. Finally north to Addison and home.

Two things stuck out on my 20-mile ride. One is the greenery. All the rain has made a difference, as have the lush replantings in Humboldt Park. Two, there are retail vacancies in every neighborhood. Lots of them. And I mean every neighborhood, be it an entirely vacant block on the edge of UIC, an empty storefront on almost every block in even thriving Pilsen, and close to a dozen dark stores on Milwaukee just north of Diversey.

That's not good for the city or anyone in it. It means less traffic and less life on streets that need people for security and enjoyment, fewer jobs for workers who have lost theirs, and less revenue for a city that needs every penny. And things seem to be getting worse.

Hard data backs up my anecdotal impressions. As first reported by my colleagues Alby Gallun and Danny Ecker, retail vacancies in the metropolitan area are hovering around 11 percent, within a percentage point of the highest level in nearly two decades. And average asking rent per square foot is lower than it was in 2001, based on data from CBRE.

According to other figures compiled by Melaniphy & Associates, total retail sales were up a decent 3.54 percent last year and 25.7 percent in the past decade. But the rise is pushed largely by a few specialized categories: restaurant/bars, grocery stores and gas stations, up 48.5, 26.6 and 22.8 percent, respectively. More general categories are flat or even down, with furniture/electronics and general merchandise off 7.4 and 6.5 percent and core apparel up a narrow 8.3 percent.

Thank you, Amazon. Like it or not, the market has spoken. But there's another driver of retail vacancies: City Hall and a rising tide of higher taxes and mandates. "It's all adding up," says Rob Karr, CEO of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association. "My members are worried about what the next shoe is to drop. The pressures are intensifying."

Karr's reference is to a series of recent steps by local government. Such as the county's penny-on-the-dollar sales tax hike, which for a period gave Chicago the highest sales tax of any local government in the country. Or city and county hikes in the minimum wage, soaring property taxes that usually get passed on in the form of higher retail rents, and new city laws mandating a week of paid sick leave each year and a week's notice of schedule changes.

All of those were well intended. I would have voted for many, maybe. But there's no free lunch. There's a cost in the form of neighborhood blight.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot ought to keep that in mind as she crafts her new budget. So should her new planning and development chief, Maurice Cox, who just arrived from Detroit and is being billed as a neighborhood development specialist. They have tools to work with, such as money paid by downtown developers in exchange for zoning perks, and $100 million in the city treasurer's catalyst fund. Those tools and some others under development could provide solid new incentives to open neighborhood businesses, including stores and shops. But their impact will be limited if the Hall is taking money back just as fast in higher taxes and mandates.

What kind of city does this mayor want? Hopefully Chicago's retail blues will have a better ending.