As Polly Cleveland continues her project posting Mason Gaffney’s works, we find “Chicago’s Growth Spurt, 1890-1900.” It’s not very long, and worth reading today as a contrast to our current stagnation. Most importantly, Gaffney deduces circumstantial evidence that during the era of growth, land values were significantly taxed. As he notes in conclusion, “More research into Chicago’s political history is needed.”
The whole trove contains dozens of working papers, class notes, and publications, in Gaffney’s concise and understandable style. (You’ll find it linked here as well as above; depending on your screen size and magnification you might need to scroll over to the right to see it.)