Tag Archives: Chicago

NATO blunder or deep-seated Chicago wish to be recognized as the capital of Illinois

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I know a lot of people were having fun at NATO’s expense yesterday after it made several errors in a video ahead of the upcoming summit in Chicago. One of them was particularly interesting:

A video about Chicago posted Thursday on the website of NATO’s in-house television news network, Natochannel.tv, could leave leaders fumbling the facts at the international water cooler.

First, there’s the matter of Illinois’ capital city.

“More than 60 heads of state and government will meet to discuss crucial matters of security and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area,” a narrator’s voice says as the five-minute video plays panning shots of Chicago. “And so, the leaders of the member nations of the organization created by the 1949 Washington Treaty will meet in the capital of Illinois this time.”

What in the name of Abraham Lincoln? The summit was moved to Springfield?

While the capital of Illinois is indeed Springfield, I wonder if this doesn’t hint at a secret wish of Chicagoans for the city, whose region has roughly 70% of the state’s population, to be the actual capital. As the most populous city as well as the economic powerhouse for the state, why not simply move the government operations there as well? Doesn’t Chicago effectively function as the capital anyway? Now I know official state business takes place in Springfield but think about the power and influence politicians from the Chicago area wield. Think of the economic impact Chicagoland has on the state. Think of the images many Chicago area residents have of those who live “downstate.”

An argument could also be made about the need to move capitals to reflect changing realities. Springfield wasn’t the first capital in Illinois and the earlier capitals were all further south, reflecting where the population of the state was at the time. Indeed, Chicago was a small community into the late 1830s and northeastern Illinois was relatively unsettled compared to the rich farmland further south. Geographically, Springfield made sense. I think you may be able to apply some of this geographic logic to a few other state capitals as well such as Albany compared to New York City and Sacramento compared to Los Angeles or San Francisco. Going even further, Washington D.C. emerged as a new city because of a compromise between different factions (Alexander Hamilton’s wished for the nation’s capital to be a big city, New York City specifically). Imagine what a powerhouse New York City could be in global city rankings if it also had Washington D.C.’s share of governmental influence? (Ironically, the United Nations, the foremost global governance organization, is based in New York City even as the capital of the United States is not.)

Granted, you would expect an organization like NATO to get the capital of Illinois correct. But perhaps their error simply reflects what Chicago leaders think…

Chicago second in the country in economic segregation

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I recently noted a Brookings Institution report about how zoning contributes to differences in academic achievement. Looking further at this data, Chicago shows that Chicago doesn’t do well among metro areas:

* In Chicago, the “housing cost gap” is large: costs (a combination of renting and buying) are over twice as high in neighborhoods near high-scoring elementary schools than in low ones. In context, the metro area has the 32nd biggest gap out of the 100 largest metros.

* The area does worse on the “test score gap”: 24th in the country, with a 26-point gap between middle/high-income schools and low-income schools.

* The authors pinpointed zoning as a driver of these inequalities, because of the relationship between restrictive zoning, low density, and high prices, but on that the area does best, the 70th most restrictive out of 100.

* On economic segregation? As a measure of how many low-income students would have to move to achieve equal distribution (a measurement similar to how racial diversity is measured), Chicago is second-worst in the country, behind Bridgeport, Connecticut, 61 to 58 percent.

Whet Moser argues that this economic segregation doesn’t bode well in a city that is also known for racial segregation. Of course, racial and economic inequality is linked so perhaps this shouldn’t be too surprising.

To solve this issue, you would need to find some way for students of different backgrounds to mix in schools. Of course, this has a long history in the United States. The Coleman Report suggested this back in the 1960s. In response, the government promoted busing but this proved unpopular. Today, Chicago claims to deal with this by allowing kids to attend other schools throughout the city but of course there are not enough spots in these high-performing schools and the poor performing schools still need help.

Chicago’s Lathrop Homes added to the National Register of Historic Places

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I’ve discussed before the implications of public housing projects like Cabrini-Green disappearing. Essentially, the disappearance of these buildings means that some of our collective memory regarding public housing simply fades away. Therefore, I was interested to see that one of the earliest public housing projects in Chicago, Lathrop Homes, was recently added to the National Register of Historic Places:

For more than six years, residents, preservationists and community advocates have been pushing to save the Lathrop Homes from demolition and to rehabilitate the public housing complex.

Their efforts got a boost Monday when state officials announced that the site has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places…

The listing does not automatically preserve Lathrop’s collection of low-rise brick buildings and ample green space, officials said. But it makes the site eligible for federal tax credits and financial incentives. The designation also triggers a review by state historic preservation officials if federal or state funds are used to demolish the site…

Built in the 1930s, Lathrop Homes were once celebrated because of their vibrant mix of residents, rich history and ornamental touches rarely found in public housing. Lathrop Homes were designed by architects like Robert S. DeGolyer and Hugh M.G. Garden, who were out of work because of the Great Depression.

In recent years, the 925-unit complex has become a battleground over the CHA’s plan to transform the homes into a mixed-income development. As of January, 170 units in the complex were occupied.

We’ll have to wait and see how much preservation takes place in the years to come. I wouldn’t be surprised if the CHA drags its feet…such things have happened before.

It is interesting to note that the Lathrop Homes are on the north side of Chicago as was Cabrini-Green. I wonder how much this geography affected the ability and interest of residents in fighting to save the buildings.

If these buildings were preserved, how many people would be interested in visiting? In a related matter, does the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago generate much interest the buildings and people who lived in them? Here is how the museum describes its purpose:

The National Public Housing Museum is the first cultural institution in the United States dedicated to interpreting the American experience in public housing. The Museum draws on the power of place and memory to illuminate the resilience of poor and working class families of every race and ethnicity to realize the promise of America.

It sounds like there is potential here…although I don’t know how popular this might ever be, it doesn’t mean it isn’t worth pursuing.

Quiet issue: over 60,000 on CHA waiting list

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While this story is mainly about why the Chicago Housing Authority has 3,400 unoccupied units, there is another long-running issue here: the CHA has over 60,000 people on a waiting list for housing.

The CHA currently operates 20,000 properties that serve about 57,000 families, but about 3,400 units remain unoccupied. CHA’s wait list was almost 60,000 families as of March…

We are in the business of affordable housing; our goals are generally aligned with those of the (Chicago Housing Initiative),” said CHA spokeswoman Kellie O’Connell-Miller. “But from our perspective, we’re moving forward as quickly as we can. This is a multiyear redevelopment plan. The biggest challenge is the part of the plan that requires some units to come offline.”…

O’Connell-Miller said wait list standings aren’t made public because it’s not a fair assessment tool.

“It’s not a straight numbering system. Placement is dependent on family size and what bedroom need is,” she said. “The turnover varies on what the tenant needs. There are so many variables.”

The CHA is planning to take a fresh look at its Plan for Transformation this year under new leadership, Woodyard said, and welcomes suggestions and input from the community.

There are a couple of problems with this large waiting list:

1. The waiting list has been long for year and has continued to grow. In my article “The Struggle Over Redevelopment at Cabrini-Green, 1989-2004,” here is what I found about the waiting lists:

By 1984, 24,000 people were on CHA waiting lists for apartments, while another 56,000 households were waiting for CHA Section 8 vouchers…

The waiting lists for public housing continued to be long; in 2002, 48,000 families were waiting for public housing, while 38,000 more waited for Housing Choice vouchers.

2. The CHA says they are working on this issue. This might be believable if we haven’t heard similar things for decades and we haven’t seen many projects being delayed. Taking a “fresh look at its Plan for Transformation”? Sheesh.

3. The issue of affordable housing needs to be addressed on a broader scale, preferably throughout the Chicago region. Even if more affordable housing is made available in Chicago, are there good or at least subsistence jobs available in the city? Both cities and suburbs need to work on this. Unfortunately, neither the City of Chicago or suburbs have really shown a willingness to tackle this. See, for example, the contentious of affordable housing in Winnetka and Westchester County.

In sum, even if these 3,400 units were suddenly occupied, there are still over 50,000 people in Chicago looking for housing. This is an issue that needs to be addressed more comprehensively.

Sociology grad student taking photos of Chicago’s demolished buildings

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The Chicago Tribune has an interesting profile of a sociology graduate student who photographs buildings that the city of Chicago is about to demolish:

Since January, Schalliol, who is working on a sociology doctorate at the University of Chicago, has been documenting the city’s demolitions with photographs…

But even the worst houses, the ones that aren’t worth the work to keep, give Schalliol pause.

“There isn’t a time,” he said, “when I look at a building that I don’t think, gosh, this is a waste.”

He feels that most acutely in wealthy neighborhoods, such as Lincoln Park and Lakeview, where nice old homes that in a different place or era would be coveted as vintage jewels are routinely torn down merely to make space for mansions and big condo developments.

He photographs them all with equal care, with appreciation and attention to detail, the way you might dress a corpse for burial.

“I want to respect the people who made the building,” he said, “who maintained it, who lived in it. I want to see the building not just how it is, but how it was.”

I wonder what Schalliol will do with all of this, particularly if it is for more academic purposes. I think there is a lot of potential here: buildings are a kind of collective memory. Styles of architecture, the people who live, work, and meet in them, and the collection of buildings in a neighborhood constitute particular social worlds. When the buildings disappear because of old age or disrepair, that social world disappears as well. For example, the demolition of the public housing high-rises in Chicago and many other American cities may be beneficial in reducing concentrated poverty but it also helps remove the concepts of poverty, race, and related issues from the immediate reach. (To be clear, this is likely exactly what some wanted – get rid of the high rises so the problems aren’t so visible. Unfortunately, this doesn’t deal with the root issues.) It can be easy to simply build something new in place of something old but this does help cover up what came before.

At the same time, I also don’t believe that all buildings should simply be preserved because they are old. Should Brutalist buildings be preserved to remind us of a particular architectural moment? Deciding what buildings should stay and go is a complicated process but at the least, I approve of people at least recording by photograph what buildings used to stand in particular locations.

Washington D.C., not Chicago or LA, the real “second city” of the United States?

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Perhaps Chicago should be worried about moving to #7 in a ranking of global cities: here is an argument that the real “second city” of the United States is not Chicago or Los Angeles but rather Washington D.C.

“I don’t think most people in the U.K.have any idea where Chicago is,” said Rowan Bridge, a BBC Radio producer who last year spent six months based in Washington D.C. “Most people in England think the United States consists of three cities — New York, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles — because they’re the ones that run the media, they’re the ones where the celebrities hang out, they’re the ones where the politicians are.”

Rosenthal notes that Chicago has long worried about its image, and it has never been a top global tourist destination, but a recent drop in international visitors highlights the challenge even a colossus like Chicago faces in getting its word out in a competitive global economy.

Reading this, it once again strikes me that the old urban hierarchy is being reordered by globalization and the dramatic expansion of the US federal government, to the disadvantage of Chicago and other cities. This, I believe, helps account for its recent struggle.

Joel Kotkin has tirelessly documented the remorseless rise of Washington, DC, rain or shine, in a manner defiant of business cycles. Washington, once a sort of commercial backwater, is now becoming much more a national capital of the type other countries have had…

So we have New York entrenched as America’s first city, and Washington, DC increasingly its new “Second City.” Los Angeles, which seems to have never quite recovered from the early 90s defense draw down, and Chicago with its 2000s malaise, seem to be the victims of DC’s rise. Another loser is Boston, which has seen its status as a financial hub decline and whose Route 128 corridor of tech, having first lost out to Silicon Valley, now appears to be losing out to NYC.

One way you could take this argument: politics and the power and money involved has increased in importance in recent decades. Hence, Washington D.C. has grown in importance because more is dependent on what takes place there. Interestingly, the rankings I discussed yesterday assign the lowest weight to the government: 30% is business activity, 30% is human capital, 15% for information exchange, 15% for cultural experience, and 10% for political engagement.

If that quote from Rowan Bridge accurately represents how people view the United States, what could Chicago do to stand out moving forward? Historically, Chicago has been known for several things. It was a true American boom city (particularly coming out of the Chicago Fire – this is clearly not the case today after population loss during the 2000s). It was and still is a transportation center as air, rail, truck, and ship traffic merge in the middle of the country. It has been known for financial innovations, such as selling and trading commodities, as well as architectural innovation (such as the International Style). Others have suggested it is “the most American city.” It has also been known for less noble things such as gangsters, segregation, corruption, the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and more recently, budget deficits. Mayor Emanuel and other leaders have work to do to help Chicago tread water and maintain its place among global cities…

In new Global Cities Index, Chicago drops a spot to #7

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The 2012 Global Cities Index was released this week and Chicago dropped one spot to #7, swapping with Los Angeles:

In the rivalry between the world’s biggest cities, put another feather in the cap of New York. It bests London and Tokyo on a new Global Cities Index by A.T. Kearney and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

The ranking is based on five* key factors: business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement. It covers the 66 largest cities around the world.

Paris, Tokyo, and Hong Kong round out the top five. Los Angeles is 6th, Chicago 7th, Washington, D.C. 10th, Boston 15th, Toronto 16th, and San Francisco 17th.

This new list is consistent with a ranking of the World’s Most Economically Powerful Cities, with Tokyo, New York, London, Chicago and Paris in the top five spots, published last fall here on Cities. While the leading global cities remain stable, globalization is increasing the turbulence and churning faced by other large world cities, as the study notes…

Read the article and also look at the top 66 cities in a chart (which includes the 2010 and 2008 rankings) – there is quite a gap between the top cities and everyone else. Also, Saskia Sassen offers some interesting analysis of “urban vectors” including this bit: “Washington, New York, and Chicago. These cities are becoming more important geopolitically than the United States is as a country.”

I don’t think Chicago should be worried about dropping a spot – there has been some small movement in the top 10 in recent rankings. At the same time, there is always a chance that Chicagoans might read a lot into this in their interest in remaining relevant.

See the full AT Kearney report here.

 

“A region’s workforce is not defined by its immediate suburbs”

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The Chicago Tribune has a story about “super-commuters” who make the trip between Chicago and St. Louis. While the story seems more intent on putting a face on this growing phenomenon (although the numbers are still relatively low), there is a very interesting quote from a researcher about how we should view jobs and regional economies:

Regardless, said Mitchell Moss, the NYU professor who authored the study, the trend speaks to both the increased flexibility of modern-day workers — “the office” can be almost anyplace — and the challenges facing two-income families in a weak job market: Why uproot your family when your spouse can’t get a job in the new city?

The trend illustrates how the economies of places like St. Louis are increasingly hitched to their neighbors.

“It tells you that there is an inter-regional economic relationship, which is growing between places like St. Louis and Chicago,” Moss said. “A region’s workforce is not defined by its immediate suburbs.”

I’ve written several times about the need for more regional cooperation in the Chicago region between city and suburbs (see this post regarding Mayor Daley and this post about Mayor Emanuel). With limited cooperation, communities can end up fighting over corporations and jobs, whether tax money from a particular municipality should be spent elsewhere, and how best to address regional-level issues like transportation or affordable housing.

What exactly would it mean for Chicago and St. Louis to cooperate? One area could be transportation: I assume both Chicago and St. Louis were on-board for plans to construct a high-speed rail line between the cities. Environmental issues could be another area. For example, both cities rely on interconnected water sources and shipping so common issues could arise (but remember there is a regional fight about Asian carp). But what about business issues? Could they set aside their separate issues to encourage economic development that might benefit both cities? Are there really economic opportunities they could both benefit from in spite of the distance between them?

Three bold aspects of Emanuel’s $7 billion infrastructure plan for Chicago

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A proposal for a $7 billion infrastructure plan in Chicago during a tough financial time for many municipalities catches the attention of the New York Times:

“There is tremendous interest in doing something different — people aren’t waiting for the federal government to raise the gasoline tax or pass the carbon tax and have money raining down,” [Robert Puentes of the Brookings Institution] said. He cited successful campaigns in “can-do states” that include Colorado, Washington, Arizona and Virginia to finance economic development projects with public-private partnerships, and Los Angeles’ vote in support of a major transportation referendum in 2008…

In the speech, to be delivered at the Chicagoland Laborers’ Training and Apprentice Center, Mr. Emanuel will describe the financing for the sprawling plan. Some of it will come from the newly created Chicago Infrastructure Trust, an initiative announced this month by Mayor Emanuel and former President Bill Clinton, who has long had an interest in infrastructure and energy efficiency. The fund, a nonprofit corporation, pools outside investment and applies it to a wide range of possible projects.

Other funds will come from cost cutting, some from the savings in energy and water use from retrofitting buildings, and some from user fees, but “none of these funds will come from an increase in property or sales taxes,” according to the speech. A copy was provided to The New York Times through the mayor’s office. Depending on the project, some of the investment would be paid back through interest on loans, others through profit sharing.

Still, economic development efforts in the past have tended to disappoint, Mr. Puentes noted, because they tended to pay businesses to relocate or threw money into projects like stadiums. Some public-private partnership projects have been criticized as giveaways to the private businesses that take them over — including two prominent cases in Chicago itself, the privatized Chicago Skyway and the city’s parking meter system, which obligate the city to leases that span generations. Mr. Emanuel says that the city has learned an important lesson, and that “I am not leasing anything,” or selling off the city’s assets, he said in an interview. “I’m using private capital to improve a public entity that stays public.”

This sounds bold on several levels:

1. The high cost of the project. Chicago has some large budget issues (a projected deficit of $635 million for 2012) as do some other local taxing bodies like the Chicago Public Schools who have a projected $700 million shortfall for next year. The cost itself, however funded, will be a difficult sell to some.

2. Infrastructure itself can be difficult to sell to the public. However, this is a growing issue for many cities that are working with decades-old infrastructure yet wanting to be part of the 21st century. At some point, these problems will have to be fixed and a good case can be made that cities (and the country) should be more proactive rather than waiting for bigger issues to arise.

3. I think the key here is the idea of a public-private partnership to fund infrastructure. Can this truly work on a large scale? Will the public believe that they won’t end up being on the hook if the private funding doesn’t work out? Can the process be fairly transparent and not done in the shadows? This idea is a big part of Emanuel’s plans for Chicago; a recent plan for Chicago’s business future was heavily dependent on the World Business Chicago group. As I’ve suggested before, if Emanuel can leverage the business community in areas like successful infrastructure improvements, he will likely get a lot of accolades.

Mixing PhD work in sociology with photography of struggling cities

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I would think it could be a huge asset if you could match your graduate work in sociology with good photography of your research subject. Here is a PhD student in sociology who also does photography in struggling cities:

You don’t often come across a photographer who’s also a Ph.D student in sociology, but it makes sense when you look at David Schalliol’s work, especially his images of Detroit’s dilapidated housing and Chicago’s struggle to rebuild its housing projects, a series made in conjunction with the Chicago Housing Authority’s ongoing “Plan for Transformation.” The plan has been in effect since 2000 and Schalliol has been documenting the unending cycle of demolition, construction and reoccupation since 2003. Instead of reusing existing public housing projects, Chicago has been tearing everything down and starting fresh, which sounds good until you consider how wasteful and environmentally irresponsible that tear down/build up method of construction really is. You can see a selection of those images on his site or, for a more up-to-date steam, check out his Flckr, where you can also see photos from his other series…

This series seeks to address this discourse by acknowledging the city’s problems but then complicating them through close examination of the urban landscape. I approached the project as a sociologist and photographer who principally works on Chicago’s South and West Sides in order to use previous experience as a foil to the dominant discourse. My expectation was that an understanding of the discursive processes by which much of Chicago is oversimplified would help illuminate the even more misrepresented Motor City.

I’m glad these photographs are taken, if just for the fact that these images will be unknown to the younger generations and their vision of Chicago and/or Detroit could be quiet different.

I still wonder how much professional opportunity sociologists have for pairing scholarly writing with visual images (photos, documentaries, recordings). Many journals are very limited in this way though you might think with the easy access to the Internet, journals could include more interactive and on-the-ground elements or that sociologists themselves might make this work available with their writing. I know some documentaries are screened at ASA meetings but many of these are not made by sociologists plus these sessions are more diversionary than part of the core of the meetings. Without incentives for including such elements, many sociologists may not even think about it.