Tag Archives: Chicago

New proposal for “bus rapid transit system” for Chicago

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A new proposal calls for a “bus rapid transit system” in Chicago:

That’s one reason to like a new proposal by the Metropolitan Planning Council (pdf) that outlines a major bus rapid transit system for the city of Chicago. The system would be pretty expansive. Its 10 routes would wind through roughly 95 miles of windy city. It would link up to Chicago’s existing transit lines and thereby increase transit trips throughout the region by 3 percent, with as many as 7,000 daily drivers converting to public transportation…

More importantly, the proposed system would also be relatively inexpensive. Whereas light rail can often cost around $35 million a mile to build, bus rapid transit can be done for about $13 million, according to the council’s report. Still, modest as the plan is, it might not be modest enough. Currently Chicago has plans for only three fast bus lanes, with another three to come in the future — “BRT light,” as one official put it. A spokeswoman for the city’s transit authority told the Tribune the money for more lines just isn’t there:

“Given the funding constraints, our plan for three routes is an aggressive, reasonable and workable plan,” CTA spokeswoman Molly Sullivan said.

This looks like an interesting proposal, including the livability scores calculated for each bus route. If I had to sell someone on this, I would say that the proposal argues that these buses deliver light-rail like performance without the additional infrastructure costs. The proposed routes seem to be targeted at areas that are not easily served by the El, particularly along several key north-south corridors.

Several questions come to mind:

1. The proposal includes several small case studies of BRT (bus rapid transit) in action in cities like Portland, Johannesburg, and Las Vegas. Is it reasonable to ask that such proposals include city systems that were not terribly effective?

2. Could this find its way to the suburbs? Suburban buses always present difficulties due to limited service over a wide areas and consistent funding issues. But rapid buses that cover well-trafficked routes might be worth considering.

3. The funding issue is a big deal. Is the City of Chicago in any position to approve new mass transit considering its financial state? The proposal suggests this would be beneficial because it would encourage development, improve mass transit, and make the city more livable but would this also provide cost savings? It would be interesting to hear from a panel of experts as to whether Chicago “needs” light rail or BRT. In other words, is this a luxury or a necessity?

More on MLK in Chicago in 1966

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After reading about Mayor Richard J. Daley in American Pharaoh, I learned more about Martin Luther King, Jr.’s time in Chicago in 1966. His time in the city was short but very interesting. Here are the things that stuck out to me:

1. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had quite a debate about whether they should bring the Civil Rights Movement to Chicago or not. Several issues were at play: they had won legal battles in the South eliminating legal segregation but it was unclear whether they could win against informal (yet very established) segregation in the North. Also, Daley’s reputation was well-known. King decided to come to Chicago anyway over the arguments of others.

2. King based his movement out of the West Side of Chicago, living (though not all the time) in a tenement apartment in Lawndale. The West Side was a newer ghetto created when the population of the Black Belt became too large and other parts of the city were closed off to blacks. King set up there in part to avoid the black politicians who always supported Daley on the South Side. These politicians were willing to support Daley and the machine in return for being able to control their own wards. Thus, King was not fully supported by the black community when he operated in Chicago.

3. Daley played both sides successfully in 1966 and throughout his career. While Daley became known for supporting police brutality against anti-war protestors at the 1968 Democratic Convention, he tried to co-opt many of King’s efforts. Even though he came from an ethnic white neighborhood, he never fully came out and said blacks couldn’t move into such neighborhoods. At the same time, the city’s policies were aimed at avoiding this (particularly decisions about public housing). Daley controlled enough of the black vote on the South Side that he never had to support Civil Rights. Interestingly, his son gave a similar response to a question about segregation in Chicago earlier this year: he started talking about how Chicago is a city of neighborhoods and immigrants and they all move around and seek a better life.

4. King and his followers tried to reach out to Chicago’s gangs, not really a concern for the movement in the South, but this proved difficult. By this point, more gang members and others thought violence was a better response.

5. Daley met with King several times with a number of other interested parties present. These meetings didn’t go anywhere fast.

6. At a march in Marquette Park on August 5, 1966, King was struck by a rock in the head and knocked down. Others yelled, “Kill him, kill him” while “another heckler threw a knife at King.” After escaping the scene, King said, “I’ve been in many demonstrations all across the south, but I can say that I have never seen – even in Mississippi and Alabama – mobs as hostile and hate-filled as I’ve seen in Chicago…I think the people from Mississippi ought to come to Chicago to learn how to hate.” This is one of those stories (and there are many others) that should disabuse people of the notion that the North had racial harmony).

7. Jesse Jackson was involved in this process as he had been attending seminary.

8. The final summit between the city and the Chicago Freedom Movement began August 17, 1966. After the first day, both Daley and King were unhappy about the outcome. After Daley asked for and got a moratorium from a judge on marches in Chicago neighborhoods, the Freedom Movement marched outside the city and threatened to march on Cicero on August 28. After more negotiations, the final meeting was held on August 26 and both Daley and King claimed a victory with the final agreement.

9. Ultimately, King and the Chicago Freedom Movement saw little change in the actions of Daley and the city. From my own view, it appears like Daley was able to outlast King: he said just enough without really promising big changes. King, perhaps caught off guard by the differences between Chicago and the South, could only force Daley to negotiate (and marching in Cicero was the big lever King had – one can only imagine if a major march had occurred) but not to capitulate.

Fascinating reading.

Read my earlier post about this from MLK Day 2011 here.

Attracting legal talent to the Chicago suburbs

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Apparently Kane County wasn’t paying assistant state’s attorneys enough to keep them around until recently:

“This is a significant (economic) downturn historically, but at the same time we have to be aware the failure to pay a competitive wage will lead to our talented and experienced assistant state’s attorneys going to other counties. I want the best and brightest to work here in Kane County. That has a direct impact on public safety,” [Kane County State’s Attorney Joe] McMahon said.

It does seem that Kane County was out of sync with the rest of western Chciagoland:

McMahon said the current starting salary for a Kane County assistant state’s attorney is $40,000.

He is proposing to raise that to $53,000.

In surrounding counties, McMahon said, starting salaries are $51,600 in McHenry; $54,100 in DuPage; $53,700 in Lake; and $51,600 in Will.

Brian may have some additional insights on this, but it strikes me that most of this previous disparity in salaries could be explained by different costs of living in each county.  Still, if Kane wasn’t able to keep experienced prosecutors around, these proposed salary increases might be money well spent.

Using the Dave Matthews Caravan to help sell former US Steel Works site

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The Dave Matthews Band has a proven track record for selling albums and filling large stadiums but now they are being asked to do more: showcase the 600 acre former US Steel Works site in south Chicago.

Early next month, in the first real use of the enormous lakefront land parcel since the plant finally closed in 1992, tens of thousands more will walk through a different set of gates. Instead of lunchboxes, they’ll be clutching tickets to a three-day, multiband rock event, the second stop of the Dave Matthews Band Caravan. The worker who checks their ticket may well be a volunteer, paid not with wages but with a ticket to the show…

Having the show there, in open space roughly centered on 83rd Street, was a risky choice: Land needed clearing, logistics needed developing, transportation needed planning. But to Jerry Mickelson, the partner in Chicago-based music promoter Jam Productions who brought Matthews and the old mill grounds together, it was a risk worth taking…

Where there were once 160 buildings, the only structures left on the property — which covers the lakefront from 79th Street on the north to 87th Street on the south — are massive masonry retaining walls once used to hold raw materials and a former clock house now used by a development company to show off its plans to turn the area into a bustling urban jewel…

What McCaffery wants to do, detailed in drawings and videos in the company’s on-site showroom, is dramatic — creation rather than a mere makeover.

In his plan, malls will be built, lakefront parkland donated, the city’s largest marina constructed, entire neighborhoods erected on ground that used to produce the raw materials of construction. It’s a $4 billion, 30- or 40-year plan, carved up into separate phases.

It sounds like this concert idea is a stepping stone to a larger plan for this sizable parcel and the article suggests most people, including local politicians, are happy with these concert plans. It sounds like a reasonable idea: the site is being clean, the concertgoers will only be there for a few days, the influx of people will presumably provide some boost to nearby businesses, and all of this could show off the viability of the site for more permanent uses.

But I would have a few questions about the long-term proposal for the site:

1. How does this concert and the big plans for future uses fit with the existing area? I imagine traffic could be a concern to some people.

2. The large long-term plan is contingent on extending Lake Shore Drive – who will pay for that?

3. Is there a need in Chicago for such a large mixed-use site, particularly this far away from the city center? If it is built, will they come?

Regardless of what happens in the long-term, this is a unique music festival site in Chicago and we’ll see if the Dave Matthews Band can also help sell real estate development.

Chicago beats out competitors: not on list of America’s 10 Dirtiest Cities

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I heard a joke years back: Chicago may be corrupt but at least it’s clean while Philadelphia is both corrupt and dirty. On a new list of America’s dirtiest cities, Chicago isn’t in the top 10:

While such sentiments don’t appear in tourist brochures, that glorious grit has landed Baltimore in the Top 10 dirtiest cities, as chosen by Travel + Leisure readers in the annual America’s Favorite Cities survey. Of course, visitors gauge “dirty” in a variety of ways: litter, air pollution, even the taste of local tap water.

This year’s American State Litter Scorecard, published by advocacy group the American Society for Public Administration, put both Nevada and Louisiana in the bottom five—echoing the assessment of T+L readers who ranked Las Vegas and New Orleans among America’s dirtiest cities.

The top 10 dirtiest cities according to Travel + Leisure readers, starting with the dirtiest: New Orleans, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Memphis, New York City, Baltimore, Las Vegas, Miami, Atlanta, and Houston.

The top 10 dirtiest states according to the “2011 American State Litter Scorecard,” starting with the dirtiest: Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Alabama, Indiana, Georgia, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Montana. The best states: Washington, California, Iowa, Maine, and Connecticut. I like the conclusion on the slideshow: “Scorecard not definitive: Contributing inquiry into poorly probed matter.” Somebody should study the issue…

Having been to many of these places, I have always thought that Chicago’s tourist area, including the Loop and River North, was quite clean and attractive, as far as cities go.

Class I railroads converge in Chicago region

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Chicago continues to be a critical transportation hub in the United States. A recent short interview in Chicago said 70% of American rail traffic moves through the Chicago area and 6 of the Class I railroads in the United States run through the region. Here is a description of Class I railroads from the Department of the Interior:

There were 554 common carrier freight railroads operating in the United States in 2002, classified into five groups.

Class I railroads are those with operating revenue of at least $272 million in 2002. Class I carriers comprise only 1 percent of the number of U.S. freight railroads, but they account for 70 percent of the industry’s mileage operated, 89 percent of its employees, and 92 percent of its freight revenue. Class I carriers typically operate in many different states and concentrate largely (though not exclusively) on long-haul, high-density intercity traffic lanes. There are seven Class I railroads ranging in size from just over 3,000 to more than 33,000 miles operated and from 2,600 to more than 46,000 employees.

Here are the seven Class I carriers: “The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe (BNSD); CSX Transportation (CSX); Grand Trunk Corporation, which consists of the U.S. operations of Canadian National (CN), including the former Grand Trunk Western (GTW), Illinois Central (IC), and Wisconsin Central; Kansas City Southern (KCS); Norfolk Southern (NS); The former Soo Line (800) owned by Canadian Pacific (CP); Union Pacific (UP).”

Of course, this can lead to a number of issues:

1. The Chicago region has a large number of at-grade crossings and long freight trains are a nuisance for many drivers, particularly in denser areas.

2. This requires a lot of space to transfer cargo. In recent years, the newer intermodal facilities have moved further out from the city of Chicago with new facilities in Rochelle (west of DeKalk, south of Rockford) and the Joliet Arsenal.

3. Freight tracks closer to the city can be congested, delaying passenger trains.

The trick for the railroads (and others?) is to remind residents of the Chicago how important railroads are for transporting goods. In recent years, there has some more advertising about this, particularly touting the greener use of fuel compared to trucking. But more could be done within the region to provide evidence that Chicago continues to be important partly because of this traffic.

“Missionary work” selling new mixed-income neighborhoods in Chicago

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In the 1990s, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Chicago Housing Authority, and the City of Chicago developed plans to tear down the public housing high-rises in Chicago and replace them with new mixed-income neighborhoods that would include units for public housing residents as well as market-rate units. Recently, it has been difficult to sell some of these units and the neighborhoods:

“Every single Plan for Transformation (community) is in exactly the same predicament,” said Ziegenhagen, vice president of operations. “They’re looking at their pro forma and they’re looking at a huge loss. The lenders have been more willing to work things out with these developments because they invested in them knowing they were really community development, and we were all assaulted by the same economic development.”…

Even in the good times, Williams said, buyers in a development like Oakwood Shores, on the site of the former Ida B. Wells housing complex, had to be what he calls “trailblazers.”

Now, those trailblazers aren’t happy because the price cuts of 25 to 35 percent have negated their equity, while their property tax bills have increased. Newer buyers need to be trailblazers who are much better educated about just what it is they are buying into at a Plan for Transformation community, Williams said…

“If you believe in real estate, you just have to believe that you keep building a neighborhood. Otherwise, you’ll continue to have a decline in the values of the existing neighborhood. These transformation sites are hard work,” Williams said. “This is missionary work. I didn’t start out thinking this is missionary work, but that’s what I think I’m doing now.

Some of this is certainly due to a depressed housing market. However, this also sounds like it is part of the growing pains of these new mixed-income neighborhoods: even though the units might be on in desirable locations, particularly at the Cabrini-Green site, some homebuyers might be turned off by the idea of living near public housing residents or being part of a newly-formed neighborhood and having to be “trailblazers.”

It will be interesting to see down the road whether this is just a blip in the development of these neighborhoods which were supposed to be transformational or whether they hint at deeper issues that are exacerbated by this economic crisis. I assume time will help take away some of the stigma of these neighborhoods, particularly their historic connection to notorious public housing projects, but this will still be a process.

The view of Chicago from New York City

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Chicago still occasionally goes by the nickname of the “Second City,” even though the population of Los Angeles passed it years ago. But which city is the “First City” is in America has been clear for over a century. Recently, “The Urbanist” section of New York magazine focused on Chicago and at least one Chicago critic thought the review was even-handed. This reminded me of two historic links between the two cities:

1. A number of Chicago’s early prominent residents and boosters were transplanted New York residents.

2. New York annexed all the boroughs into the city in the 1890s so that it would keep a population lead over Chicago.

Today, is there really direct competition between the two cities? They both are global cities that rely heavily on finance and trading. Do big companies often choose between these two locations? If I had to quickly point out the biggest differences between the two regions today beyond the obvious (size, location), I might go with culture. New York City is an entertainment and celebrity center in a way that Chicago is not. New York City combines both commerce/industry with glamor while Chicago is hard-working, tough, and Midwestern (which some might consider the opposite of cosmopolitan).

The Chicago Tribune makes a case for land banks

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A number of Rust Belt American cities have lost population in recent decades, including Chicago in the 2000s. A number of strategies have been proposed for what municipalities should do with the buildings and land that is no longer occupied. The Chicago Tribune makes a case for one solution: land banks.

By putting unwanted properties under centralized, local control, land banks fight urban blight. Instead of becoming an eyesore, safety hazard or worse, an abandoned home can be turned into a side lot for another home, or combined with other properties for green space or eventual development.

Municipalities have powers to clean up or knock down unmaintained properties — Chicago is among the best at it. But land banks can make the process more open, efficient and cost-effective…

Done right, land banks can enable cities to clear away unwanted structures and debris, giving the sites around them new life. Over time, parcels can be pieced together for optimal use. In St. Louis, Indianapolis and elsewhere, land banks have shown promise in dealing with properties nobody wants — a number certain to soar with so many homeowners behind on their mortgages.

When people leave and don’t come back, cities need to reorganize. Recent census figures show Detroit and Cleveland at 100-year population lows and falling. They can’t afford to stand pat and hope that somebody — anybody? — moves back in. Chicago lost 200,000 people in the last decade. In Flint, eventually, entire blocks will be cleared, enabling the city to consolidate services, save money and boost efficiency.

The article suggests that realtors are opposed to this in Illinois and this is holding back the legislative process. I wonder who is for or against this idea among the broader spectrum of political, business, and community leaders. I imagine there might be some others who might wonder at the ability of the city to manage all of this land. In this era of budget deficits, would this be expensive in Chicago in the short term? Additionally, the Tribune uses the term “urban blight,” a concept that might remind people of programs after World War II that allowed cities to wipe out affordable and/or ethnic neighborhoods.

The editorial cites a land bank in one other city: Flint, Michigan. Is Chicago in such trouble that it needs to use the same strategies as other Rust Belt cities that tend to draw more attention for population loss and vacant/abandoned/foreclosed properties? The editorial suggests foreclosures are a big problem in Chicago but I haven’t seen data that suggests the city has been hit that hard by foreclosures compared to a number of other places.

Increasing numbers of blacks moving to the suburbs

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One of the important shifts revealed in the 2010 Census is the increasing number of minorities in the American suburbs (also see the thoughts of the 2010 Census director here). This is particularly true of blacks who have moved from the city to the suburbs and this raises some concerns about the future of the neighborhoods they are leaving behind:

Taylor’s decision to live outside Chicago makes him part of a shift tracked by the 2010 Census that surprised many demographers and urban planners: He is among hundreds of thousands of blacks who moved away from cities with long histories as centers of African-American life, including Chicago, Oakland, Washington, New Orleans and Detroit…

Chicago’s population fell by 200,418 from 2000 to 2010, and blacks accounted for almost 89% of that drop. Hispanics surpassed blacks as the city’s largest minority group. Meanwhile, Plainfield grew by 204% overall, and its black population soared by more than 2,000%, the fastest rate in the region…

The trend has broad policy implications: As blacks who can afford to live in the suburbs depart, will cities have enough resources to help the low-income blacks left behind? Will the demand for housing be strong enough to support the revitalization of traditionally black inner-city neighborhoods? How will black churches, businesses and cultural institutions be affected? Will traffic congestion worsen because blacks moving to the suburbs keep their jobs in the city?

Roderick Harrison, a sociologist at Howard University in Washington and a former chief of the racial statistics branch of the Census Bureau, says the changes reflect the improving economic status of some African Americans.

Traffic seems to be a lesser issue compared to some of these bigger questions. And these questions are not new: at least since the 1980s, commentators have been asking about what may happen to urban neighborhoods and institutions when middle-class Blacks leave for the suburbs.

We could also ask about how this might change the suburbs. Are we at the point as a society where suburban residents really just care about social class, i.e. being able to buy into the suburbs and maintain a middle-class lifestyle? Or will whites leave suburban neighborhoods when Blacks move in just as they did in urban neighborhoods in the 1950s and 1960s? I wrote earlier about how minorities were fitting into Schaumburg, a noted edge city outside of the Chicago, and a noted historian, Thomas Sugrue, suggested that the move of Blacks to the suburbs in the Detroit region may not be all that positive. I suspect there will be a lot of discussions in suburbs about these changes, often couched in terms of issues like affordable housing (see this example from the wealthy Chicago suburb of Winnetka), property values, and the quality of schools.

It is interesting to note that Plainfield is cited in this particular story: Joliet, Plainfield, Aurora, and the suburban region far southwest of Chicago is a booming area. And if you were curious about the African-American growth in Plainfield, it was 0.8% Black in 2000 (110 out of 13,038) and is roughly 6% Black in 2010 (out of 39,581).