Reviews

Planning Chicago's future

Chicago Metropolis 2020:
The Chicago Plan for the Twenty-First Century
By Elmer W. Johnson,
Foreword by Donald L. Miller
University of Chicago Press, 2001
192 pages, Cloth $40.00

Reviewed by Alan Blum

In 1909 the "master builder" Daniel Burnham and the Commercial Club issued an exciting urban plan that called for the beautification and spatial reorganization of Chicago. Burnham recognized that the "second city" had experienced unparalleled growth over the previous 80 years and he wanted to use urban planning to "bring order out of the chaos" that was Chicago. In his vision, Burnham embraced the Progressive era's civic optimism and warned that one should "Make no little plans." The result: his stunning vision included such developments as the widening of upper Michigan Avenue, setting aside land for parks and forests, and above all, the preservation of the city's lakefront.

Over the years the Burnham Plan has received much deserved praise for its efforts at beautification. But the one consistent critique of the Burnham Plan has been that it conspicuously ignored the city's extensive slums.

In the recent history other problems have drawn attention. Chicago has suffered under the burden of being one of—if not the—most racially segregated city in America. Next, with the rise of gated communities and McMansions, an economic divide increasingly separates Chicagoans. Finally, Chicago and its suburbs have experienced increasing problems with urban sprawl. Indeed, the former U.S. Ambassador George Kennan best summed up the shortcomings of sprawl when he pithily explained that suburban regions that surround cities have "the drawbacks of both city and country and the virtues of neither."

It is into this ongoing discussion that Elmer Johnson, a civic leader, thrust himself with his new book, Chicago Metropolis 2020. Johnson, with the support of the Commercial Club (now "one of the city's oldest civic organizations"), maintains that just as the 20^th century needed urban planning to replace chaos with order, so does the 21^st century. While the Burnham Plan emphasized beautification, however, Chicago Metropolis 2020 offers a much bolder vision for the future: it strives to make Chicagoland a more livable region as well as a more socially and racially integrated one.

Metropolis 2020 is guided by several abiding principles. First, the plan relies on a combination of the private sector, the public sector, and non-profit organizations. The plan eschews laissez fairism, because it recognizes that unbridled capitalism experiences excesses and the private sector alone could not have created such civic monuments as the beautiful lakefront and the museum campus. Likewise, it acknowledges the limitations of government solutions and the need for empowering urban residents.

Second, the plan focuses on regional planning— not simply urban planning. To that end, the plan covers not just Chicago or Chicago Cook County, but six counties (Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will), 3,749 square miles, 7.7 million people, and 4.1 million jobs. Moreover, while the plan tends to favor local government, it also notes the advantages of regional planning in areas such as transportation. In the same vein, the plan reports that local government (6 counties, 113 townships, 267 municipalities, 303 school districts and 587 special districts) have led to destructive competition.

Third, Metropolis 2020 trumpets the idea that equality is essential to a prosperous and livable region. On the one hand, "social and moral obligations" shape the plan as it aims to overcome a legacy of segregation. On the other, Johnson explains that these ideals are not just humane but practical responses, since enlightened self-interest creates more and better workers, as well as less crime and poverty.

Fourth, the plan maintains that a strong economic foundation is the basis for building social

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change. Therefore, Chicago has to remain a "capitalist powerhouse," and attempts at planning should tame, not shackle, the entrepreneurial spirit.

From these principles come a cornucopia of ambitious policy goals. For children, Metropolis 2020 emphasizes access to day care, excellent public education, and health care. To rationalize development and limit sprawl, traffic, and pollution, the plan calls for a state-of-the-art transportation system, "smart growth," and reform of the state and local tax systems. To overcome the legacy of failure at the Chicago Housing Authority and the "hyperconcentration of the minority poor," the plan argues for equitable housing policies and job training.

For all of its big ideas, Metropolis 2020 ultimately will be judged on the ability of its supporters to implement it. The plan is not binding, has no official status, and makes no claims of panaceas. However, a new organization founded by the Commercial Club in 1999, aptly named Chicago Metropolis 2020, will provide a bureaucratic backbone, facilitate conversations about the region's future, and help influence efforts to implement the new plan.

While Chicago Metropolis 2020 is an engaging book, it reads like a report. It emphasizes issues of policy and includes an abundance of statistics, computer-generated maps, as well as more jargon ("intermodal connections") and more abbreviations for different bureaucracies than one may care to remember (RCC, CATS, IDOT, CDCs, TIF, etc.). But overcoming those hurdles is part of the joy of such a book. Why? Because Johnson attempts to learn from past experience and presents future challenges, bringing readers to a compelling intersection where history meets science fiction.

Turning back to the 20tn century, Daniel Burnham's Plan made Chicago a better place, not just because of the efforts of Burnham and the Commercial Club, but because others shared that vision and acted on it. Now Elmer Johnson and the Commercial Club have authored a new vision for the 21st century—a Utopian vision for the Chicagoland area imbued with dreams of equality and a better daily quality of life for all. In the Foreword, the historian Donald Miller refers to this new plan as "an ingenious blend of idealism and pragmatism." Let's hope that others share this vision of Chicago Metropolis 2020 and help make it a reality in the 21st century.

Alan Bloom teaches at Valparaiso University and is currently writing a book on the history of homelessness in mid-nineteenth-century Chicago.

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