The Burnham Plan Centennial

By Randy Blankenhorn
1/12/09

As you may have seen, yesterday's Chicago Tribune Magazine cover feature is about "The Future of Chicago," 100 years after Daniel Burnham's 1909 Plan of Chicago.  For much of the region, this is probably their first notice that the Burnham Centennial year has arrived. 

The edition actually has several articles, starting with "Burnham's Gift," about the plan's ability to keep inspiring our region.  The story "Going Forward" addresses today's efforts to build on the Burnham legacy.  A significant portion of it deals with CMAP and our GO TO 2040 comprehensive regional planning campaign.  The Trib's Blair Kamin makes a number of worthwhile points, including the leadership role that CMAP can play to ensure that regional priorities are reflected in infrastructure investments -- including the anticipated federal economic recovery package that President-elect Obama and Congress have made their highest priority.

In "Three Visions," featuring interviews with several architecture and design specialists:  Elva Rubio of Bruce Mau Design, Philip Ehnquist of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, and Doug Farr of Farr Associates. 

In "A Legacy of Olympic Proportions," Chicago 2016 chairman and CEO Patrick Ryan talks about Burnham's relevance to the bid.

Other articles include a timeline of the Burnham plan, and links to some on-line resources about it.

Finally, there is a short video summarizing the special magazine edition.  The best place to find the video is at Kamin's The Skyline Blog. He had assistance in the project from Tribune staff writers Charles Leroux and Patrick T. Reardon. 

I hope you'll take time to read and view these materials -- they're an important part of the regional discussion about how to build a better future.

And congratulations to the Burnham Plan Centennial on their big media splash.

Lessons from Stockholm

by Randy Blankenhorn
6.30.08

I used to be one of those that said we can’t take a whole lot of stock in how other cities/regions address issues because it is so hard to compare them to Chicago.  But since I have come into this job, I have found that there is a lot that we can learn, even if we can’t implement things exactly the same way. 

I recently returned from a tour of housing, public transit and roadway pricing in Stockholm with people from the Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC), New York and San Francisco.  The first surprise was the express train from the airport to downtown.  It is a high-speed train that goes directly from the terminal to downtown with no intermediate stops.  It took twenty minutes and the ride was incredibly smooth.  One of the first questions we all asked ourselves was whether residents, businesspeople and tourists would spend the equivalent of about $35 to get from O’Hare to downtown in fifteen minutes.  It was a public/private partnership where the government helped with the construction and the private operator has the ability to charge the fee that they think will maximize ridership and profits.  To me, it appeared to be a success.

We toured a 5000-unit housing complex that is on the site where they had planned to put the Olympic village had they been successful in winning the 2012 summer games that will instead be held in London.  The first thing that struck me was the number of children and strollers walking through the common green space at 10:00 a.m.  When they designed the complex, they thought that there wouldn’t be many families, but there are so many that they have had to build an elementary and high school. 

The development uses 50-percent less energy than normal construction and had almost no construction waste.  There are a number of transit options in and adjacent to the development, where very few of the residents own cars.  All of the trash is collected through a vacuum system that goes underground to recycling or incineration plants.  Each unit, or group of units, has four receptacles for three kinds of recyclables and one for non-recyclables. 

For transportation issues, we toured their intelligent transportation center and were briefed on Stockholm’s congestion pricing program-- how they implemented it and the politics involved.  They certainly have had success in reducing the central city congestion and seem to have won over the residents regarding its value.  There are some elements that wouldn’t work in northeastern Illinois, but we need to keep thinking about the concept. 

Overall, Stockholm is a beautiful, old city that is growing fairly rapidly.  They walk and bike everywhere and 77 percent of their work trips are made by transit.  The school system in the City is considered superior to that in the suburbs which causes social issues as many, if not most, young families can’t afford to live in the City.  In some cases, it is hard to make direct comparisons to Chicago, as Stockholm is 800,000 people and the entire region is two million.  But all major metropolitan areas are facing similar problems, and we can always learn from the success and the failure of others.

Chicago 2016

by Randy Blankenhorn
6.9.08

With the announcement last week that Chicago was named one of four official Candidate Cities for the 2016 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, much of the talk centers around what it would mean for the City, the Region and the State. How can we use this opportunity not only to showcase metropolitan Chicago to the rest of the world as a great place to live, play and do business, but also how does this impact many of the strategies that we are proposing to enhance our status as a world-class region?

While there are certainly opportunities to look at our transportation system and how we will move upwards of a million people a day to the Olympic venues and related sites, there is a chance to accomplish much more. How can we create new development that attracts residents and businesses to the City's south side?  How can we create more recreational and open space opportunities for residents of the region? How can we leave a true legacy, which is part of the Olympic mission?

We can start by being bold. Let’s find new solutions to the challenges that we face as a region. Innovation is the watchword, and the Olympic Games offer us the perfect opportunity to think about issues differently. Throughout its history, metropolitan Chicago has had a number of seminal events that have defined its character, from famous fires to World’s Fairs, and each allowed us to create something new, special and unique. We need to take advantage of Chicago’s position as an Olympic Candidate City to let the region’s creative juices flow. The discussion must include a broad spectrum of residents who can help us plan for the future in a different way.

We need to come together as a City, Region and State to support this effort. The Olympics is an opportunity for us to have the courage to make real and lasting change. But it won’t happen unless we are all in it together, unless we all have a stake in a better future. It is easy to do things the same way that we have always done them -- in fact, sometimes that seems to be the reason that we do them (“because that’s how it’s always been”). But this is a new century where the winners will be able to anticipate and adapt to change. We need to embrace change and make sure that all of northeastern Illinois is a winner. The Olympics can help us do just that.

Finally, we need to quit whining about our challenges and start to face up to them. Metropolitan Chicago has the foundation in place to be one of the great regions in the world. But whether it is lack of funding for our infrastructure, the education of our children, or the quality of our environment, we need to act. John Kao in a recent session on innovation said that, “We already ‘get it’, now is the time to get it done”. I believe the Olympics are the springboard to do just that.

Innovation: The Difference Between Good and Great

by Randy Blankenhorn
5.27.08

 I have been to two separate meetings on innovation in the past week, and it has me thinking about what we mean by that term.  In the proposed vision for the region, CMAP identifies three cross-cutting issues:  sustainability, equity and innovation.  I find that part of our problem is that when we think about innovation, we mostly think of it in business and technology terms.  We tend to do the same with sustainability, thinking about it only from the environmental perspective. 

These three issues have to be examined much more broadly.  Just as the economic perspective is an important aspect of sustainability, CMAP must look at the role that innovation can play in all of our agency’s functional areas.  We have opportunities to look at innovative ways to address transportation, housing, environmental, education, and land use issues from a comprehensive and regional perspective. 

That is really the purpose of GO TO 2040.  Our region and agency have an opportunity to look beyond the ways that we have traditionally addressed quality-of-life issues.  We need to bring different ideas and different people to the table as we look at the future of Northeastern Illinois and the challenges that we face.  Because of its assets that have been built up over time, the region is positioned to be good, but good isn’t enough.  The difference between good and great is innovation, and shouldn’t “great” be the future of metropolitan Chicago?

One of the other conversations revolved around how to attract innovative people to northeastern Illinois.  We are looking for what one speaker called “hyphenated people.”  That is, people who look beyond the borders of their chosen field.  What innovative people are looking for is a good educational system, arts, entertainment, and communities that are real places.  In other words, the same things that we all want.  It is up to all of us in this GO TO 2040 comprehensive regional planning process to have the courage to be bold, to be innovative in finding solutions to our challenges.  And the question that was always at the back of my mind in these meetings was, “What happens if we don’t?”