Chicago: Model or Failure?

By Margaret Lyons in Miscellaneous on Jun 24, 2008 10:07PM

New Geography, a new site "devoted to analyzing and discussing the places where we live and work," is feature Chicago stories this week, and they're really interesting.

"Our focus on Chicago shows that this spirit of opportunistic boosterism has not been lost," according to one essay.

It is this more gilded, elegant Chicago – home of arguably the nation’s and even the world’s greatest collection of 20th Century high-rise structures – that foreshadows the current city. The success of Millennium Park, the powerful if now fading condo boom, the city's newfound celebratory culture (think Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama), its growth in fine restaurants, nightclubs and other entertainments has persuaded some observers like the University of Chicago's Terry Nichols Clark to declare that Chicago is indeed the model city of the future.

Well, not so fast. According to another essay, "By any traditional performance standards Chicago has failed."

Chicago’s political elite love to give speeches about the importance of public education, but not for their children. Mayor Daley sent his children to private schools. Deborah Lynch, the former head of the Chicago Teacher’s Union, sent her kids to private schools. America’s newest political superstar, Barack Obama, sends his kids to private schools. With the exodus of the rich from Chicago’s public schools, 69 percent of the children in the Chicago Public School system are poor.

The horrible public schools, high taxes, and crime have driven families out of Chicago. The city’s job base cannot compete with anti-union places like Houston and Phoenix.