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The New Chicago Way: Lessons from Other Big Cities
For all the wrong reasons, a national spotlight is shining on Chicago. The city has become known for its violence, police abuse, parent and teacher unrest, population decline, and mounting municipal and pension debt. The underlying problem, contend Ed Bachrach and Austin Berg, is that deliberative democracy is dead in the city. Chicago is home to the last strongman political system in urban America. The mayor holds all the power, and any perceived checks on mayoral control are often proven illusory. Rash decisions have resulted in poor outcomes. The outrageous consequences of unchecked power are evident in government failures in elections, schools, fiscal discipline, corruption, public support for private enterprise, policing, and more.
Rather than simply lament the situation, criticize specific leaders, or justify an ideology, Bachrach and Berg compare the decisions about Chicago’s governance and finances with choices made in fourteen other large U.S. cities. The problems that seem unique to Chicago have been encountered elsewhere, and Chicagoans, the authors posit, can learn from the successful solutions other cities have embraced.
Chicago government and its citizens must let go of the past to prepare for the future, argue Bachrach and Berg. A future filled with demographic, technological, and economic change requires a government capable of responding and adapting. Reforms can transform the city. The prescriptions for change provided in this book point toward a hopeful the New Chicago Way.
Rather than simply lament the situation, criticize specific leaders, or justify an ideology, Bachrach and Berg compare the decisions about Chicago’s governance and finances with choices made in fourteen other large U.S. cities. The problems that seem unique to Chicago have been encountered elsewhere, and Chicagoans, the authors posit, can learn from the successful solutions other cities have embraced.
Chicago government and its citizens must let go of the past to prepare for the future, argue Bachrach and Berg. A future filled with demographic, technological, and economic change requires a government capable of responding and adapting. Reforms can transform the city. The prescriptions for change provided in this book point toward a hopeful the New Chicago Way.
- GenresPolitics
288 pages, Paperback
Published January 16, 2019
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70 people want to read
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May 24, 2019
OUTSTANDING!
This is going to be long- but absolutely worth the read of my review/ reaction.
This compares the top 15 cities in population within the USA for their forms of operation and governance. And minutely within dozens and dozens (almost every page)of stats detail for the onus of their finances, accountability, fiscal and safety features- reality for states of use and conditions of infrastructure, as well. Charts, graphs, numeral listings- sometimes 2 to a page.
Chicago is third in size of population. Density features and other myriad factors are also charted and proportionally in several dozen graphs/ comparisons included to the mix of numbers in each of 100's of categories of operation.
This is a difficult read and yet should get 6 stars. The research and Notes to Pages of sources is immense- nearly 40 pages of them at the end. This and the geography book I reviewed last year- are the two 6 star reads on a 5 star scale. Because they measure reality, outcomes and do it in numbers and facts. They don't slant or ride partisan language or politico "feeling" waves of "correct" either. I don't think the Democratic Party itself was mentioned more than 2 or 3 times in these 250 pages.
There are too many straight out quotes that are 7 star level on a 5 star scale. Too many to list. Read this book. You need not be from IL or even have visited Chicago to have this be an enlightening and enthralling read. From Philadelphia, Dallas, or Indianapolis? You'd like this book. L.A. or Houston? Even more. NYC- you should read it too.
Because most of what you heard or read about Chicago is faulty and off. But not as off as its type and development of both its city and state governance forms that presently operate "lawfully". Or how it splits and layers government within older Mayor all powerful, city council inept surety that has been left behind in form of position by most American cities. And this Mayor-centric dynamic has literally made other possible demographic forms of governance used most everywhere else, like city charters and city manager positions (not all- not Indianapolis either) actually "against the law" to initiate. City charters themselves are precluded by Illinois law, for instance. Illinois has refused to alter governance forms in ways that could initiate democratic or republican election results to become reality, as well. (As would happen if the Electoral College was abolished nationally). They did it by making gerrymandering, district designations, and other alderman and precinct rules/ laws which actually disenfranchise about 80% of the population within the state when under maximum voting turnouts. Also making it possible for 40 or 50 year reigns of little chiefdoms and political appointments (not elected) possible. No Mike Madigan or Ed Burke or Dick Mel reigns could be possible under most other city governmental form systems.
But that's just the tip of the iceberg. That could all be fixed. Not possible right now with the current laws which make total structural governmental form change to a city charter or other divisional forms of city manager used successfully by other cities "unlawful". That's true. But primarily also because of who and what and how the money has been appropriated in the last 50 years both in the city and out of the city. It's probably not even financially capable of being enabled if changed now because of the debt and junk bond rating. Chicago has made private enterprise decisions of input with public monies for eons. Ones exactly like McCormick Place which have operated in the red. It's the biggest Convention Center in the country (Orlando is #2)and the latest expansion was done not even 4 or 5 years ago. Taxpayers are endlessly paying for unused hotel rooms, even at maximum C.C. usage. And each and every decision has been made in this realm for the worst outcomes possible for the resident taxpayer and resident business, not the tourist. Like the parking meter deal of just the last decade. This will put Chicago in the red times 10 for 99 more years. It was a loss of billions and billions of $$. Not millions. The chapter on how this was rushed through and all the minutia details of this "deal" are 7 star for the reading. The ignorance of this rush and reason are beyond my capacity of telling. Read some of these "decision" chapters, if nothing else.
Pensions being underfunded and squandered is the issue we hear about endlessly. It's not the primary one at all but just a symptom of what and who gets "raided" to pay systems that never profit to sustain themselves. Terrible, terrible ignorance about business decisions and general enterprise as it operates in business has reigned in Chicago and in IL for at least 60 plus years using public money for private investments. And the public is told that each new one will be the "answer". (Using public tax money for private enterprise entities that run for the next 50 years plus in the red is going on under MPEA endlessly- Navy Pier is another one in MPEA. Wintrust Arena is another MPEA. I could list about 4 or 5 more.) There are two new big tracts of high end resident communities just getting underway that will be just like this under MPEA. They operate on a "Bernie Sanders" idealism for taxing and use that is magic land and has nothing at all to do with how viability of actuary or accounting exists in practical application for sustainability of $$ investment. It is not how business in the real world operates. You can't fix anything if you are losing millions of dollars every year in operational costs. And as Chicago holds 20% of all the total jobs that exist within their own public sector (IL)- they also own a completely different pay and benefits scale than any business that actually succeeds in making a profit. One that is viable for any long term. That can afford what it produces. It isn't merely schools or police structures at fault at all either. (Schools per pupil costs are multiples spent over other "places".) How other cities have solved this problem is that they have people TRAINED and EDUCATED for business decisions in the roles of overseers to the "power" pullers. Chicago has nearly none at all.
And now beyond the huge resident expansions, it will be a Casino to pay for it all? Just like the Lotto did, huh! And the decades time 3 or 4 promise (I think I was a young Mom the first time) that the "temporary" toll road fees would be for educational costs and improvements secured and then shortly reversed. LOL!
We have a bridge on I-80 (crosses the Des Plaines River) that is ready to collapse near Joliet. The last inspection it has 8 out of 100 tested features/ measurements/ portions that "passed". Know that all of you driving across the country go over this road from the West to the East, and the East to the West (both directions) in masses and masses (trucks beyond belief to proportional numbers of cars, as well) every day. I don't and won't. Nobody I know will. We exit and drive through Joliet and get back on East or West of there. Big, visible make shift "braces" have been applied to it. It's a tragedy in the making as we watch. Not to speak of the state of the roads in the county of Cook itself! Pot holes can swallow your car- literally.
Just saying. It isn't about welfare or ghettos much at all (regardless that the giveaways of services/ goods there is not conducive to any consequential individual efforts for better)- it's about the forms of government used here and what that does to the power of the pivotal decisions made and who continually makes them. This is a long review. The book holds more material than I could ever begin to describe. Read it.
Read this book if you are at all interested in NYC, LA, Houston, San Antonio, and the other big 15 too. You'll be shocked at our taxing system here in comparison. So many are leaving RIGHT NOW or have left in the last year. Just this past week, I met a new neighbor in Michigan once again. They both got good jobs in Cassopolis (MI) moved from Orland Park (IL). About a 1/3rd of my village/ town, Tinley Park, is moving to St. John's Indiana. Every single day people are voting the only way they can, with their feet. IL is losing population every day. Chicago itself has lost 20% in the last decades. It's prime and supreme state of prosperity was in the 1950's. And I do remember it.
This book is priceless. See what socialism in practical forms produces when it operates for more than just a couple of decades. Here is a perfect example of how good will thinking become most of the practical applications for the crack that has produced a true and vast destitution in proportional service reality and lifestyle ghettos of dependency, as well. But NOT if you are of the 20% of the workforce who are government workers though. Because they are endlessly subsidized by the rest of us peons.
We pay for the Bean, Millennium Park (now biggest tourist attraction by numbers in the USA) and the most beautiful lake shore in the nation (it is, thank you Montgomery Ward)- and get nearly nothing of use to our well being for doing so. Not much at all. Most of us even pay double to have our kids be educated decently. (Private schools teach their kids to read and write-they do.) We never even own our own homes because the taxes are more than the mortgage plus taxes elsewhere. Cook, Will, Dupage Counties- all three this is true. Highest tax structure on numerous categories in the USA- all on multiple levels: city, county, state etc. levels beyond just the property and state income taxes too. High, high sales tax on food and everything else you can buy or name. This year begins an added $1000 a year tax on your electric car (registration for your own driver's license doubled a couple of years ago), if you own one! I'm not kidding. Soda pop to water to air to using a broken road - all "extras" that are toll or by use taxed by the piece extra. Another 25 cents a gallon gasoline tax was just initiated this month.
This is the book to read why and what it will take to change it from the atrocity it has become. And so business repulsive. It's easy to name dozens of the biggies that have left IL completely. (Some numbers are listed several times in the book too- for their various cases of why.) From the first chapter "Cutting the Mayor Down to Size" to the last of "Audacity of Hope?" It's priceless as a reference read, as well. And helped me understand that I and many others have been blaming the wrong directions and sometimes entities for quite some time. The entire forms of governmental levels and permissions in IL, and especially in the Chicago formation structures themselves-they need to be revoked and altered.
This is going to be long- but absolutely worth the read of my review/ reaction.
This compares the top 15 cities in population within the USA for their forms of operation and governance. And minutely within dozens and dozens (almost every page)of stats detail for the onus of their finances, accountability, fiscal and safety features- reality for states of use and conditions of infrastructure, as well. Charts, graphs, numeral listings- sometimes 2 to a page.
Chicago is third in size of population. Density features and other myriad factors are also charted and proportionally in several dozen graphs/ comparisons included to the mix of numbers in each of 100's of categories of operation.
This is a difficult read and yet should get 6 stars. The research and Notes to Pages of sources is immense- nearly 40 pages of them at the end. This and the geography book I reviewed last year- are the two 6 star reads on a 5 star scale. Because they measure reality, outcomes and do it in numbers and facts. They don't slant or ride partisan language or politico "feeling" waves of "correct" either. I don't think the Democratic Party itself was mentioned more than 2 or 3 times in these 250 pages.
There are too many straight out quotes that are 7 star level on a 5 star scale. Too many to list. Read this book. You need not be from IL or even have visited Chicago to have this be an enlightening and enthralling read. From Philadelphia, Dallas, or Indianapolis? You'd like this book. L.A. or Houston? Even more. NYC- you should read it too.
Because most of what you heard or read about Chicago is faulty and off. But not as off as its type and development of both its city and state governance forms that presently operate "lawfully". Or how it splits and layers government within older Mayor all powerful, city council inept surety that has been left behind in form of position by most American cities. And this Mayor-centric dynamic has literally made other possible demographic forms of governance used most everywhere else, like city charters and city manager positions (not all- not Indianapolis either) actually "against the law" to initiate. City charters themselves are precluded by Illinois law, for instance. Illinois has refused to alter governance forms in ways that could initiate democratic or republican election results to become reality, as well. (As would happen if the Electoral College was abolished nationally). They did it by making gerrymandering, district designations, and other alderman and precinct rules/ laws which actually disenfranchise about 80% of the population within the state when under maximum voting turnouts. Also making it possible for 40 or 50 year reigns of little chiefdoms and political appointments (not elected) possible. No Mike Madigan or Ed Burke or Dick Mel reigns could be possible under most other city governmental form systems.
But that's just the tip of the iceberg. That could all be fixed. Not possible right now with the current laws which make total structural governmental form change to a city charter or other divisional forms of city manager used successfully by other cities "unlawful". That's true. But primarily also because of who and what and how the money has been appropriated in the last 50 years both in the city and out of the city. It's probably not even financially capable of being enabled if changed now because of the debt and junk bond rating. Chicago has made private enterprise decisions of input with public monies for eons. Ones exactly like McCormick Place which have operated in the red. It's the biggest Convention Center in the country (Orlando is #2)and the latest expansion was done not even 4 or 5 years ago. Taxpayers are endlessly paying for unused hotel rooms, even at maximum C.C. usage. And each and every decision has been made in this realm for the worst outcomes possible for the resident taxpayer and resident business, not the tourist. Like the parking meter deal of just the last decade. This will put Chicago in the red times 10 for 99 more years. It was a loss of billions and billions of $$. Not millions. The chapter on how this was rushed through and all the minutia details of this "deal" are 7 star for the reading. The ignorance of this rush and reason are beyond my capacity of telling. Read some of these "decision" chapters, if nothing else.
Pensions being underfunded and squandered is the issue we hear about endlessly. It's not the primary one at all but just a symptom of what and who gets "raided" to pay systems that never profit to sustain themselves. Terrible, terrible ignorance about business decisions and general enterprise as it operates in business has reigned in Chicago and in IL for at least 60 plus years using public money for private investments. And the public is told that each new one will be the "answer". (Using public tax money for private enterprise entities that run for the next 50 years plus in the red is going on under MPEA endlessly- Navy Pier is another one in MPEA. Wintrust Arena is another MPEA. I could list about 4 or 5 more.) There are two new big tracts of high end resident communities just getting underway that will be just like this under MPEA. They operate on a "Bernie Sanders" idealism for taxing and use that is magic land and has nothing at all to do with how viability of actuary or accounting exists in practical application for sustainability of $$ investment. It is not how business in the real world operates. You can't fix anything if you are losing millions of dollars every year in operational costs. And as Chicago holds 20% of all the total jobs that exist within their own public sector (IL)- they also own a completely different pay and benefits scale than any business that actually succeeds in making a profit. One that is viable for any long term. That can afford what it produces. It isn't merely schools or police structures at fault at all either. (Schools per pupil costs are multiples spent over other "places".) How other cities have solved this problem is that they have people TRAINED and EDUCATED for business decisions in the roles of overseers to the "power" pullers. Chicago has nearly none at all.
And now beyond the huge resident expansions, it will be a Casino to pay for it all? Just like the Lotto did, huh! And the decades time 3 or 4 promise (I think I was a young Mom the first time) that the "temporary" toll road fees would be for educational costs and improvements secured and then shortly reversed. LOL!
We have a bridge on I-80 (crosses the Des Plaines River) that is ready to collapse near Joliet. The last inspection it has 8 out of 100 tested features/ measurements/ portions that "passed". Know that all of you driving across the country go over this road from the West to the East, and the East to the West (both directions) in masses and masses (trucks beyond belief to proportional numbers of cars, as well) every day. I don't and won't. Nobody I know will. We exit and drive through Joliet and get back on East or West of there. Big, visible make shift "braces" have been applied to it. It's a tragedy in the making as we watch. Not to speak of the state of the roads in the county of Cook itself! Pot holes can swallow your car- literally.
Just saying. It isn't about welfare or ghettos much at all (regardless that the giveaways of services/ goods there is not conducive to any consequential individual efforts for better)- it's about the forms of government used here and what that does to the power of the pivotal decisions made and who continually makes them. This is a long review. The book holds more material than I could ever begin to describe. Read it.
Read this book if you are at all interested in NYC, LA, Houston, San Antonio, and the other big 15 too. You'll be shocked at our taxing system here in comparison. So many are leaving RIGHT NOW or have left in the last year. Just this past week, I met a new neighbor in Michigan once again. They both got good jobs in Cassopolis (MI) moved from Orland Park (IL). About a 1/3rd of my village/ town, Tinley Park, is moving to St. John's Indiana. Every single day people are voting the only way they can, with their feet. IL is losing population every day. Chicago itself has lost 20% in the last decades. It's prime and supreme state of prosperity was in the 1950's. And I do remember it.
This book is priceless. See what socialism in practical forms produces when it operates for more than just a couple of decades. Here is a perfect example of how good will thinking become most of the practical applications for the crack that has produced a true and vast destitution in proportional service reality and lifestyle ghettos of dependency, as well. But NOT if you are of the 20% of the workforce who are government workers though. Because they are endlessly subsidized by the rest of us peons.
We pay for the Bean, Millennium Park (now biggest tourist attraction by numbers in the USA) and the most beautiful lake shore in the nation (it is, thank you Montgomery Ward)- and get nearly nothing of use to our well being for doing so. Not much at all. Most of us even pay double to have our kids be educated decently. (Private schools teach their kids to read and write-they do.) We never even own our own homes because the taxes are more than the mortgage plus taxes elsewhere. Cook, Will, Dupage Counties- all three this is true. Highest tax structure on numerous categories in the USA- all on multiple levels: city, county, state etc. levels beyond just the property and state income taxes too. High, high sales tax on food and everything else you can buy or name. This year begins an added $1000 a year tax on your electric car (registration for your own driver's license doubled a couple of years ago), if you own one! I'm not kidding. Soda pop to water to air to using a broken road - all "extras" that are toll or by use taxed by the piece extra. Another 25 cents a gallon gasoline tax was just initiated this month.
This is the book to read why and what it will take to change it from the atrocity it has become. And so business repulsive. It's easy to name dozens of the biggies that have left IL completely. (Some numbers are listed several times in the book too- for their various cases of why.) From the first chapter "Cutting the Mayor Down to Size" to the last of "Audacity of Hope?" It's priceless as a reference read, as well. And helped me understand that I and many others have been blaming the wrong directions and sometimes entities for quite some time. The entire forms of governmental levels and permissions in IL, and especially in the Chicago formation structures themselves-they need to be revoked and altered.
October 17, 2024
Really, really enjoyed this book. Loved how the authors presented the issue and provided context and possible solutions. They acknowledge when their solutions may be not traditional and they call attention to non-issues as compared to other large cities.
This read was bit dense at times as I felt I was reading one of my grad school case studies, but overall loved digging into some history and reading about the How & Why of the city.
This read was bit dense at times as I felt I was reading one of my grad school case studies, but overall loved digging into some history and reading about the How & Why of the city.
May 20, 2023
Great book. Definitely exposes the issues of Chicago and provides potential solutions by contrasting Chicago’s city governance structure with those of the top 15 cities in the US.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews