Is Neal Peirce ready for Chicago?
The nationally-syndicated urban affairs writer was in our city last week to give one of his thoughtful speeches on the crying need for greater city-suburban cooperation.
Ordinarily, journalists don’t cover speeches by other journalists, but Peirce long ago crossed the line that separates us commentators from the genuine experts. With the publication of his 1993 book “Citistates: How Urban America Can Succeed in a Competitive World,” Peirce established himself as a bona fide guru on the slippery subject of regionalism. His thesis: America’s urban regions, its “citistates,” had better move beyond city-suburban antagonism or watch more cooperative (and therefore, more efficient) foreign citistates gobble our economic lunch.
But the Washington-based Peirce does more than write books and magazine articles about the urban-suburban dynamic. He and a couple of researcher-sidekicks have formed a subsidiary called Citistates Inc. They regularly hire themselves out to civic organizations and/or metropolitan newspapers and proceed to produce something called “Peirce Report” on the subject metropolitan area. The Peirce team has been hired to analyze Phoenix, Seattle, Baltimore, Dallas and several other metros. They typically summarize their findings in a special supplement to the local daily newspaper.
To his credit, Peirce often reports things that the local chamber of commerce would rather not hear, much less pay for. “The streets of Dallas,” according to a recent effort, “have that neutron bomb look–buildings intact, the civilian population somehow vanished.”
More than a few civic types here in Chicago are hot to commission a Peirce Report on northeastern Illinois. Which is fine by me. Sometimes fresh eyes see more clearly than those fogged by the day-to-day struggle. But after listening to Peirce wow a Roosevelt University luncheon with tales of metropolitan cooperation from around the nation, I’m convinced my fellow city-watcher could use a tactical briefing before parachuting into Chicago.
What follows are some local advisories prompted by major points in his speech:
Peirce: Successful regions are streamlining, even reducing, layers of duplicative local government.
Local update: Illinois and the Chicago region have more local governments per capita than any other place in the nation, the legacy of long-ago state bonding limits that forced communities that wanted a new library or park to create seperate districts for the purpose. Perhaps having forgotten the history, the Illinois legislature recently enacted even stricter local bond caps throughout the Chicago area.
Peirce: The push for solving problems on a regional basis won’t come from government, but from coalitions of concerned citizens.
Local update: More citizen coalitions are being formed all the time in northeastern Illinois, such as the one to stop a subsidized housing project in Naperville and the one to get rid of a teenage foster home in Chicago’s Hegewisch neighborhood.
More Top Picks Best Fit Over Sunglasses For Seniors
Peirce: Construction of new high-capacity beltways on the urban fringe tends to sap inner cities while worsening, not relieving, suburban traffic congestion.
Local update: Illinois highway planners are working feverishly to complete the region’s second outer beltway (Interstate Highway 355/Illinois Highway 53 corridor through Will, DuPage and Lake Counties) and already are eyeing a third “Illinois Highway 47 corridor” in Kane and McHenry Counties through some of the midwest’s most productive corn and soybean fields.
Peirce: Successful regions work toward consensus and especially avoid the “toxic effect” of race-based politics.
Local update: Chicago’s two hottest news stories of late have revolved around a politically ambitious, white, Republican state’s attorney’s prosecution of a black Democratic congressman for questionable sex offenses, and his failure to prosecute a white policeman who shot and killed a homeless black man. Radio call-in lines are ablaze with charges of racism.
Peirce: Aware that a collapsed urban core would drag down the entire region, successful citistates are forging innovative cross-border alliances.
Local update: To prevent suburban Republicans from stripping money from O’Hare International Airport in order to fund their own airport in the south suburbs, city Democrats have forged an innovative, and purely defensive, alliance with Gary, Ind.
Peirce: There must be an awareness throughout the region that crime is “our” problem, not “their” problem.
Local update: A group of suburban legislators, including Gov. Jim Edgar’s former chief-of-staff, is trying to negate all local gun control laws and, as an anti-crime measure, legalize the carrying of concealed weapons by law-abiding citizens. Suburban real estate developers, meanwhile, are scrambling to keep up with demand for large homes in gated subdivisions with 24-hour security posts.
– – –
I honestly hope Citistates Inc. will be jumping into Chicago sometime soon to do a Peirce Report.
But please, Neil, don’t forget to wear your helmet.