There was a time, not that long ago, when this newspaper regularly printed a kind of civic things-to-do list called “The Tribune’s platform for metropolitan Chicago.”
It was the time of Col. Robert R. McCormick, this newspaper’s legendary publisher, now remembered mostly for his eccentricities and, some say, megalomania.
But there was another, largely forgotten, side to “The Colonel.” It was that of civic dreamer and doer.
For many years, item No. 1 of his platform read as follows: Make Chicago the first city in the world.
How’s that for strategic goal-setting?
Other items now sound a bit dated, though paraphrased in today’s civic-speak they would call for cleaner air, restoration of logged-over forests and construction here of world-class airports, highways and public transit. And, of course, there was No. 7: “Build Chicago the best convention hall in America.”
That’s another thing about McCormick that people tend to forget. Even some here at the newspaper. The Colonel didn’t hate government. He used government. Bent it to his wishes. Frequently and effectively.
If McCormick saw something that needed doing but couldn’t do it by himself, he’d lean on the public sector as though it were the Tribune city desk.
Before taking over the newspaper he was, for two years, a reformist Chicago alderman. Later he got himself elected president of the old Sanitary District (after he determined the big Wilmette-to-Joliet drainage project wasn’t being pursued with sufficient scope and vigor.)
As for No. 7, it is not for nothing they call it McCormick Place. The Tribune kept crusading and eventually won creation of the city-state taxing authority that got it done, arguably at a regrettable location. Because of that vision, Chicago became, and remains, the nation’s pre-eminent convention city.
Newspapers don’t wear civic agendas on their sleeves anymore. And that’s just as well. Today’s readers want more objectivity. So we give it to them, though too often coated in an easy cynicism that doesn’t quite mask our own lack of understanding.
Yet there is a corner of every good paper–the editorial page–where management is allowed, even expected, to render considered opinions on current affairs. And across from that page, there is this page, the op-ed, where quality newspapers showcase opinions of every stripe … even ones the publisher may not agree with.
For several years now, the Tribune has let me work both sides of this street. As a member of its editorial board, I’ve written many of our “house” editorials on local affairs. As a weekly op-ed columnist, I’ve let fly my personal biases every Monday in this space. I am proud to report that, on bread-and-butter stuff–everything from public works to public housing–the publisher and I have been very much of one mind. But I am even prouder to report that, on subjects where we disagree–from school vouchers to minimum wage laws–the editors have printed my op-ed views without changing a word.
That is one sign of a great and open newspaper.
But all good things must come to an end, and today I leave the Tribune after 27 years on the metropolitan beat. It was a challenge to argue what ought to be done in Chicagoland. It will be a challenge, outside the press box, to help foster many of those same things in my new job with the Metropolitan Planning Council, a civic group with a 66-year tradition of service to the region.
These are heady times for Chicago and its suburbs. The city is being reborn as the downtown boom ripples across neighborhoods once given up for dead. And after a 20-year slump, when our industrial base bled away to the Sun Belt and beyond, the six counties are again adding jobs and population like the good old days.
But we’re also at a crossroad. Our highways and airports are choking on success. And though popular culture may have rediscovered the sociability and convenience of old-fashioned neighborhoods, our inertia-driven real estate machine keeps grinding out the same car-culture subdivisions it has been building since the ’50s (only now, with three- and four-car garages.)
Change is in the air, however.
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The region’s top business leaders, gathered as The Civic Committee of the Commercial Club, are asking the right questions. Do we really want to keep on sprawling past Aurora to DeKalb and beyond? And what’s to become of the older, have-not suburbs left behind in this land rush?
These are questions, and this is work, that no metropolitan region dare ignore. Not if it is to be, as The Colonel once dreamed, the First City in the world.
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