In today’s Chicago, buzzwords such as “equitable” and “engagement” are virtual necessities if you want to please City Hall. Sometimes they have worth; sometime they make no sense at all.
And even though downtown Chicago desperately needs a shot in the arm, woe betide you if you imply that it is more important than the “neighborhoods.”
Take, for example, the recent announcement by the city’s tourism agency, Choose Chicago, that it had created a new “Inclusive Tourism and Community Engagement department,” replete with a new vice president.
At first the reader might think that means ensuring that Chicago’s city marketing efforts are inclusive: engaging all visitor communities, for example, and not just selling the city to a bunch of rich business people. Fine idea. But when you drill down into the announcement, you see that it is actually about “ensuring that the impact and opportunities of Chicago’s tourism industry are shared equitably across all 77 neighborhoods.”
That is where the tourism agency takes leave of its senses. We’ll tell you how the impact and opportunities of Chicago’s tourism industry are best shared equitably across all 77 neighborhoods: through the creation of good tourist-dependent jobs gainfully employing residents of all 77 neighborhoods.
It is not achieved through the fiction that tourists visiting Chicago have equal interest in all 77 neighborhoods, the vast majority of which are not set up to receive them.
Nor should they be. People come because of the appeal of our downtown tourist district. They come to gawk at our singular skyline, to see The Bean (even some unwelcome guests), to ascend the Willis Tower, to shop on the Magnificent Mile (or at least they did before all of the city’s energy shifted elsewhere). They are attracted to big shows downtown, to our world-class opera and ballet companies, to our world-class art museums, to our architecture boat tours, to Navy Pier, to the lakefront, to Buckingham Fountain, to Millennium Park.
We could go on. The city is filled with these attractions, ideal for plane, bus, car and trainloads of tourists, the bigger spending the better for all 77 neighborhoods.
Yes, some tourists are going to be more adventurous and find their way out of downtown, especially on subsequent visits. Certainly, there are attractions beyond: The Green Mill in Uptown is popular with the French, Pullman attracts those interested in trains and social history, the Garfield Park Conservatory is spectacular and we’ve had a great time on the Bronzeville tours led by the fabulous Chicago historian Shermann “Dilla” Thomas, famed for his tagline, “Everything Dope Comes from Chicago.” All true.
But if we think that tourists, especially the first-timers we most need to reach, are coming to chill on Western Avenue or to see the joys of Edison Park (no offense), we’re kidding ourselves. The push for tourists has to be a push for the central city.
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Tourists in New York don’t go en masse to the Bronx and the Bronx is just fine with that. They go to Times Square, up the Empire State Building, you get the idea. Las Vegas never stops promoting its famed Strip, not its strip malls. It should not be a dirty word in Chicago to say downtown, especially when you are in the tourist business. It’s not just a neighborhood; it is the economic engine for the rest of them. And tourism is the fuel.
If international tourism were thriving, we might be more sympathetic to this new initiative, which we suspect mostly was designed for a small, politically-oriented audience as distinct from actual reality. But it’s not, even though United and American airlines have recently added new international flights from our great and vital airport. That’s where Choose should be placing its emphasis.
What bothered us the most here was the implication that tourists should be going where the city wants them to go. That’s backward. Tourists should go where they want to go and this financially strapped city should take note and use its resources accordingly. Our commercial district is struggling, as evidenced by falling property values. It needs tourists to shore it up.
That wasn’t the only eyebrow-raising recent communication from Choose. Friday, a release went out with the headline “Choose Chicago Invites World Cup Visitors to Kick Back in Chicago.”
The only problem there is that the nearest games will be in Kansas City and Toronto, each more than 500 miles away.
We’re all for wishful thinking and the ambitious ask, but we suspect most of the 5 million fans expected for the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be kicking back in the cities where they can see an actual soccer match.
This city made a serious mistake in letting that happen, when Chicago’s Soldier Field was the natural Midwest locus. Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel did a lot for Chicago tourism, including developing our magnificent Riverwalk, but he blew that one.
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which George Lucas wanted to be in Chicago, has just announced its opening for September in Los Angeles.
What a downtown celebration we would have having next fall if we had not blown that one too.
Just imagine all the tourists, choosing Chicago.
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