The New Chicago Way: Lessons from Other Big Cities by Edgar H. Bachrach (English

Description: The New Chicago Way by Edgar H. Bachrach, Austin Ray Berg Compares the decisions about Chicagos governance and finances with choices made in fourteen other large US 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. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description 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 Chicagos 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 future: The New Chicago Way. Author Biography Ed Bachrach is the retired CEO of Bachrach Clothing and the founder and president of the Center for Pension Integrity in Chicago. His op-eds have been published in the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, and Chicago Sun Times. Austin Berg, an award-winning writer, is the director of content strategy at the Illinois Policy Institute. He contributes opinion columns to the Illinois News Network and wrote the documentary film Madigan: Power. Privilege. Politics. Table of Contents Contents List of Tables and Figures Acknowledgments Preface: The Field Introduction: The Cost of One-Man Rule The City and Its Problems What This Book Is About The Chicago Way Chapter 1. Cutting the Mayor Down to Size A Bad Deal A Pattern, Not an Isolated Incident How the City Works: Strong Mayor, Weak City Council The Alderman and the Ward Too Many Aldermen Filling Vacancies Redistricting Hollow Committees and Committee Chairs Other Elected Offices What about Other Cities? New York Los Angeles Solving Problems: A Better Governance Structure for Chicago Chapter 2: Discouraging Democracy Chicago Municipal Elections Other Major Cities The Literature on Turnout Partisan Elections Encouraging Democracy in Chicago Chapter 3 . Governing the Schools and the City Chicagos School Problems The Immediacy and Imperative of Fiscal Improvement Other Cities and the Largest School Districts Scholarship on Mayoral Control of Public Schools What Should Chicago Do? Disruption Disaggregation The Urban School System of the Future A Homework Assignment for Chicago Public Schools Chapter 4. Chicagos Fiscal Ruin Chicagos Fiscal Problems: Seen and Unseen How City Finance Is Supposed to Work How Chicago Has Worked How Other Cities Work Institutional Safeguards Additional Measures The Problem of Legacy Costs Conclusion Chapter 5 . Pension Apocalypse Now, Not Later The Holiday Habit A Chicago Pension Snapshot How Are These Pensions Supposed to Work? How Have Pensions Worked in Chicago? The Unfairness of Pension Debt Solving the Pension Problem: Pain, Suffering, and Riddance Freezing and Discontinuing the Plans Alternative Pension Solutions Apocalypse Now Chapter 6. Overdue Oversight and the Reality of Corruption Corruption Capital? How Chicago Government Polices Itself What Other Cities Do New York City Los Angeles Houston Philadelphia Phoenix Recommendations Chapter 7. Public Support for Private Enterprise at the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority The Black Box by the Lake The Anatomy of the MPEA McCormick Place Navy Pier Hotels The Arena The Mayors Road What Do Other Cities Do? Orlando Las Vegas Atlanta ommonality What to Do Chapter 8. Policing in Chicago Crime, Public Safety, and Policing in Chicago What about Other Cities? New York Los Angeles Philadelphia Houston A Note on Dallas Settlements Chicagos Governance Structure and Public Safety Chapter 9. Creations of the State Th e Legal Foundation for City Law City Charters Two Choices for Illinois and Chicago Entities Not Subject to Home Rule Political Obstacles The Possibility of Change Chapter 10 . The Audacity of Hope? About This Book Again About Chicago About Government About Change The Audacity of Hope Appendixes A. Proposed Governance Changes, Policies, and Actions B. Survey of Governance Characteristics of the Fifteen Largest US Cities by Population C. Survey of the Fiscal History and Characteristics of the Fifteen Largest US Cities, Excluding Chicago Notes Bibliography Index Review "The book could easily be used as a college textbook on city management in a political science department. In one volume, the authors collect information and analysis about the key issues with which Chicago is grappling. It explains them simply and succinctly but comprehensively and in detail."--Jay Lehr, The Heartland Institute "This book is a thoughtful recitation of the problems of one of our greatest cities. If more intelligent, articulate citizens like Ed Bachrach and Austin Berg would take the time and make the effort to understand and publicize the fiscal realities, we would at least have a chance of finding real public support for solutions. This book is an urgent plea for change. It should be read."--Richard Ravitch, former lieutenant governor of New York "The New Chicago Way reveals how serious Chicagos government problems are and how they are related to each other. More important, it provides a comprehensive solution to those problems. It should be read by scholars, public interest groups, and the public."--Dick Simpson, author of The Good Fight: Life Lessons from a Chicago Progressive "Chicago is unusual among major American cities in not having a city charter to allow voters to shape and reshape their governance structures. This volume provides a good case for considering a home rule charter as a vehicle to consider a wide range of the best possible governance options. "--Dr. Raphael J. Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute at Cal State Los Angeles "The produce of exceptional scholarship in terms of research, organization and presentation, "The New Chicago Way: Lessons from Other Big Cities" is an extraordinary and seminal study that is as informed and informative as it is thoughtful and thought-provoking." --Carl Logan, Midwest Book Review Review Quote "This book is a thoughtful recitation of the problems of one of our greatest cities. If more intelligent, articulate citizens like Ed Bachrach and Austin Berg would take the time and make the effort to understand and publicize the fiscal realities, we would at least have a chance of finding real public support for solutions. This book is an urgent plea for change. It should be read."--Richard Ravitch, former lieutenant governor of New York " The New Chicago Way reveals how serious Chicagos government problems are and how they are related to each other. More important, it provides a comprehensive solution to those problems. It should be read by scholars, public interest groups, and the public."--Dick Simpson, author of The Good Fight: Life Lessons from a Chicago Progressive "Chicago is unusual among major American cities in not having a city charter to allow voters to shape and reshape their governance structures. This volume provides a good case for considering a home rule charter as a vehicle to consider a wide range of the best possible governance options. "--Dr. Raphael J. Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute at Cal State Los Angeles "The produce of exceptional scholarship in terms of research, organization and presentation, "The New Chicago Way: Lessons from Other Big Cities" is an extraordinary and seminal study that is as informed and informative as it is thoughtful and thought-provoking." --Carl Logan , Midwest Book Review Excerpt from Book PREFACE: THE FIELD "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."--Winston Churchill Mike Daffenberg awoke before sunrise. It was the morning of March 31, 2003. Daffenberg was an air traffic controller. Each weekday he drove to Chicago from his home in suburban DeKalb, arriving before the start of his 6:00 a.m. shift. This day was no different, it seemed. What Daffenberg did not know was that before he had his morning coffee, before he put on his uniform, before he even got out of bed, a politician had ordered the bulldozing of his place of work under the cover of darkness. Mayor Richard M. Daley had launched a clandestine attack on Meigs Field. Select city lawyers knew about the mayors plan to capture the Northerly Island airfield, as did Daleys chief of staff and two city officials. Left unaware were, to name only a few, all fifty city aldermen, the governor of Illinois, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security--and Daffenberg, of course. He learned of Daleys decision while driving to work. "I felt like I was laid off by the radio," he told the Chicago Tribune A lone camera, stationed just north of the Northerly Island airfield at the Adler Planetarium, would have captured a live feed of the Meigs assault. But a city fire truck trained a spotlight on the lens, blinding the public eye, at the very start of the operation. Backhoes carved six menacing "X-shaped" ditches into the runway. Sixteen planes sat stranded at the airport, which had seen 32,000 flights the year before. Little Meigs was the most famous single-runway airport in the world. In early versions of the popular Microsoft video game Flight Simulator, Meigs Field was the pilots default starting point. The views were iconic. But Meigs was not just a pretty place. Writing for the Chicago Tribune , John McCarron described it as an "economic jewel." Meigs filled a niche demand among business travelers looking for easy access to Chicagos central business district. Daley justified the raid as a matter of national security. Meigs, he said, had become a potential launching pad for terrorist attacks. The nations top domestic security official at the time did not echo Daleys concerns. When repeatedly questioned by reporters in April 2003 as to whether Daleys closure made Chicagoans safer, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge refused to say yes. "Im disappointed they closed it," Ridge said. He confirmed that Daley did not give him any advance notice of the closure. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, which boasted nearly 400,000 members at the time, also dismissed the mayors reasoning. "Aircraft utilizing Meigs Field pose no threat to the greater Chicagoland area, and certainly no greater threat than aircraft in transit to and from OHare and Midway," the association stated in a 2003 lawsuit challenging Daleys attack. The public wasnt buying it either. A June 2003 poll conducted by the Chicago Tribune revealed 65 percent of Chicagoland voters disapproved of Daleys raid on Meigs. A resounding 70 percent disagreed that the airfield, when operating, had heightened the likelihood of a terrorist attack. It appears that the first time Daley publicly voiced safety concerns regarding Meigs was after his raid. But over the course of his mayoral tenure, he frequently stated his desire that Northerly Island be transformed into a city park. Today, it is. Neither the Daley administration nor the City of Chicago incurred any punishment for the actions at Meigs, save for a small fine levied by the Federal Aviation Administration for failure to give adequate notice of the closure. Members of the city council took no legislative action. The Park District, headed by a Daley appointee, complied with the mayors orders. And city lawyers disposed of lawsuits against the administration in short order. Judges had lifted all potential legal barriers by the end of May, and demolition was under way by summer. Pacific Construction Services, which counted former Daley aide and former Park District COO David Tkac in its ranks, won the $1.13 million contract to put Meigs out of its misery. The mayors decimation of the airfield is not difficult to criticize. After all, Meigs was a world-renowned landmark; it served a respected role in air transportation and brought jobs to Chicagoans. But none of these particulars should be the primary concern to a critical eye. Instead, the raid on Meigs is appalling for what it reveals about how Chicago government operates. A rubber-stamp city council, a lapdog board appointed by the mayor, hurried decisions, clout-heavy contracts, lack of fiscal considerations, secrecy, centralization, and destruction. These are hallmarks of Chicago governance. This is the Chicago Way, and it was on display at Meigs in 2003. Much more than merely fodder for headlines, the Meigs raid represents a microcosm of the political culture that has brought Chicago to its knees. Discerning citizens now see its influence in the schools, in city ledger lines, in elections, in mini-fiefdoms controlled by local aldermen, and in the harrowing, grainy footage of young men gunned down by police. Meigs lays bare the perverted political process in Chicago, one fueled by dangerous decision making built on the will of a single person. Indeed, the Windy City is a modern metropolis of millions functioning with a government built for one-man rule. Deliberative democracy is dead here. Chicago is home, rather, to a form of government that resembles strongman authoritarian regimes that persist in far corners of the world. The mayor is the strongman; any perceived checks on mayoral power were proven illusory on that night in 2003. And they remain illusory. More than 2.6 million Chicagoans live under this broken structure of governance and the political pathologies that arise from it. It seems at times that the whole city is Meigs Field--a property upon which the mayor can impose his or her will at any time, for any reason, with little resistance. Chicagoans stumbled upon that truth in 2003. Details ISBN0809337517 Author Austin Ray Berg Pages 272 Publisher Southern Illinois University Press Year 2019 ISBN-10 0809337517 ISBN-13 9780809337514 Format Paperback Imprint Southern Illinois University Press Subtitle Lessons from Other Big Cities Place of Publication Carbondale Country of Publication United States DEWEY 320.60977311 Short Title The New Chicago Way Language English AU Release Date 2019-01-16 NZ Release Date 2019-01-16 UK Release Date 2019-01-16 Illustrations 5 illustrations Publication Date 2019-01-30 Audience Professional & Vocational US Release Date 2019-01-30 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. 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