Chicago 21

Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood . . . Make big plans, aim high in hope and work.

--Planner Daniel Burnham

Chicago has always heeded those words. Burnham's own grandiose plan to reshape the city in 1909 stirred men enough, for example, to create urban parks along Lake Michigan's shoreline and a system of neighborhood forest preserves. A plan in 1958 touched off a coordinated $5 billion building boom in the central business core. That led, in 1966, to another downtown plan--and more high hopes and work. Result: Chicago's Loop is among the healthiest downtowns in the U.S. At a time when corporations are fleeing other cities for the suburbs, big Chicago firms are not.

Even so, the old strategy of preserving and strengthening its economic heart cannot alone save a city. Help is needed from full-time residents who use the city and care for it--especially the middle class. Since 1958, central Chicago has lost 21,000 inhabitants to the suburbs. The situation clearly called for a new kind of ambitious plan. It has now been unveiled. Named "Chicago 21" (because it prepares Chicago for the 21st century), the plan essentially aims to make the central city so enticing that the middle classes will choose to resettle there. That means improving central Chicago's housing, school system and transportation network--all at once. In short, the plan directly confronts the question of whether old cities really can be made more livable.

Part of the answer lies with money--lots of it. The plan calls for spending at least $1 billion a year for 15 years. But the chances of action are excellent. For one thing, the plan was prepared (by the architectural and planning firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill) for the Central Area Committee, a group of businessmen that a local newspaper calls "Chicago's power elite."* For another, it has the blessing of Chicago's strongman, Mayor Richard Daley, who wants to leave office with the city firmly pointed toward a prosperous future.

New Town. Chicago 21 starts by taking advantage of the huge but little-used railway yards around the downtown Loop area. This prime land is available for new projects with an absolute minimum of demolition, relocation of people or land-assembly problems. Indeed, the air rights over 83 acres of railyards between the Loop and Lake Michigan are already being developed. There, the Illinois Center Corp. is building $1.5 billion worth of offices, apartments and parking garages and hotels. Important as an extension of the business district, the project also upgrades the city with good architecture (buildings by Mies van der Rohe) and good urban design (pedestrian malls, plazas). It uses two levels of underground streets to separate trucks and autos from pedestrians, who will have the normal street level largely for themselves.

The most dramatic part of Chicago 21--really the key element in its challenge to the suburbs--goes even farther. It is an immense "new town intown" designed for 120,000 residents. Located on 600 acres of abandoned railyards between the Loop and the Chicago River, the town will be complete with shops, recreational facilities and, most important, good schools. The planners see another potential asset in the river, which, with a cleanup, can be made as attractive as the lakefront.

The South Loop new town itself promises to be handsome and efficient. It will rise in phases, each consisting of a "superblock" of up to 16 acres and containing as many as 3,000 dwelling units. The buildings may be terrace apartments, set in a step-back arrangement so that the roof of one apartment forms the terrace of the one above. To get residents to work or to shops, a subway line will run under the town, with another transit system (moving sidewalks or gondola cars) connecting the second floor of all the buildings.

The Chicago 21 plan also provides for massive improvements in existing low-income communities. The planners urge an end to public housing, feeling that home ownership is vital to city health. Beyond that, parks and new housing will be added to the mainly Latin American Pilsen neighborhood, and Chinatown will be reoriented toward the Chicago River. For the rundown Cabrini Green area they recommend new housing, job training centers and mass transit to allow residents to travel to work without having to own a car.

In fact, the entire plan emphatically downplays the automobile. It includes no new superhighways or highway interchanges. "Nothing destroys the community fabric, the neighborhood focus, more than highways," says Harold Jensen of Illinois Center Corp. Instead, a feeder subway line will be built, plus new parking lots at terminal points of mass transit lines. Traffic consultant Bob Maxman of Alan Vorhees & Associates explains: "We tried to give the city not to cars but back to the people."

The next step is for Chicago's people to respond to the plan in public hearings. Then the planners recommend that a limited-dividend company with public and private ownership be set up to hold land, coordinate the projects and raise most of the seed money--all tasks beyond the scope of ordinary developers. Initial funds could come from the sale of special revenue bonds. Later, income from completed projects could be used to underwrite more improvements elsewhere in the city.

The real test, of course, is whether a rebuilt Chicago can lure suburbanites back into town. Real Estate Tycoon James C. Downs Jr., head of the Central Area Committee, is optimistic: "We are shifting to an adult urban society. The birth rate is down, and people are not going to find it very attractive any more to make the commute from the suburbs every day. We've also passed the threshold in the integration battle." Mayor Daley clearly agrees. At the official release of the plan, he proudly called it "one of the great acts in the renaissance of the city."

* The committee includes top executives of Sears, Roebuck, Standard Oil of Indiana, Marshall Field &Co., the First National Bank of Chicago, Illinois Bell and other key corporations.

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