Future of Chicago's parks under threat?

nomarandlee said:

Coming across this article there does seem to be an indisputable trend in the city of plans to take city parks and build civic structure or for use by private entities. From this proposal in Warren Park, the Latin school soccer field in Lincoln Park, Children's Museum in Grant Park, and permanent proposed Olympic venues for Douglas, Washington Park, and Northerly Island.

Is this just good use of municipal resources is it a horrible disregard for future generations and present ones. Does this city have enough park space to spare? Are we really as comparatively park deprived as critics say? Are more pocket parks the wave of the future?




John Kass commentary
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-kass-08-may08,0,6051120.column

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One of the most attractive aspects of Chicago is its relative abundance of city parks. I grew up a few blocks from Warren park when it was a private golf course.

Senior housing is important but building this type of center in a public park is inappropriate. The land needs to be reserved for public recreational use. There are plenty of other spots that could be used for senior citizens housing.

If they can build a senior citizens center there, the next thing to do would be to sell the parks to developers in order to pay down city debts or some such. Don't sell off Chicago's patrimony.

nuevo-chicago said:

Isn't Mayor Daley's nephew behind this?

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Isn't someone with clout behind every bad decision in the city? The city planners, transportation planners, and park planners all share the same goals that we do, but politics often allow the elected officials, who usually know little to nothing about how to plan and manage a city, to go against the planners' wishes.

That's why I feel torn on the Childrens' Museum issue: on the one hand, keeping Grant Park as free from obstruction as possible is extremely important. On the other hand, the precedent set by allowing Alderman Reilly's wishes to override the wishes of the central government (the mayor) would merely enforce the strength of "aldermanic privilege" and weaken the strength of the knowledgeable city planners who answer to Daley.

Also, look at the Latin School soccer field issue. Wealthy parents with clout in the administration of Latin School used their influence to broker a deal with the Park District, even though it's a poor decision for the rest of the community. Only after the community howled was a compromise reached that changed the character of the soccer field into a community amenity (no bleachers, scoreboard, or lights).

ardecila said:

That's why I feel torn on the Childrens' Museum issue: on the one hand, keeping Grant Park as free from obstruction as possible is extremely important. On the other hand, the precedent set by allowing Alderman Reilly's wishes to override the wishes of the central government (the mayor) would merely enforce the strength of "aldermanic privilege" and weaken the strength of the knowledgeable city planners who answer to Daley.
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Same exact feeling here. The one saving grace from the CCM getting its Grant Park location would be the alderman privilege which I feel is too dominant and needs to be realigned would get its much needed jolt.

However, that would result in another bad precedent for parks and Grant Park in general that I think is better not to toy around with. Even though I am not militant about not having the park being put there I just don't think we should start putting structures in parks when there are so many darn good locations in downtown and throughout the city that could go on highly visiable lots where venues would make a seemingly perfect match.

ardecila said:

That's why I feel torn on the Childrens' Museum issue: on the one hand, keeping Grant Park as free from obstruction as possible is extremely important. On the other hand, the precedent set by allowing Alderman Reilly's wishes to override the wishes of the central government (the mayor) would merely enforce the strength of "aldermanic privilege" and weaken the strength of the knowledgeable city planners who answer to Daley.

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Funny, it seems to me that the mayor is the one strong-arming the proposal through, with the alderman and the other interest groups playing the good governance role. I don't see how good planning has anything to do with it.

Abner said:

Funny, it seems to me that the mayor is the one strong-arming the proposal through, with the alderman and the other interest groups playing the good governance role. I don't see how good planning has anything to do with it.

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No, CCM's proposed location in Daley Bi does not demonstrate good planning. But aldermanic privilege often means that the efforts of city planners in directing and focusing new development are overridden for spurious reasons.

Daley doesn't really give two shits about whether some lot in Humboldt Park gets filled with a 1-story or a 6-story building (the nuts and bolts of planning); he hires the planners to do that work for him, and they by and large try to enact the mayor's vision for the city on a local level. Every time an alderman blocks or "modifies" an as-of-right development, or something approved by the Plan Commission, he/she is interfering with the fulfillment of the official plan for the city that is directly inspired by Daley's vision and articulated by the planners.

Now, the downtown wards (42nd, 2nd) are perhaps where the greatest amount of land-use control and proper planning are required. Brendan Reilly opposes the CCM proposal through his aldermanic privilege, and if the CCM is approved, then his privilege will be weakened and Daley's strength will be demonstrated once again. It's kinda like in a troop of animals; when the alpha male singles out and beats up a rogue subordinate male, he has demonstrated his dominance and made the other subordinates less likely to step out of line

I mean, I don't disagree that aldermen are generally useless at best and more often disruptive of good planning, but "good planning" does not and should not ultimately answer to mayoral fiat. The planners absolutely should not be answering to the mayor, they should be part of a bureaucratic system with its own institutionalized procedures. And mayoral fiat and aldermanic privilege are not opposed, they are in a sense mutually dependent and reinforcing. The aldermen recognize the mayor's domain and the mayor recognizes theirs in turn. All parties are fickle politicians with no interest in good planning. I don't see a mayoral loss here as having any kind of impact on planning in Chicago considering that it can only have some slight effect on the balance of power between two bad (in the sense of being politically driven) branches of government.

Now the Latin School controversy--that I can definitely see as a victory for good government because it actually pitted institutional due procedure against entrenched individual interests. Or if this were a case of spot downzoning or the like, then I would certainly agree with you.

ardecila said:

Every time an alderman blocks or "modifies" an as-of-right development, or something approved by the Plan Commission, he/she is interfering with the fulfillment of the official plan for the city that is directly inspired by Daley's vision and articulated by the planners.

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What "official plan" would that be? Chicago's last comprehensive plan was in 1966. Unlike virtually every other state, Illinois does not require zoning to conform to an adopted plan. Chicago barely has enough planning staff to review the PDs, much less do any actual urban design review or neighborhood planning.

The zoning reform was supposed to be accompanied by a zoning remap, but no one has any idea how you remap a city that has no comprehensive plan. The answer from the zoning department was "well, some of the aldermen have ideas about how they want their wards to be."