Odyssey

As does the city but it's kind of like the will look at the grim situation for new Ph.D. seeking jobs in academia on the next TALK OF THE DAY from NPR News. Listen more talk of the nation weekdays at 1 o'clock on WBEZ Chicago. Daniel Burnham gave us his plan for nearly 90 years ago. Is it time for another. I'm Gretchen Helfer Atlanta they own Odyssey We'll talk about Chicago Metropolis 2020 an ambitious comprehensive plan for growth and development in our region of

the 21st century. It addresses everything from the environment to education to a third airport getting it implemented would be a Herculean task. But would it be wise planning for the future today Odyssey. Next after the news from NPR here on WBEZ Chicago. Exxon and Mobil have announced a 77 billion dollar merger. The combined oil and gas companies will surpass General Motors to become the world's largest corporation. From member station WNYC in New York Corey Pitkin reports. The richest merger in history is expected to reshape the global oil industry during a time when oil prices are at a 12 year low. By merging Exxon and Mobil expect to save two point eight billion dollars. The companies have not announced any job cuts industry experts estimate as many as 20000 layoffs last year Mobil and Exxon combined gasoline sales represented 20 percent of the U.S. market which may concern the Federal Trade Commission. Analysts say federal regulators will try to reduce the company's concentration of gas stations in the northeast.

In addition the companies may have to sell stations and refineries on the West Coast and in the southwest. Wall Street analysts predict it could take as many as nine months for the companies to close the deal. For NPR News I'm Craig Pitt in New York. On Capitol Hill the House Judiciary Committee is again hearing impeachment testimony today members are listening to two women who were punished for lying about sex in a civil suit. Legal experts and military officials are also testifying about perjury. The Judiciary Committee plans to vote on articles of impeachment against the president next week. Such articles would then go to the full House for debate and vote. Three filmmakers stranded in the Arctic have been rescued. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports. A Russian helicopter swooped down through a blizzard to rescue a three man TV crew early today taking them from the remote Wrangel Island to the northeastern Russian port town of pivot. Three men a Russian Japanese and Australian rushed to the nearest restaurant to have their first healthy meal in weeks. The three had been working on a

documentary film about polar bears. They said they were ready to leave in mid October when suddenly the weather changed. They were stranded in a small wooden home with dwindling food supplies and only some heat provided by diesel fuel. But it was not entirely desperate. They did have a satellite phone and access to the Internet. There were Russian wildlife expert who was part of the team says they also managed to shoot many extra rolls of film. Michele Kelemen NPR News Moscow. Secretary of State Madeline Albright opened an international conference today on the status of art and assets looted by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Albright said that the goal of the conference must be justice and how to gain restitution of the stolen property and money. The conference is being sponsored by the State Department on the Holocaust Museum in Washington. Representatives for more than 40 countries are attending. On Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 34 points at nine hundred eighty one in heavy trading of three hundred fifty nine million shares. The Nasdaq is up four points at nine thousand fifty four. This is

NPR. In NPR's business update a federal judge in Chicago has thrown out a lawsuit brought against several major U.S. drug makers that suggested a conspiracy to fix drug prices. Defendants in the case included big companies such as Johnson and Johnson and Forest Laboratories a class action lawsuit allege that people were denied price discounts over a seven year period. Another down session on U.S. financial markets at least so far today at one point the Dow was off more than 100 points. The blue chip stocks are off their earlier lows. NPR's Jack Speer reports. Day two of the latest Wall Street downturn once again fears that dominated the stock market earlier this year seem to have returned to some extent. While many market analysts say those fears were overblown the same argument could be made for the market's recent run ups at a time the overall global economy remains fairly weak. There are mixed signals in the two latest reports on the economy out today the National Association of Purchasing Management says its index for November declined as companies placed fewer orders. The dip in the index the six straight was viewed as the latest sign the economy

is slowing at the same time though a private research group said its index of future economic activity suggest some possible improvement. The Conference Board says its index of leading economic indicators rose one tenth of a percent. The ele II is designed to predict how the economy will perform six to nine months down the road. Jack Speer NPR News Washington. Another corporate Japanese firm has fallen victim to Asia's financial downturn. Medium sized JVC Corporation a construction company has sought bankruptcy protection from creditors has debts of three point three billion dollars. It's Japan's second biggest failure in the construction industry. An official with the Japanese economic planning agency says that other failures are expected in the future. Chad program NPR News Washington. Support for NPR comes from Borders Books and music a place to satisfy existing curiosities and discover new ones. Location information at 800 6 4 4 7 7 3 3. Morning and welcome to Odyssey and easy Chicago ninety one point five FM.

I'm Gretchen health. Way back at the beginning of this century the Commercial Club of Chicago worked with Architect Daniel Burnham to create a plan for Chicago's future. The Burnham plan which gave us a public lake front and Wacker Drive is a vision of the city that continues to guide planners and policy makers even today. The Corso club has done it again with a new report called Chicago Metropolis 2020 a vision of growth and development for the entire metropolitan region for the first decades of the 21st century. Today in the program we're going to hear about the plan. Joining us for this conversation by phone Elmer Johnson who's author of the report and director of the metropolis project. Also Dia Meyer who is chief of staff of the metropolis project and vice president of the Civic Committee at the Chicago Commercial Club. And Edwin Mills who is professor emeritus of real estate in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University Good morning to all of you thanks for joining me today. Good morning. Mr. Johnson let me begin by asking you why you thought Why you and the folks at the Commercial Club thought that a plan like this was appropriate at this particular time.

Well you're about to burn you'll burn it certainly was our inspiration for this trip. Circumstances at his time in framing the challenges that had to be met so we too felt that after 19 years the challenges were much different from those of Burnham's time and we should identify those challenges look at our circumstances and then frame the strategies that position Chicago and the reach of the whole region for the 21st century to make it economically vibrant and to improve the conditions of living for every resident. What are the circumstances that you're talking about I mean what sort of forces are you looking at that are that need to be. I don't know wrangled are managed in the Congo for example the emergence of a global economy the increasing premium that is being placed on high skilled labor in the ability of capital the ability of managerial talent out place operations to other countries as well as other parts of our own country where labor can be secured more cheaply or at a

high quality level. These are things that put us on our toes. It competes against religion. This is this was not the case in Burns time. That's one aspect and I'd say the other big aspect is what I call the dispersed of the Segregated metropolis in Burnham's Times Chicago probably accounted for 80 or 90 percent of the entire region's population. Today accounts for about 35 36 percent and about the same number of jobs. We have 270 municipalities. We grow much faster in territorial areas than we do in population. I call it the dispersed and stratified metropolis we have the hyper concentration the poor as we've never had in the nation's history our metropolis is not alone. So I'd say those are the two big big changes. Ron what's happening in the international economic order and the implications for Chicago the Chicago region and the other is the spatial transformation of the metropolis over the last 40 years.

Identify three groups of problems that the whole of you have a whole array of solutions but they're targeted in an interconnected way three groups of problems can you identify what those problems are for us. Well we classified the first set of problems under the rubric of investing. People where we look at public education childcare workforce development and the health of children because of the close link between their health and their educate billeting. The second broad area is in transportation and land use and environment and housing. The thing to be so interconnected that it was hard to deal with one without the other. And so we talk about how people move around in the region. We talk about the big problems in this area and for example the geographic mismatch between housing and jobs right to people commute so far between housing and jobs why can't they have housing there jobs. Ryan the poor. Concentrated in

such a tiny portion of the area that it almost seems as if we've created the perfect conditions for the spread of every social pathology known to man. These are these problems and the transportation inequities and the imbalance between public transportation and that private vehicle. What I should mention that the third big area was taxation and governance because we saw none of the ideas we had in these other areas could be implemented without substantial changes in our governance and our tax rate. Well that's what I wanted to ask you about next night is what you broadly speaking what are the major levers that you see are the major tools that this plan would implement in order to shape the way the region grows and develops in the next 20 years. Well there is nothing more important than our recommendations concerning investment people. When you think that most of the workforce will come from minority groups if we

don't take their education the education of their children seriously then we have not done very well by increasing human productivity in this region. And therefore the economic region suffers. So and our workforce development programs our ability to form partnerships between business labor community colleges and so on are going to be more and more essential. So that's that's one area that is very important now when you get into public education you cannot think about it very long without looking at the property tax disparities. The fact that some school districts are property rich others of property poor. And you take the top 10 percent of the school districts versus the top bottom 10 percent in the state and the ratio is about 13 to 1 in terms of property tax base per resident. So we come up with a tax funding recommendations to to provide that would lead to much more equitable access to educational opportunities.

We're talking with Elmer Johnson who is author of the report Chicago Metropolis 20 20 20 20 which is a report of the Commercial Club of Chicago. We're also joined in the studio by DIA Meyer who is chief of staff of the metropolis project and vice president of the Civic Committee of the Chicago Commercial Club and Edwin Mills a professor emeritus of real estate in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Let me turn to you at this point what what is the Commercial Club have a role to play in this process why this particular group of people or why a group like this why should these people be playing a role. I think and certainly would like to join in on this but I think one of the AM Porton reasons the Commercial Club did the metropolis project is their commitment to the region and in its hundred thirty year history the Commercial Club has really been devoted to the Chicago area and its region and is indeed involved in the economic vitality of the region and they believe that for our region to remain competitive and that in the coming century it really behooves all of us to come

together and look at what our strategies are and how can we take the benefits and the strengths of the Chicago region and leverage them to our best advantage. Do you want to lie just so we are very fortunate that Chicago has this strong tradition of civic activism of which the Commercial Club is one very good example and that that has been around since 1877 and there have been periodic points where the club has taken strong initiatives to look for new directions and it's its with the with the coming of the new century. It just seems as if with given the strong tradition that exact reason it was timely that the leaders be mobilized as they were within the six committees over three years half years. First I think another important point is that many of the ideas that.

Are talked about in the metropolis project. Report are ideas that many groups have been working on of the last 20 to 30 years and this is the time that the business community is has taken to study the issues and be able to come to the table and work with a variety of constituencies across the region and looking in improving our region. Tell me a little bit about how the club will implement the plan is it a long term project obviously at least 20 years. What do you do now that you that the report is out there this very broad comprehensive extremely ambitious plan is out there. What do you do to keep momentum going to keep this plant in public view or keep these issues in public view. What the club has done is they will be establishing a new entity entitled Chicago Metropolis 2020 and Andy McKenna who is CEO of Swartz paper and George Ranney vice president general counsel and Lynn Steele will manage this new entity and it will bring

together members of the Commercial Club as well as regional stakeholders and will have an executive council which will review the report and in light of other areas make set priorities and look towards bringing in people from across the region to I'd prioritize and identify where to go from here. Or do you mean by regional stakeholders I mean who would that be. I think there will be a variety of people. For example suburban mayors. Other civic organizations representing particular areas that are covered within the report. The expectation as it will have an executive council that will be about 20 people give or take and then there will be a larger policy council which will include 50 to 60 people from throughout the region. Professor Mills let me turn to you at this point as DMR mentioned these are issues that a lot of different groups have been looking at not just the Commercial Club other other organizations have have come up with plans for the region in the future. What as you look

at the tools that these types of plans are these that these organizations would like to use. What reaction do you have to this sort of this approach to planning. Well my first reaction is that this is a very very fine report indeed I think the Commercial Club has really outdone itself. In in bringing all these disparate ideas together. And I think that's absolutely commendable I think the most I think the most important thing in the report is to remind people. And you've got to beat them over the head. Year in year out that we really live in age of global competition the Chicago metropolitan area is literally competing with every other large metropolitan area in the world. And unless we kind of get ourselves together and figure out what are the needs to enhance our ability to compete we're going to go down the tube. We used to think we just compete with Dallas because it's also a good country place good international airport like we have and it's a good sized partner. But we're also now competing with every large metropolitan area in

Europe in Mexico and Latin America and Asia. And that competitions are going to become more intense in the next 20 years. How much of the course of growth and development in this region or any other do you think can be planned I mean how much can be accomplished ahead of time by by planning by coordinated activities of of any group be it the Corso club or or other regional organizations. Well I teach in a business school and one of the reasons I'm there as I have a business orientation. So I think that the second thing to realize is that the we're now living in a different era than the Birnam almost 100 years ago. 100 years ago the city was much poorer and the city extracted much much less in the way of the tax money from the private sector in the community. But now although the city has much more revenue and its fingertips in real terms a very large proportion of it is that you spend on your own income redistribution on wealthier and and Medicaid and and many other

programs public housing programs all of which are more expensive and you simply can't bring together the public infrastructure money that the Burnham report emphasized in these days you simply got to rely much more on the private sector and I think that's exactly the way it should be. Myers and Elmer Johnson tell me a little bit this sort of framework in which you go about thinking about planning I mean how is it different what sorts of mistakes are you looking to avoid. You know let me try to abstract purpose. This is a very different plan from Burke prior which was I worked for the CO. Every regulator became a tradition of priding where you make us a mature Democratic demographic you're trying to you propose rather specific Landrieu says for the future. Back from the right. It's been its approach given some of the changes that professor has talked about. Its approach is to say whether the

background conditions or the framework of public policy framework the governance framework that should be in place. If the private sector is to remake the end they tend to do that thing well. And what kind of a tax framework which you have what kind of a government thing like what you have what would be the framework for our educational system accountability and governance aspects of professionalism specs. So it's a much different approach this is not your garden variety type of plan in fact we're not even sure we ought to call it a planet. An open invitation to look extended where we feel we sharpen the issues greatly. And really now can begin that. That heightened public dialogue with other leaders in the region. I'm surprised though that you would say that it's a modest plan because it actually strikes music extremely wide ranging perhaps less physically obvious I mean I mean people may not see what this plan is about but it actually

you're talking about issues that would affect how how everything unfold when you're talking about tax structures you're talking about. Land Use and transit and all those sorts of things. Those have huge wide ranging effects. Let me give you an example. In Oregon and Washington State of Washington they say set up legislation commissions that could actually buy command and control legislate urban growth boundaries and try to deal with in that way. We look at that possibility that we're going to be more American that we're going to be an incentive approach and then when we came to creating or proposing the creation of a. Can as a regional coordinating mechanism to do the kinds of things that would provide such incentive through a bond issue. It's already we make sure in our own recommendations formulating them that this would be a mechanism that would be the mechanism by the

very you know fatalities. It would be a confederation approach to 270 municipalities counties with elected representatives to this mechanism and it would be their mechanism for dealing with regional issues that cannot possibly be dealt with on a local level. This is a great crisis of our time that in an earlier day in a city and compassed most of the area where people live and some cities still do but it's very fragmented. Twelve hundred. Forty six units of local government and with with no significant coordinating mechanism. Well it's interesting because I mean you're identifying a problem that exists not only in this region in that the areas that need to be governed together aren't necessarily unified political entities and we don't have at this point a government of Northern Illinois or a government

of the Chicago area but that leads us necessarily into into the realm of politics and power in Illinois and I'd like to ask how you begin to go about creating political consensus on this issue. Do you feel like there's a a base from which you're beginning or do you see this as as a huge mountain that you have to cross to convince people that they ought to be creating these new governmental structures or are making these changes across the road for 20 or 30 year plan with a plan of character for her to irk people. Kirk you're on the cover of course. Generation we have done so on this planet and we realize there will be a long process of social learning. Public education I think many of us take heart in the fact that other organizations that have been

working on this along and there are kept in the last four or five years church organizations that have combine forces with labor leaders for example to come up with very similar agendas to where they're driven almost entirely by moral concerns over the inequity lack of equality of opportunity. We are driven by economic goals as well. And the truth is that those two sets of goals of mutually reinforcing. I find quite a bit back. I like to make a comment if I can. There certainly are some things that need to be planned on a regional basis with no question about a basically transportation. To some extent communication infrastructure. But it's ironic to me that at the same time. Everybody in the country is talking about getting government back to the levels that are closest to the people in so far as the. As the issues will will permit that on. On the other hand people like the Commercial Club are trying to as it were quite

a lot as the local government system in the Chicago metropolitan area. Very often this these sort of regional wide arrangements such as in Minneapolis are a way of making sure the taxpayers have no power to vote for or to vote the rascals out and to vote people who will vote for people who will who will cut taxes. I think getting taxes more uniform is really not the problem. Federal and state governments now provide substantial subsidies to schools in the low income districts and they want to continue to do that. Maybe you want to do more. But in most cases the real issue is to get governments to stop doing things they have been doing. The reason we don't have affordable housing in the suburbs is precisely that local government zoned out that's not done by any coordination that each of the same incentives to keep their high income residents happy. And you do that by keeping the rascals out by keeping the low income people out. What you want to be trying to do is to find some way to persuade local governments which would

require state intervention to stop zoning out low income people that agree with you completely. Professor Feldstein and we looked at that two protested that we could go to the state legislature and say why doesn't the Illinois tell every municipality cannot tell me how we're going to take care of the affordable housing problem that would be one approach. We thought that was so far beyond political acceptability of viability that we looked at an alternative. Which one. That is an kind of approach in which the regional council would say let these infrastructure monies that are available to you to create that actuarial highway to recreate reinvest in this area or to buy up that open space. But you have to meet certain conditions to qualify for the kind of. Money and those will include

whether you have the right kind for housing work and the right kind of zoning ordinance. It's so rare that getting through it may turn out that we can come up with a much better way of getting at the problem. Well I agree with that. And I advocate some of the things I think on down to the most important thing is school access and sort of the outer system which I know you're recommending be tried and that obviously is a good idea in fact I'm sure it's the most important single thing that could be done about. The problems of low income schooling neighborhoods. In the Metropole near and you know you know noise generally is another thing which kind of is peripheral to what you said and that of some Forget about a local here Fair Housing is there all over the country they don't do anything with no enforcement mechanism anyway. What you what you do is to threaten people with big fines and. And jail turned rightward to do that is to say if you want highway

money you've got to have the minorities in the community. Period. Unless you have a significant number of minorities in the community you won't apply women and other infrastructure of course. Program. Let's take a short break we're talking today about the metropolis project which is a project of the Chicago Commercial Club based on their report called the metropolis 20 20 We're talking with Elmer Johnson who's the author of the report and director of the metropolis project. We're also speaking with Dia Meyer who is chief of staff for the metropolis project and vice president of the Civic Committee at the Chicago Commercial Club and admin. Edwin Mills who is professor emeritus of real estate in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. When we come back we'll take your calls our number is 3 1 2 8 3 2 3 1 2 4 3 1 2 8 3 2 3 1 2 4 If you'd like to join the conversation and ask a question or make a comment please do so. This is Odyssey I'm Gretchen Helford And you're listening to WBEZ Chicago. Support for this WBEZ program is provided by Kim and Scott's gourmet pretzels

available at Starbucks and Whole Foods holiday gift boxes and catering available for their information at 1 800 5 7 twist support for programming on WBEZ is provided by Kappa bringing the Harlem net cracker to the Chicago Theater for eight shows only December 1st through the 13th. The show features a gospel choir a jazz band and a 22 member dance ensemble with guest artist Eleanor McCoy as Clara and Gus Solomon Jr. as clear as late husband recalling the Harlem Renaissance the show blends African American culture with classic European ballet show times or Tuesday through Friday at 8 Saturday at 3 an 8:30 Sunday at 1. If you look at leadership in Tim so short you have to wait what group like creation of capital markets now to what we have today. I'm David Brancaccio joins us for the latest in our special series free market free fall later today on

MARKETPLACE from NPR I Public Radio International. You can hear marketplace tonight at 6:30 on easy Chicago. This is WBEZ Chicago ninety one point five FM I'm Gretchen health and you're listening to Odyssey today on the program we're talking about the metropolis project it's a project of the Chicago Commercial Club vision of growth and development Chicago for the next two decades we're talking with Elmer Johnson the author of the report liar whose chief of staff of the metropolis project and Edwin Mills a professor emeritus of real estate in the Kellogg School of Management. Mr. Johnson one of the issues that was identified in the report that that sort of was almost a spur to action was the waning loyalty among business people to their city or to their region as companies becoming increasingly national or global and less tied to it to a physical space that they lose their concern about that physical space. And so this was an opportunity to for those people who still are concerned about this region to come together and think about its future. Are you concerned at all that over the 20 years

of this project or even the next 50 years or whatever that loyalty to this region is going to continue to decrease. Well I think you're going to work. Patients such as the Commercial Club too to to make sure that does not happen that waning of interest does not happen. It can easily happen and a terrible thing. And every once in awhile perhaps sometimes by accident there is a wake up call. And what amazed me is the energizing force this idea had in getting the members many many of the 250 of them or so to take seriously the work of this project and assign themselves to one of the six committees and ready to pitch in and help each committee drew on the expertise that it needed so. Yes you have to keep passing on the torch you know and whackers can burn in time three years after

your program died in 1912. The rocker Magna was created a version of the pre Bernard book for school. It was a civics textbook and hundreds of thousands of copies were printed and used. I was much more widely read than the burning planet stuff had a tremendous influence. I think we should consider the same thing. And of course they may grow have to think of using video in schools so we not only have to maintain our own business leadership and our energy level but we have to look at ways of passing on the torch. Let me let me give our number again it's 3 1 2 8 3 2 3 1 2 4 3 1 2 8 3 2 3 1 2 4. Professor Miles can I ask you to comment on that issue as well as one of the forces that we've been talking about which is globalization the economy and the need to deal with that challenge is also the very thing that leads to this decrease in loyalty to particular areas.

Do you see that as something that can be managed or is it going to continue in the direction that it's going well I have no doubt that in the last 20 30 40 years we've had a decrease and you know in the sense of loyalty to larger groups and increasing the sense of loyalty to tiny and parochial groups I don't know what to say about it except to say that. Important leadership from our political authorities would be a big help when in the last election campaign did you hear a political leader stand up and say we are all one people of all races and all colors and all creeds. And we got to work together because we're competing against the world. And if we don't work together we're going to die died together. I think there's an important role for the Commercial Club to play in this in import providing the leadership and education but also in badgering politicians to get them to make speeches and publish pamphlets and and try to develop a sense of regional state and national loyalty in the people of this metropolitan area.

Let's take some phone calls our number is 3 1 2 8 3 2 3 1 to 4 if you'd like to give us a call and ask a question. We'd love to hear from you. 3 1 2 8 3 2 3 1 2 4 Let's talk to Oscar Good morning Oscar you're on WBEZ. Good morning my question comment would be well these are fine ideas. It's nice if they've been pulled together in one place. Apparently some people are interested in that but we've got no idea of the problems of the city and I think these are probably progressive university fostered ideas that are going to go absolutely nowhere because the city is. Pretty much ruled by our current mayor and his like from the liberal yuppies who are probably were interested in this plan because they thought it would be some more nice pretty expensive concrete for Lake Shore Drive and trees and all sorts of things but as far as creating education and jobs for the lower middle class and the lower class we can see what there is a plan it's being carried out. It's called

drive them to the suburbs and I'd like to know why they think their plan will have any hope of occurring whatsoever other than that it's a good idea. There's no the the classes that the benefit are totally poetically different franchise their ability anyone's ability to make this happen is virtually nil. All right. My question comment. Thank you Mr. Johnson your response. It's very sad you know I think the more cynical we have become that nothing could be done the more likely it is that. Nothing will be done in this. This is a plan that holds out ways of doing something for the least advantaged members of the region. And besides just transporting them from the inner city to the periphery where most of the entry level jobs are as Professor Mills said if that terrible thing that people cannot find affordable housing near their jobs except to a very minimal extent at the lower income levels and so

we are proposing ways that we think will change that over the years not not in the short term but over a 20 year period we think it can be changed very substantially. We also think that there are far better ideas as Michael Porter at Harvard has pointed out a lot of work has been done in Chicago. Typically to restore the competitiveness of the inner city and to seize on a strategic advantage that people living in peace communities have to create new jobs near where they are so they don't have to go out and make a strong commute so we have to work on all three levels. We have to improve the quality of Transportation to where the jobs are. We have to create jobs in the inner city and restore the competitive set that part of the region. And they're not saying how or why we're doing that we have to increase the educated skilled workforce programs of these people so that they can take on jobs

at these much higher skill levels. I'd like to make a comment. I entirely agree. I think first of all this is not an academic report it's a business report. And I had nothing to do with it. But I also know you're not allowed to say anything nice about politicians these days but I would suggest that our current mayor Mayor Daley is a man of considerable vision. He has a vision about the need for a first class air travel first class road based travel. And he's done major reform items to to improve the quality of the schools. That's not easy. You trying to educate a lot of kids who come from lousy background. But he is trying very hard. I think you've made some progress. Another thing another point on that is over the last year and a half Mayor Daley's brought together a group of suburban mayors and under the umbrella of the Metropolitan mayors caucus and that they have shown an openness and have spent time with us as we've been drafting this document and have expressed a

willingness to work with the Chicago my trap 20 20 organization as it moves forward and that there has been an openness and a recognition to regional issues that I think has unprecedented previously. Let's talk a little bit more about the city let me give the number going 3 1 2 8 3 2 3 1 2 4. Mr. Johnson I guess I'll throw this question to you. One of the terms you use in the report is a multi centered Metropolis does that mean that the city is no longer the central focus of the place is it is it is its central focus. Satisfied with the return we could have chosen a profound everything we could have included. He's in Indiana and one in Wisconsin. There's no end to it. But we felt for a lot of practical pragmatic reasons we should confine ourselves to the six county area. Even if we doubled the size of the territory we don't increase the population by 12 or 13 percent and we'd get into some pretty and unmanageable areas in our recommendations they're tough enough now without having to call on the cooperation of three states.

So we chose that six county area and we looked at it and we found that Chicago downtown Chicago certainly has the highest density cluster. The most important cluster of workers today O'Hare has a cluster of workers that are similar in size within about a four mile radius of O'Hare. And there are other areas the brook Naperville corridor are. It's a huge employment area and of course the northeastern cluster of workers. And so we have to look at these emerging centers Schomberg area. So. It's very important that we realize what's happening to our city it is becoming a moped I started reaching. And therefore you know 38 percent of the jobs are to Kavos But yeah there are 62 percent car in these other regional proctors maybe could I

make a comment every day this is not what it what had just been said is absolutely correct. But every large metropolitan area in the world is multi nucleated. These days you simply can't have a large metropolitan area by one which I mean by which I mean one more than seven or eight million people that it has almost all the jobs clustered in the in the downtown of the CBD. That's going to continue it should continue and it must continue. What the city should do is to stop driving people out there they do that by making developers jump through too many hoops to build office buildings and other structures downtown by overtaxing some of these some of these structures and indeed by literally zoning out the rich in the last almost 30 years the city of Chicago has been down zoning all the residential neighborhoods from downtown North to Lakeview. Those are the highest income neighborhoods in this in this. Chicago and they are simply driving people to the suburbs. High income people in the suburbs because they're

down zoning and have been for 30 years. Hell the mayor can on the one hand claim that he can't run the city schools without the high income residents who pay a lot of taxes. Then on the other hand per permit the local pretty provincial interests of city council members down zoned for high rises and for 4 high income multi-family apartment building is absolutely beyond me it's disgraceful. Let's go back to the phones 3 1 2 8 3 2 3 1 2 4 Let's talk to Karen good morning Karen WBEZ. Hello hi. Yes I'm calling from Elgin and I'm very excited about this kind of planning I'm a kind of I'm a social scientist teacher and also run for heavily involved with the church. I had two questions one you flip is the report available to us and if so how can we get a hold of it. And second question you mention church organizations have done some of these kinds of studies I was wondering which ones you had in mind. Do you Meyer or Johnson you know the first question on the second question the three come to mind one of the core products of the comment. Headquartered in Chicago.

The director's name is Al Sharpton and the second one that I recall is Metropolitan Alliance for congregations. That's a fun alliance of congregations and one of the names that comes to mind is Mary Gonzales. It is also in Chicago but it reaches out throughout the region. And that's her and and the third is something called United power. And it involves the Catholic Church of the archdiocese as well as quite a number of other churches including the large black churches on the south side and throughout the city. It's it's these are very important organizations and we have been in close communication with them. As to your other question the report will be available should be available in early January. It was approved in draft form of course there were minor changes and typos to clear up in the final document will be printed

probably in the last part of December and available to the public in January. We have the executive summary available now and feel free to dial 3 1 2 5 3 12 hundred in requesting me. I'm sure this is just a small addendum. I have had at least modest conflict contact with some of the black churches and some of the poorest neighborhoods in Chicago which have been extremely active in some of the rather dramatic revitalization that's going on in the city and has been for the last three or four years in some of its some of its poorest neighborhoods. Many of the black churches of course have access to the most responsible people in the community and have used their influence to to to to put put grease on the wheels of progress and change and revitalization I think. I just think it's a wonderful thing. All right Karen thanks very much for your call our number again 3 1 2 8 3 2 3 1 2 4 Let's talk to Barbara. Good morning Barbara on WBEZ.

Hello. Hi I'm Barbara Jones and I'm interested also in our copy of this report. I am serving on the redevelopment board of the Roseland redevelopment board. I also serve on the board of the Wrexham a broad housing services and also the apartment zone. And one of the issues that I'm concerned about is transportation and how this proposal this project what they're proposing to improve transportation. Our redevelopment area spans from 100 first in Michigan Avenue all the way to a hundred in 20th and Michigan and we have lost service on several buses and the Workforce Development issue. Issues cannot be worked out unless people have transportation to work. I was at a meeting recently at the Metropolitan Family Services about a month ago and the director announced that a lot of people are losing their can of grants because they're being referred to jobs at night but there is no transportation to. I'm

interested in getting a copy of this this report plus the executive summary. All right. DMAE Why do you have the phone number again. 3 1 2 5 3. Twelve hundred. All right and Mr. Johnson you want to answer the question about transportation. We haven't talked much about transportation. Like septic I'll just say briefly that it is covered in the report that we feel that it is a serious problem that over 90 percent of people's travel personal travel whether to work or for whatever reason in terms of distance travel is done by private vehicles and most of that is by solo travel. And this is pretty expensive and no one knows better than Professor Mills what those hidden costs that are that the driver does not pay for on a pay as you go basis. And if they did pay those costs they refuse other forms of transportation much more readily. And so one of my

proposals as tough as it is is in politic at that. To introduce new forms of taxation. Parking. To encourage an intermodal kind of travel. It's much more complex than just taxing automobile. It's combined with improving public transport and different kinds of public transport that's more flexible so that people can engage in what we call intermodal kinds of travel where they may use the car for part of the trip train for part of the trip or a bus for part of the trip. Could you expand a little bit on who would be providing this transportation because obviously one of the concerns is that you know you make it difficult or unappealing economically unappealing to use it. That's all well and good if you have another option that you can go to but if you if the whatever isn't providing you with another option what sorts of other sources of transit would there be. Well the two strata. Do you have to be deaf to that obviously. B.

You know one idea is extending the CTA in a direction such as Schomberg Schomberg because of the high density cluster out there is calling for an extension of the blue line we we would have intermodal parking for cars around important train stops with mixed use developments so that people could easily drive up to one of these areas drop off their dry cleaning and get on the train to go where they are going. We can do much more with buses. The large automotive companies are coming out with what they call green buses hybrid buses that will be streamlined quiet electric plus a little turban engine perhaps that regenerates the batteries and there are all kinds of new Intelligent Transportation Technologies to get these buses. A dedicated freeway stay they can preempt traffic lights so that when you get on a bus you take precedence over the cross traffic. We have introduced. The top officials of one of these large automotive companies to Mayor

Daley and other suburban mayors and we are now working on a master plan for an urban transportation system for the 21st century. And this will be at multi-year joint venture between the starter motor company and a regional partnership. Mayors. So now we can argue about details but I agree with most of what's in this report on the transportation subject but again it's the kind of surprising to me that the Commercial Club would underestimate the potential for private enterprise in this area. The best thing you can do with the bus system in Chicago is to open it to private enterprise that's been done in lots of cities both in this country and in Europe and in Asia and in most cases you find that the the service improves and the costs go down by 25 or 30 percent. You can open up the OC operation of the elves and subways to private contractors in the same same kinds of results will and will materialize now. Those are all important but but not absolutely crucial.

It's clear that automobile use is too expensive. What the Feds always try to do is to control it by command and control. And that's absurd. People won't do it the easy way to control automobile use is to increase the fuel tax. It's a very efficient use tax not perfect nothing is perfect. The trouble is Americans don't want tax increases but if you can persuade them with some public education by political leaders that they want to lower other other taxes for example. If you multiply the fuel tax to get your cost up to where they are in most European and Asian countries you can virtually wipe out the property tax now up a little bit education from the from the governor and from the mayor and from other political officials I think could persuade people that that's a good trade off. All right let's see if we can get at least one more call in before the end of the hour let's talk to Dan. Good morning Dan. You're on WBEZ. Dan you know Dan OK let's let's talk with the Charlotte Good morning Charlotte.

Charlie here at the high I I steer at the zoning committee at the Lakeview Citizens Council I'm very distressed by one of your guests comment that certainly down zoning is detrimental to your plan down zoning was done to continue the diversity in these communities rather than make them a wall of high rises which in no one would want to live in. I thought you'd think we've been very very successful in raising the income level because when you have a limited supply you get obviously higher prices. And that's what's happened in Lakeview. I commend the plans. I think we need a vision that is bigger than just day to day but certainly don't condemn the efforts of communities like like Lakeview to keep an inhabitable movable decent area for people to come into.

I would just comment that you forget that there are places like the North Shore of Chicago into Page County and when you down zone and make housing more expensive one and near the lakefront. What people do is to move out to these very high income very pleasant suburban communities. You've got to make Chicago attractive for the people that you want to live here and the way to do that is to permit whatever housing to be built the people want to live in and the vacancy rates along the lakefront near the lakefront are approximately zip these days. Even though there are there are excessively high priced that can be fixed if you just stop this down zoning. I listened to one more call in less talk today and morning Dan. Good morning. Gotcha. Hi thanks. I've been involved in a kind of broad campaign to Peach County and working with this transportation plant and it sounds like these ideas are going to address the same things that I've been interested in for a long time and I'm going to Peach County. How can one of the question I'd like to ask is how can we how can

I get involved in what you're doing and say yeah how can we convince people out of here. Go along with it because I think there will be support from the readers of the page Tony. OK Dan thanks recall DMN are joined to question what what news either this plan or any other plan what avenues are there for the for the public to get involved. I think Dan if you could call our office at 3 1 2 8 5 3 12 hundred and we can talk further because I think what we would like to do is we will be meeting with people throughout the region in the next few months to talk about the goals of the plan and and to identify where people have some concerns and some thoughts that want to join in the in the process so if you could give us a call we can talk about it further but it will be part of a larger public outreach campaign. Professor just a brief comment DuPage County is pretty good if I really want to pick on somebody I pick on the North Shore communities. But one of the things you can do is to Page County as well as on the north shore is to make it easier for developers to build low income

housing. The first way to do that is to permit high rise apartments especially in the vicinity of the public transit stops which are absolutely illegal all the way up the North Shore to some extent in DuPage County but as I say the page count is not as bad as many other communities. ELLEN JOHNSON We just got about a minute left but what this this this blueprint is is so big and so sweeping. What what would you consider success I mean I mean how would you like it to be used and interpreted as assuming it's not going to be implemented point by point. What would you say would be a successful impact for it. Probably 15 percent of Daniel Burton's plan ever got implemented. It was so inspiring however that not that 15 percent would have been implemented but for the green but for the power of a dream. And so you can get in my more somber moments I say to myself or point out that Burnham and 20 percent of our plan were implemented that it would be thrilling.

And we'll try for all of it. And I do want to say one other thing in response to Professor Bill Snyder for the privatization IPO in our report it is not in the summary report and I am in total agreement with what he said about this possibility. All right Elmer Johnson is author of the report Chicago Metropolis 2020 which is put out by the Commercial Club of Chicago. He's also director of the metropolis project is chief of staff for the metropolis project and vice president of the Civic Committee at the Chicago Commercial Club. And Edwin Mills is professor emeritus of real estate in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Thank you all for joining us morning. Thanks also to Joshua Andrews for producing and directing to Carol and Mike Gilmore for engineering tomorrow on the program the decade of the brain is coming to a close we're going to take a look at brain mapping how it's going with just a just over a year left in the deck of the brain so I hope you'll join us for that. This is Gretchen health and you're listening to

WBEZ Chicago. Today's program is in honor of Scott Kepler still celebrating his

birthday with love from Dollar Day club member Kaplan or support for programming on WBEZ is provided by the Lear ensemble presenting its 17th Annual Polish-American Christmas gala at 3 p.m. on Sunday December 6 that morning the start of Tory I'm 24 0 1 south Austin in Cicero the gala includes folk songs and dances carols singalongs and demonstrations of Polish holiday customs featured at the Lyric singers dancers 11 piece orchestra chamber chorus Plus the lyric children's chorus information at 7 7 3 5 3 9 forty nine hundred. What happens when a public school has ample resources like in France a stubborn gap between the way black students and white students achieve. We're a public school so the presumption is well don't you have equality you know. The truth of the matter is no not perfectly. Listen for WBEZ series attempting equity stories from Chicago area schools this week on ninety one point five FM WBEZ in Chicago

and I'm in Chicago and coming up next is worldview and today.