Chicago Reader Blogs: Clout City
this post from the political writer at the Reader says better what i struggled to say to some friends during a cookout over the 4th: i like the mayor (as personality) but i'm not going to say he's the best mayor ever. in my job, i'm learning more and more about internal city workings and it's taking a lot of bloom off the rose; i think chicago is still a great place to live, but it would be great if things actually changed around here. it's not enough that the downtown areas and certain neighborhoods of this city are 'progressing'. it would be great if that kind of energy were spread around. but, the response is 'hey, it's not daley's fault! it's a corrupt system! he's doing the best he can! he can't do it alone!'
really? i mean, really? it's not his fault? he's been mayor an awful long time, it seems to me. i mean, we keep voting for him. you'd think something would change year after year. i appreciate the point made in the post about the mayor tolerating the CTA mess while his friend frank kruesi ran it; again, the response is, 'hey, CTA is part of MTA! it's the state's inefficiency! it's not the mayor's fault!'
we seem to be willing to forgive the mayor for a lot:
badly performing schools and craptacular test scores - not his fault, it's arne duncan and the CPS' fault!
police brutality - not his fault, it's the culture of the CPD and a few bad apples (though the sun times seems to think otherwise)!
the CTA mess - don't criticize ron huberman! he's cute and he's just trying to clean up the mess frank kruesi made!
the public housing mess - it's CHA, not the mayor!
the hiring scandal - hey, he had some out of control staffers!
the still flat economy for most working families - hey, the city council and that big box ordinance killed economic growth!
the TIF stuff - uh, what's TIF? (Commissioner Mike Quigley can tell you.)
anyway, like i said, i like the mayor. he makes me laugh when he loses his shit during a press conference and yells at a utility. but he's not a saint. he doesn't walk on water. he's neck-deep in bullshit just like the rest of us.
5 comments:
"It's a corrupt system"? Yes—with a corrupt mayor. He's much too powerful for all the big-money corruption to operate without his approval. Does anyone out there really think Daley's not deeply embroiled in corruption?
I mean, I like the nice wrought iron fences around the parks and the beautiful plantings in the median strip of the boulevards as much as anyone—but let's not kid ourselves that the vendors who made craploads of money for doing that work weren't politically connected.
The hired trucks scandal, the asphalt scandal, the building department scandal, the eight gazillion hiring scandals—these are all under Daley's watch. Who are these friends of yours who think Daley is wonderful as opposed to "incredibly effective but corrupt"?
they're folks like me who live in nice neighborhoods, work in the loop and don't have to worry about our bus lines being cut off. but i think our whole city has imbibed generously of the mayor daley kool-aid. i mean, we keep voting for him! (of course it doesn't help that his opponents sort of make me pause, either.)
one of my favorite mayor daley things to think about is the olympic bid; here we are bidding for something that's going to bite us so badly in the ass, it's not funny. HOW are we going to pay for this?? folks say corporations are going to pony up; ok, but they're not going to pay for all of it. the city still has to pay its share. where are we going to get the money for it?
the mayor's promised that no public funds will pay for the city's share of the olympics - but who's he kidding? i just don't have the blind faith in da mayor that other folks have, you know? history, chicago tradition and a complete disbelief in the veracity of powerful men will prove me right.
and folks living on the south and west side who are looking at these plans for 'temporary' structures built right in the middle of their neighborhoods are right to be skeptical and wary. when it comes to the desires of the rich pushing up against the fears of the poor, guess who wins??
it strikes me that this whole olympic bid is like manifest destiny, chicago-style: it's a wedge to push progress into so-called empty lands so that vital urban life and trade can flourish where non fluorished before.
(have you noticed the language developers and the city uses for gentrification is remarkably similar to the language early settlers used to justify western expansion and displacement of native peoples?)
uh, that would be 'none fluorished.'
Speaking of supposed Mayoral saintliness: has the Villaraigosa scandal reached you guys in the midwest? (Gasp: he had an affair and divorced because of it) I know nothing at all about Chicago politics but I'm assuming Daley's p.r. is that he's a progressive Democrat of some description? (From what I've gleaned from Google it seems that's the case). I think its a similar thing, that progressives really are optimistic about the possibility of change (which is why you'd vote for him, and in your particular case, changed your whole career path to work for a non-profit). And it's this optimism that politicians rely on (on both sides of the aisle) and the public discourse about politics somehow presumes that you cannot be both critical and optimistic at the same time. It sort of makes me crazy.
that's exactly it: we like the idea of the city 'moving forward'. no one wants chicago to return to what it was in the 80s and we're scared that another mayor might just turn back the hands of time: the pretty flowers will disappear, businesses will flee the loop, the good times will end.
so it's fear that keeps us voting for da mayor.
and i had no idea there was scandal with villagairosa! oh no! he had an affair! gasp!
Post a Comment