A new study of 21 world cities gives Chicago high marks on a variety of measures, including the political and social environment — what the study describes as the extent of “internal stability,” personal freedom and freedom of the press.
On that measure, Chicago ranks seventh-best, tied with New York and Los Angeles, according to “Cities of Opportunities,” from the accounting giant PriceWaterhouseCoopers and the Partnership for New York City.
That’s behind such squeaky clean places as Stockholm and Toronto, but way ahead of Beijing, Dubai and Sao Paulo. Democratic institutions are a big deal here in America.
The more I thought about it, though, the more I got to thinking about how things weren’t always as calm in Chicago politics as they are right now under Mayor Richard M. Daley.
On April 23, Daley will complete his 21st year on the fifth floor of City Hall, and, come Christmas Eve, he’ll become the city’s longest-serving mayor, eclipsing the record held by his father, Richard J. Daley — 21 years and 244 days.
But there’s another important date this month: Monday marks the 27th anniversary of the election of Harold Washington as Chicago’s first black mayor. Washington’s victory over Republican Bernard Epton was a landmark moment in race relations in the city, even though it came at the end of a brutally divisive campaign.
And the divisiveness didn’t end there.
For the next three years, the city witnessed Council Wars, a racially charged legislative battle in which a majority of 28 white aldermen and one Hispanic, led by 10th Ward Ald. Edward Vrdolyak and 14th Ward Ald. Edward Burke did everything they could to block any of Washington’s proposals, even those they acknowledged privately would have been good for Chicago.
On the surface, there are parallels to today’s highly partisan Congress. But Council Wars wasn’t partisanship; it was racial politics and race-baiting in the pursuit of long-term power.
Yet, here’s the thing: It was democracy.
Ugly, to be sure. Bruising and bitter and damaging to the city’s spirit and reputation, of course. But, for the only time in the past half century, Chicago had a two-party system during those three years.
It ended in 1986 when, under a federal court order, special elections were held in seven wards. The results gave the council a 25-25 split with the mayor having the tie-breaking 51st vote.
Within a year, Washington won re-election, and former members of the Vrdolyak 29 began aligning themselves with Washington. A few months later, though, he died of a heart attack at his desk.
I suspect that, if some version of Council Wars were raging today, the people behind “Cities of Opportunity” wouldn’t have given Chicago such high marks for its political environment. The report is focused on the business climate of the 21 world cities, and CEOs definitely like political calm.
Here in today’s Chicago, they get the best of both worlds.
They get one-man rule. Business types prefer that because it means one-stop shopping. Dealing with a single leader is a lot easier than trying to work with a bunch of factions, each holding a bit of the power. Here, if Daley says “yes,” Chicago says “yes.”
The problem with one-man rule, however, is that there’s usually a seething mass of people who feel oppressed and angry at being excluded from power. (Think of all those Google-loving Chinese.)
Not in Chicago.
Maybe the present Mayor Daley is a political genius. Certainly, he and those around him have developed and executed a strategy of killing potential protest with kindness. For more than two decades, Daley has peppered every board, committee, authority and commission, as well as the council, with a rainbow collection of African-Americans, women, Hispanics, gays, business leaders, religious leaders, Asians, union leaders and, for all I know, left-handed Zoroastrians. He’s doled out small (but soon indispensible) annual city contracts to hundreds of community groups.
In these ways, he’s blunted the urge of these leaders and groups to question his operation of the city. Each gets a sliver of the pie, but Daley remains in control.
Maybe it’s simply that, after more than half a century of near-continuous one-man, one-party (and one-family) rule, we’re so used to the way things have been that we can’t imagine a political landscape with clashing ideologies and conflicting agendas.
So, yes, Chicago has the “internal stability” that CEOs crave. And, sure, there’s freedom of the press. And, whenever there’s a mayoral election, you can vote for whomever you want.
It’s just that, as long as the present mayor wants to stay in office, nobody not named Daley is going to be elected.
Patrick T. Reardon, a former urban affairs writer for the Tribune, is a consultant on planning, demographics and urban issues. He is a scholar in residence at the Newberry Library.
