“What are we? Kids?”
It was a dare posed often by one of my favorite assistant city editors.
Whether he was dispatching reporters to a dicey crime scene or itching to sail across the lake in threatening weather, the late Steven Pratt was a go-for-it guy.
I’ve been thinking lately about Steve’s challenge as Chicagoans continue to fuss and fret over hosting a big international conference later this week.
I mean, if this were New York City, this two-day NATO summit would be just another day at the office. As in: “That jerk Castro (or Arafat or Ahmadinejad, etc.) is at the UN again so we’d better stay clear of East River Drive and the Midtown tunnel.”
But no, here in Third City we’re acting like a bunch of bumpkins and nervous Nellies. Our media are doing breathless stories about bomb-resistant trash cans and tear gas-proof riot gear. Cover-my-tail public officials are playing hide-and-seek with parade permits for protest groups. They’re also planning to block off South Loop arterials and intermittently close expressways for the comings and goings of international VIPs.
Some of these are prudent precautions, to be sure. Unfortunately we live in a post-9/11era in which grandmas are body-searched at airports and the FBI provides fake explosives to wannabe jihadists so they can arrest them and make everybody feel safer. So hardly anyone bats an eye when our world-class lakefront museums are shut down for three days or when pleasure boats are banned from sections of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan.
But even if these precautions are necessary — which I doubt — what’s the big deal? Has Chicago lost its ability to chew gum and walk?
Are we not the same city that hosted two enormously successful world’s fairs? The World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 drew 20 million visitors and fixed Chicago’s place on the world economic map. The Century of Progress drew 40 million over the summers of 1933-34 in the middle of the nation’s worst-ever economic depression.
Then there’s modern Chicago. We tried to stage a third world’s fair in 1992. I covered that effort for the Tribune in the late ’80s … and started to wonder if we’re losing our collective nerve. There was a cacophony of anti-fair protest movements, ranging from ’60s burn-outs who said the money should be spent on the poor, to not-on-the-lakefront enviro-NIMBYs, to Hyde Park eggheads fearful of interruptions on South Lake Shore Drive. What killed it, in the end, was the refusal of both the state Legislature and private-sector organizers to guarantee construction bonds against any revenue shortfalls. Oh well.
Under the long reign of former Mayor Richard M. Daleythe city seemed to regain its pluck and even applied for the 2016 Olympic Games. Again there was talk of permanent “residuals” for the lakefront and for have-not neighborhoods like Washington Park. Again the media alternately enthused and worried over a self-financing public/private partnership. Again activists formed a coalition in opposition.
But Rio de Janeiro got the nod, and we’ll never know if Chicago and Illinois could have pulled it off. I’m not convinced. In public there were cries of disappointment, but in private what I heard mostly were sighs of relief.
Granted this is a time when both city and state need to get back to basics. Got to reform public pension systems, get Medicaid spending under control, pay overdue bills. Too many of our public schools aren’t preparing kids for the digital workplace, and too many of our roads and rails need to be renewed and extended.
But if our region is going to compete on the world stage, if we’re going to position ourselves as a major player in the new global economy, surely we’ve got to put ourselves forward and take some calculated risks.
So hats off to those among us who are rubbing their hands and otherwise angling to take advantage of this weekend’s NATO meet at McCormick Place. Hats off to the restaurateurs and hotel workers, to the cops and the car-hikers. Hats off to groups like the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, which is hosting public forums where world leaders will speak on global issues like security and prosperity. Check it out at thechicagocouncil.org/.
As for those who’ll be taking those days off, hiding at home and tsk, tsk-ing at news reports about protesters and traffic tie-ups, you need to be asking yourselves one question: What are we? Kids?
John McCarron teaches, writes and consults on urban affairs.
