Highlights from my summer coverage of Chicago's 2016 Olympic Bid

The game is over, at least for Chicago, and my grant is over. I'll keep this blog up as a legacy to the work I did this summer, sharing South Side community stories and trying to give a unique perspective on both the city's fight for the 2016 Olympic Games and its internal struggle over how the Games would impact local infrastructure, taxpayers, and the gamut of public services from education to health care.

If you're visiting this blog for the first time and would like a sampling of what I wrote about this summer, here are links to several stories of which I am particularly proud:


Behind the bid: Ald. Manny Flores rethinks rallying-cry, “No free check!” (August 21, 2009)


Burnham Plan Centennial invites comparisons to 2016 Olympic Bid (August 14, 2009)


As bid for the 2016 Olympics heats up, Chicagoans find a natural refuge in Washington Park (August 6, 2009)

Turnout is low among Washington Park residents at latest Olympics planning meeting (Saturday, July 25, 2009)

Olympics bring inspiration, challenges, to Washington Park Consortium (Sunday, June 28, 2009)


Thanks for reading! For more stories by me, please visit my body of clips at:
The University of Chicago News Office
The Chicago Studies Blog that Works
The Maroon
The San Diego Union-Tribune

Breaking News: Chicago Eliminated in First Round of IOC Voting

Chicago was eliminated in the first round of voting at the International Olympics Committee conference to select the host city for the 2016 Summer Games this morning at 10:30 local time. The IOC voted today in Copenhagen Denmark in 3 rounds; One city is eliminated in each round of voting. Chicago was the first to go, followed by Tokyo.

Throngs of Chicago 2016 supporters in Daley Plaza watched in silence, mouths held open, as Jacques Rogin, president of the IOC, announced the results and proceeded with voting to the second round. Tokyo was eliminated next.

Analysts projected a showdown between Chicago and Rio de Janeiro, the supposed favorite to win because a Games had never before been held in South America. Instead, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro will proceed to the final round. The decision is to be announced by 11:30 local time.

UPDATE: Rio de Janeiro, thought by many to be the favorite to win and Chicago's biggest competitor in the bid, won the right to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

Tomorrow...

As I type, government officials and Olympic bid committees from Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro, among them President Barack Obama, are readying their final presentations to the International Olympics Committee. The IOC will vote for and select a host for the 2016 Summer Games between 11:30 a.m. and noon Chicago-time. No matter what the final decision brings the city, I had a lot of fun reporting on the politics, social and economic issues surrounding the bid, and I am thrilled that you took the time to read my blog.

I will be covering breaking news tomorrow morning at a block-party hosted by Aldermen Cochran, Preckwinkle, and Dowell at 52nd and Payne Drive, across from the site of the proposed Olympic Stadium in Washington Park. I hope to see you there.


Foot traffic is sparse at 55th and Indiana on a Saturday afternoon; should Chicago win the bid, tourists will frequent the Green Line CTA stop adjacent to this block to visit Washington Park


In the mean time, here is the link to an excellently written Washington Post story about the city's bid.

Olympics News Roundup: 9/29

President—and former Chicagoan—Barack Obama is flying to Copenhagen to meet the International Olympic Committee, in an about-face from his announcement last week that Michelle Obama will represent the White House for the Oct. 2 decision. Obama will be the first sitting U.S. president to attend an Olympics conference ...


... But Chicagoans oppposed to the bid aren't alone in asking "What sacrifices must we make to host the Games?" According to USA Today, Obama's announcement that he will fly to Copenhagen to campaign for Chicago met with a flurry of criticism from some Americans, who suggested Obama's time would be better spent making policy decisions about healthcare and Afghanistan ...


... And Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich argues that Chicago's bid is really all about the city's need for love—and money.

Chicago 2016 touts green spaces, water access, as hallmarks of the bid

If Bob Accarino has his way, and Chicago wins the 2016 Olympic bid, the Olympic Stadium seats will be recycled into 80,000 wheelchairs when the games are over. Accarino is the chief environmental sustainability consultant for Chicago 2016, the city's bid organizing committee, and he has made it his job to scout out innovative programs to make Chicago's bid more eco-friendly.

As the decision nears, Chicago 2016 has been highlighting the green and blue aspects of the city’s bid—from tree-planting programs to public service programs to bring clean water to the third world.

Accarino and the Chicago 2016 committee presented these plans and fleshed out the connections between sports and the environment at the Summit on Sport and Sustainability they hosted from Sept. 10-11 at the Hilton.

The Summit brought together environmental experts, sustainable development companies and the organizers of major sporting events like the Boston Marathon and the Super Bowl to discuss ways to reduce their environmental impact.

“We live in a city that has a strong history of being sensitive to the environment,” Pat Ryan, chairman of Chicago 2016, said at the Summit’s opening ceremony, citing the city’s sprawling public parklands and LED certified buildings. “We want the Games and the seven years leading up to the Games to leave a sustainable legacy for our environment for generations to come.”

All four candidate cities are proposing environmentally-conscious initiatives. Madrid, for example, has plans to expand parklands and bike-lanes by thousands of kilometers, Tokyo will “recycle” the venues it used to host the 1964 Games.

But according to Accarino, several features of Chicago’s plan distinguish it from the “green” competition. “We built upon the foundations the city already has… and came up with independent programs that can be initiated before, during, and after the Games.”

Most apparent about the bid’s commitment to environmental sustainability is how it wants to go beyond the color “green,” in name and in practice.

The bid touts itself as the “Blue-Green Games,” Accarino said, and makes clean water access a focal point. Because “Chicago is right on Lake Michigan, we have a responsibility not to cause any harm to local drinking water resources. Even though we have a lot of water, we should be looking at water as a precious resource.”

“The Olympic Games provides one of the largest marketing platforms in the world,” he added, and this compels the city’s bid to use the events to address world poverty issues.

Still, some critics of the bid have suggested that Chicago 2016’s proposals amount to little more than “green-washing,” and that the plans are too vague to be successful. But Accarino says the ambiguity over exactly what forms of renewable energy the bid would implement is an asset.

“One of the real technology challenges we’ve had in terms of transportation is that we don’t know what’s going to be around in 2016,” he explained. “We know we want to use [fuel-efficient cars,] but if we say we’re going to have all hydrogen vehicles, and they weren’t marketable by 2016, then that would be a real problem for us. We have to be somewhat general—we’re not sure if there will be electric vehicles or carbon vehicles or hybrids.”

One project Accarino supports that is not part of the Olympic bid, though it shares part of the bid’s name, is the Urban Lab “Eco Boulevard.” Urban Lab, a local urban design firm, used the increasing scarcity of clean water as the departure point for the ambitious project, which would convert a series of city streets into small parks filled with micro-organisms that clean stormwater and run-off. Urban Land designers are discussing these plans with city government.

“We realize that the Games here in Chicago would be a great catalyst for really innovative projects like that,” Accarino said. “Think about the CTA stops many people would take to go to the stadium, [55th St. and Garfield Blvd.] That could become a Blue-Green Blvd.”

Olympics News Roundup: 9/11

First Lady Michelle Obama and Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Barack Obama and head of the White House Office for Olympic Sport, both former Chicagoans, will be traveling to Copenhagen in October to be present for the IOC's final vote. Michelle announced her decision to attend Friday morning. Chicago 2016 and city officials have speculated that Chicago will secure the bid if President Barack Obama attends the IOC's October conference ...

... While back in Chicago, the City Council's finance committee recommended Wednesday that the full council approve Mayor Daley's plans to give the Olympic bid a full financial guarantee from city government. The ordinance up for approval, which was originally presented by Ald. Manny Flores (1st ward) as a $500 million spending cap but has since been amended, would require the bid's organizing committee to provide and publicize quarterly reports on spending and cost-overruns ...

... Yesterday Chicago 2016 kicked off its Summit on Sport and Sustainability, a two-day lecture and workshop series for environmentally-conscious organizations and sports managers. Keynote speakers who are scheduled to speak today include Robert Kennedy Jr. and Tony Blair ...

... And Chicagoans respond to the new audio advertisements for the bid playing on various CTA buses.

Is Chicago still game? The final 30 days will tell, say alderman, activist

Less than a month shy of the International Olympics Committee's Oct. 2 decision on who will host the 2016 Olympics, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Laura Washington sat down with fourth ward Alderman Tony Preckwinkle, and Jay Travis, executive director of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization to talk TIFs, housing, and city finances.

Both Preckwinkle and Travis had information to clarify surrounding the increasingly complex relationship between Chicago 2016, the bid committee, City Hall and South Side communities.

Preckwinkle, who's ward contains the site of the Olympic Village and neighbors the sites of the Aquatic Center and Olympic Stadium, cautioned that decision is not "set in stone." Because there has never been an Olympics in South America, she explained, Rio has a particular advantage over the other cities vying for the bid, which include Tokyo and Madrid. Nonetheless, Preckwinkle pointed to the Civic Federation report, commissioned by the city council, as evidence that Chicago's bid has a firm financial foundation.

Travis, a community organizer and one of the founding members of the Communities for an Equitable Olympics (CEO 2016), thinks the Olympic bid stands to negatively impact her community, Bronzeville, if her neighbors don't do something about it. Bronzeville lies north of Washington Park, and would be host to the Olympic Village.

The event took place at the Chicago History Museum last Tuesday evening, Sep. 1. as part of the museum's In the K/Now speaker series. Chicago 2016 declined an invitation to send a representative to speak at the event.

"Displacement often occurs within neighborhoods that are within the Olympic footprint, and that displacement doesn't always happen because of the demolition of homes around Olympic venues. that displacement is caused by housing costs due to escalating rent values," Travis said. CEO 2016 has already played an instrumental role in drafting the Memorandum of Understanding, a document that binds Chicago 2016 officials to the promise to create affordable housing and jobs via the Olympics. But Travis said CEO 2016 is now filing a Freedom of Information Act request to learn about how the city plans to use TIF dollars and other public funds in the neighborhood venue sites.

"I would like more transparency around the use of public fund and public dollars," she said. "We've heard over and over and over that there will be no public funds, except the 500 million that the city is holding, and except for the 250 million that the state is holding. No money except for the TIF funding ... Where will that money be used?"

According to Preckwinkle, there will be a tax increment financing initiative, (TIF) for the Olympic Village in her ward, and there is a proposed TIF for Washington Park in the 20th ward. The TIF for the Olympic Village, she said, will be used to finance new water-mains and streets—infrastructure investments that the city would need to make to successfully redevelop the neighborhood, with or without the Olympics.

"But I think Jay is quite right," when it comes to the need for transparency, Preckwinkle added. The city council was able to pass an ordinance in support of the Memorandum of Understanding because, "not only were we able to build a consensus in City Council, but there were local groups building around the issue."

Travis acknowledged Preckwinkle's help in passing that ordinance, but is worried that it will not legally bind Chicago's Olympic Organizing Committee, which will not be formed until after Chicago wins the bid, to any of the promises for transparent finances, affordable housing or local job creation.

"There's an opportunity for the city, if the city should win the Games, to figure out how to do development in a way that doesn't displace people," Travis said. "But if we don't have the right checks and balances, the Olympics could exacerbate a lot of the issues that are already happening in our neighborhood in terms of displacement."

Olympics News Roundup (9/3)

The city's Olympic bid is falling out of favor with many Chicagoans, according to a Tribune/WGN Radio poll. The poll shows that support for the bid among residents has fallen from 61% last Winter to 47%...

..Meanwhile, Mayor Richard Daley is touring Moscow, Russia to promote the bid. But furthering the Chicago's foothold in global business is his main priority, Daley says...

...And back at home, Aldermen, including Manny Flores and Leslie Hairston, introduce an ordinance to promote Olympics oversight. The ordinance would require better disclosure of the Olympics bid committee and, eventually, the city's organizing committee's finances.

IOC report: Chicago's bid is "ambitious"

Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics still leaves some doubts over how the Games will be managed and financed, according to a report released today.

The International Olympic Committee issued a detailed evaluation report on each of the city candidates vying for the 2016 Olympics, which are Madrid, Spain, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tokyo, Japan and Chicago.

Rio de Janeiro has been called the "emotional favorite" to win the bid, because an Olympic Games has never been held in South America, and the report emphasizes the cohesion between the city’s government, the national government, and the bid committee.

The report says that Chicago’s bid aspires to create a “spectacular experience” that would showcase the city’s acres public gardens, parks and lakeshore. However, it also cautions that the proposed relationship between City Hall and the Organizational Committee of the Olympic Games leaves “some doubt as to the ultimate responsibility for delivery of the Games.” Of particular concern to the report is how the city’s organizing committees, local government, and federal government will share responsibilities for implementing proposed environmental and mass-transit initiatives.

The report also details the projected costs for holding the games, including the budget for venue operations ($1.06 billion), Games employees ($509 million) and transportation ($226 million). The evaluation also tucks a wary prognosis on Chicago’s financing plans into its additional comments section: “the budget is ambitious but achievable.” The city-commissioned report on the Olympic bid by the Civic Federation, released last week, has deemed the Olympics budget “adequate.”

Another concern of the report is that Chicago had not agreed to fully guarantee the Olympic Games for the IOC in April when the report was commissioned. The full financial guarantee, a staple of all past host city agreements with the IOC, has been the source of much tension between City Hall and the community in recent months because of fears that such a guarantee will burden taxpayers.

On a more positive note, the evaluation offers some praise for the temporary venue construction projects, such as the Olympic Stadium and Aquatic Center, which would be deconstructed after the Games into smaller, public venues to be used by the Washington Park community. This concept, according to the report, supports previous recommendations to the IOC that the Olympics host city should “build a new venue only if there is a legacy need.” In Chicago’s case, the bid committee determined that the city did not need an 80,000-seat stadium or an Aquatic Center with four Olympic-sized pools, but would benefit from the venues if the stadium could be shrunken after games, and the pools moved separately to other parts of the city.

These plans, the report concludes, would to some extent reduce the environmental impact of hosting the Games.

The report also cites the White House’s new “Olympic Office” and the “Memorandum of Understanding,” an agreement between the bid committee and community members, as positive examples of public support for the bid. However, it also said that a public opinion poll commissioned by the IOC shows Chicago has the second-lowest popular support for its bid among the four candidate cities, with local support at 67% and national support at 61%.

Click here to view the complete report.

The anthropologist in the Olympic Stadium

When John MacAloon began his research on the Olympics, past scholarship amounted to little more than a box of files in a room. Since then, he has published articles on the origins of the Olympic Movement, advised the International Olympic Committee, and sat on several bid committees and organizing committees.

He discusses the ideology behind the Olympic Movement, eminent domain, and why you won’t be renting out your South Side apartment during the Games:

Rachel Cromidas: You’re a professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago. How did you join Chicago 2016, the city’s bid committee?

John MacAloon: It’s more that the committee joined me. I’ve been working as an Olympics researcher, activist and consultant for about over 30 years now, and when Chicago decided to bid for the Olympics I was one of the few people in town who knew anything about the process.

RC: When you began your research on the Olympics, there was very little existing scholarship on the subject of the Olympic Movement.

JM: When I started, the Olympic Movement was not centralized. My PhD dissertation was a biography of the founder of the Olympic Games, and the story of origins of the Olympic Movement. There had been no such document until I wrote one, other than strict sports history, like who won the 200 meters in 1912, which is not what I do. Many Americans don’t know that the ritual system of the Olympics is by many measures as important as the sports system, because that’s where the ideology of the Olympic Movement comes in.

I study the Olympics as something that ought to be impossible, according to the field of anthropology. [the study of cultural difference]. If cultural differences are so important, then how is it that 205 national cultures and literally uncountable subcultures manage to come together every four years to interact and engage and cooperatively compete? That’s an astonishing achievement, and precisely what the Olympics are designed to demonstrate.

But if you think the Olympics is just sports event, then who cares, what’s the big deal? We’ve got plenty of sports events. But its not that, its absolutely not just that.

RC: What distinguishes the Olympic Movement from the Olympic Games?

JM: The difference is really important to understand if you want to understand what Chicago’s bid is about. Olympic sport is not like other sport. First of all, it’s not like professional baseball. If I ask you to tell me what’s the ideology of professional baseball, or what’s the ideology of NCAA Final Four, or what’s the ideology of the World Cup, you would struggle to answer. But you can tell me something about the opening ceremony of the Olympics. For most Olympics, the opening ceremony is far more important than an individual sports event. That’s because Olympic sport is sport in the service of international education, intercultural understanding, peace, détente, youth development, social justice. We Americans don’t really understand that.

RC: What makes the opening ceremony so important?

JM: Basically, to be considered “a nation among nations” requires marching in the opening ceremony or being a part of the United Nations. And there are more territories, countries, that march in the opening ceremonies than members of the UN—and that is for certain peoples of the world absolutely critical. For example, Puerto Rico appears as nation among nations only in Olympic sport, and its autonomy becomes dependent on Olympic sport. The Games are not everything of course, but in part, because Puerto Rico would lose its independent Olympic team, a referendum on statehood cannot win there.

RC: Do you think local opposition to the Olympic bid has been centered on the idea that we don’t need more sports games in the city?

JM: Some of it obviously has been. But if you’ve never experienced [the Olympics] directly, if you think watching NBC is the Olympics, then you are sadly benighted.

In Germany, until fairly recently, Olympism was taught in every school as the most important social movement of the 20th century after socialism and feminism. That’s a statement that makes no sense to the majority of Americans. They’ve never heard of Olympism, and there’s no tradition even in higher education of teaching this.

There’s also the Cultural Olympiad, which is another ritual of holding the Games. It is a major, four-year festival of arts and culture and education, which I will be leading for Chicago if we get the Games. You don’t hear about this on NBC.

RC: What do you think makes Chicago a more equipped city than the other candidates [Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo] to host the Olympics?

I’m not just working on this bid because this is my city and my city needed me. This is a city made for the Olympics. It’s because of those parks and because of the Burnham Plan. It’s because we are the only city in the world in which the finest real estate is owned by the people. Our ability to put the [temporary and permanent] sports facilities in the parks, by the lake, means we don’t displace a single person; we won't use eminent domain to take somebody’s business or somebody’s neighborhood. And our Olympic Village goes on an empty space, [Michael Reese Hospital]. All of that makes us profoundly different than other bids.

RC: Eminent domain aside, I have heard community members voice concerns that rising rents will displace the poorer residents of Washington Park, Grand Boulevard, and other South Side neighborhoods surrounding the proposed locations of the Olympic Stadium and Aquatic Center.

JM: Research tells us that whatever is happening in terms of property values or gentrification in the venue neighborhoods will be virtually unchanged by anything having to do with the Olympics.

Those worries [about displacement] are driven by people’s fantasies, not there fears. People think, “Oh great, for 17 days there’s going to be a huge crowd on the South Side. I’ll rent my apartment!” These people don’t know anything. If anyone coming to Chicago for the Olympics is very rich and renting places, they’re not renting your Hyde Park student apartment. And the people who are coming to work here are construction workers who are not renting.

RC: Is it also a fantasy that the Olympics would revitalize these neighborhoods?

JM: Yes. If you think that other than what is already going on that there will be a ton of business development on the South Side because of the Olympics, you don’t know anything. Of course, there is a major revitalization project in the Olympic Village. There, you will have a major new neighborhood on the South Side that is committed to being 30 percent affordable housing.

RC: What about the speculation that the University of Chicago is buying property in Washington Park in hopes that property values will rise after the Olympics?

JM: The University buying property in Washington Park has been an issue for the past 30 years, and it will continue to be an issue for the next 30. There have been discussions with the University and [Chicago 2016] about repurposing some parking lots near the park, but the notion that University is now buying property because of the Olympics…? What planet are people on? The Olympics are not about economic capital.

RC: Does the University stand to benefit from the Olympics in other ways?

JM: Of course. Think about this: If Chicago gets the Olympics, how many people would ever wonder again if we were the University of Illinois at Chicago? How many North Siders and suburbanites that have never been to the south side will be looking here?


John MacAloon is an associate dean of social sciences at the University of Chicago, where he teaches in the College, and director of the Social Sciences Master of Arts Program. He sits on the Chicago 2016 Bid Committee. This interview has been edited for length.

Olympics News Roundup (8/27)

The watchdog policy group Civic Federation finds that Chicago's Olympic bid may have financial might, thanks to Chicago 2016's "safety net" insurance plans:

The report also cautioned that some of Chicago 2016's revenue estimates appeared optimistic. "Local sponsorships are predicted to be substantially higher than previous Games, and estimated revenues from donations are aggressive when compared to past Olympic budgets," the report noted ...

...Crain's takes a closer look at the report's forecast on the Olympic Village, which may cause "continuing real estate risks that must be managed."

The report recommends that the city purchase additional insurance to protect against cost overruns on the $1-billion project.

...And Chicago 2016 wraps up its series of town hall meetings to foster community support for the bid and clear up lingering questions on money, transportation and the venues.

Behind the bid: Ald. Manny Flores rethinks rallying-cry, “No free check!”

It’s no news that 1st Ward Alderman Manny Flores is unhappy about how city government is handling Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics. But less clear is what he plans to do about it.

Last month, Flores introduced legislation to the City Council that would cap the city’s spending at $500 million—a figure the council arrived at earlier in the planning stages of the bid, but later gave up once the International Olympic Committee made it clear back in June that host cities must agree to give the Olympics a full financial guarantee.

That bill is still pending in committee (Spokespeople from Flores’s office say they are waiting to hear word from City Hall, but the projected date of the hearing is Sept. 8). But some pundits have wondered whether Flores was actually abandoning the bill after he presented a new plan to make sure Chicago 2016 gets “No free check,” in a recent e Op-ed in the Chicago Tribune.

In the piece, Flores outlines a five-point plan for greater transparency from the city and Chicago 2016—and doesn’t mention the $500 million cap. But, he explained to me last week, this doesn’t mean he’s backing off; he’s just rethinking how a spending cap could help, and hurt, the city.

“I would not characterize [the op-ed] as backing down,” he said. “The thing is, you can’t have your cake and eat it. We could impose the cap, but we’ve already been told [by the IOC] that it would not be possible for us to win the bid.”

Flores originally suggested a cap on using city funds for the Olympics to safeguard against surprises like the one Mayor Richard Daley gave city aldermen back in June, when he seemed to tell the IOC that Chicago would sign the host city’s agreement on Oct. 2 if selected, and thereby pledge to fully insure the Olympics.

The aldermen, Flores added, “were informed that $500 million was the most the city would have to commit… and that the city was not going to be pursuing that type of guarantee that the IOC had imposed on other cities. We were under the impression we would not commit tax dollars or open ourselves up to a blank check.”

Flores now thinks his spending cap legislation stands to be modified in committee, hopefully along the lines he laid out in his op-ed, which asks for an independent oversight committee, and public records of all Games’ related spending.

According to Flores, that five-pronged mandate for transparency is the only way to keep the bid officials honest while still making Chicago a viable contender for the Games. Does this mean $500 million cap is history?

Not exactly, he said. “If we have protective mechanisms in place, we should pursue the Games. But I’m telling the 2016 Committee, if you don’t want to be transparent, then you’re going to get capped at $500 million dollars. If that kills the Games, then that will be it.”

Olympics News Roundup: 8/16

It's a mixed bag of news this week for Chicago 2016

Pat Ryan, Chicago 2016 chairman, stands down more community opposition at latest forum on the Olympic bid in Bronzeville, according to the Chicago Tribune's David Greising...

...While Chicago 2016 wraps up its fundraising efforts, netting just $5 million on Wednesday at the 2009 U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame induction ceremony—its lowest amount of three fundraising events...

...And the United States Olympic Committee backs down on plans to host an Olympics television network with NBC after speculation that the proposal would jeopardize Chicago's bid.

Burnham Plan Centennial invites comparisons to 2016 Olympic Bid

How would you get to the Near North Side if Michigan Avenue ended at the river? Chicagoans have Daniel Burnham to thank for widening and extending that street into what is now the city’s bustling “Magnificent Mile” shopping district. One hundred years later, the city is celebrating the legacy of Burnham, one of its most influential urban planners, and looking to him for guidance in planning the city's future.

Among Burnham’s achievements are designing the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Washington Park and setting a tone for Chicago’s 20th century urban development epitomized in the often-quoted phrase “Make no little plans…make big plans, aim high in hope and work.” Now, as the city prepares to celebrate the centennial of Burnham’s Plan of Chicago this fall, some citizens are asking, “What would Burnham have to say about the 2016 Olympic bid?” —an event that would bring international attention back to the park and neighborhood where he once orchestrated a World’s Fair.

“Daniel Burnham was very influenced by his work on the World’s Fair, and that transference of ideas [between nations represented at the fair],” MarySue Barrett, president of the Metropolitan Planning Council, said at a recent panel discussion about Burnham’s anniversary. “I wonder if the Olympics could be another transformative moment for [Chicago], where we think beyond what we’ve done in the past.”

To some, Burnham’s vision of Chicago’s urban landscape invites comparisons to the city’s ambitious bid to host the Olympics.

One feature the Olympic bid shares with the Burnham Plan, which was co-authored by architect Edward Bennett in 1909, is its emphasis on the value of parklands.

According to Mary Woolever, art and architecture archivist for the Art Institute of Chicago, Bennett was particularly interested in using public parks to benefit citizens’ health, and this is reflected in the Plan of Chicago.

For Bennett, she said, “The parks were a way to take a very progressive approach to building citizenship. He thought…he would make a healthier citizen that in turn would make a healthier city.” This line of thinking led to the creation of field houses in many of the city’s parks, including Washington Park, which offered lunchrooms, bathing facilities, and classrooms for English and vocational training, among other public resources for citizens.

Likewise, the hallmark of the city’s bid, according to Chicago 2016 spokespeople, is the way it will take advantage of existing parks and public structures along the lakefront to host the Games and accompanying ceremonies.

But if you ask Carl Smith, author of The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City (this fall’s One Book, One Chicago selection), “What would Burnham do?” might be a bad question for understanding how significantly the Olympics will impact the city.

“The real question is what do we think about the bid,” Smith, a professor at Northwestern University, said in an interview. According to Smith, the command to “make no little plans” should be interpreted as the ethos behind a large redevelopment vision in the wake of the 1871 Great Chicago Fire—not the rallying cry for particular events.

“Regardless of whether the Olympics is the issue at hand, people try to invoke both the example of Burnham and that particular quotation whenever they propose an idea,” Smith said. “They try to use the success of his example and the obvious rhetorical power of that phrase as an endorsement of whatever their idea is… but we have to remember this is a different city and a different time.”

At the time of Chicago’s World’s Fair, the city was just recovering from the 1871 fire and many saw the fair as an opportunity to showcase its “rebirth,” Smith said. In fact, the similarities between the World’s Fair and the Olympics may end with their choice of venue, Washington Park.

At the turn of the century, Chicago was predominantly an industrial city with just above one million residents, less than a third of today’s population. In comparison, the city now faces a host of post-industrial, twenty-first century concerns from globalization to mass-transit that could not have factored into Burnham’s plans.

“What the Olympic committee is talking about is taking a mature park and building a temporary competition space within it that will be in significant part broken down afterwards,” Smith explained. “The Olympics run for three weeks—this was a fair to run for six months. And at that point Jackson Park was a swampy mess.”

“It's a different city and a different time," he added. "The example that Burnham offers is someone who learned from other places and other examples and then tried to decide what was best for Chicago...and we should do the same.”

Olympics News Roundup: 8/11

Paralympians discuss how Chicago is an ideal city to host the Paralympics, thanks to the city's wheel-chair accessible transit system and "curb cutting" initiatives.

The Chicago Tribune stays on top of Chicago 2016 committee members like Michael Scott, a real-estate developer who could stand to profit from some development projects near proposed Olympic venues.

As the United States Olympic Committee readies itself for the Oct. 2 announcement, Denver, CO and Reno, NV have reportedly expressed interest in hosting the 2018 Winter Games, and Pittsburgh in the 2020 Summer Olympics. The USOC has reiterated its support of Chicago's bid in light of these reports.

As bid for the 2016 Olympics heats up, Chicagoans find a natural refuge in Washington Park

One of Michael LaBarbera’s favorite weekend past-times is wandering through Washington Park, snapping photographs of the herons and dragonflies that surround its lagoons. He appreciates the park’s peacefulness, and the opportunity to get a great shot of a dragonfly hovering over the water, or a heron fishing.

But LaBarbera, a Hyde Park resident, knows that his neighborhood haunt will be transformed over the next decade if Chicago wins its bid for the 2016 Olympics. Washington Park contains one of the cities largest arboretums and is host to many species of birds and insects that stand to be effected should the city move forward with plans to put the Olympic Stadium and aquatic center in the Park’s north end.

“I am very much in favor of the Olympics,” LaBarbera said. But he is also worried about how the construction projects and influx of hundreds of people will impact the park’s nature areas and fauna.

“I don’t know how to reconcile those two things,” he added.

LaBarbera, a biology professor at the nearby University of Chicago, sometimes brings students from his class on invertebrate zoology to the Park to study water from the lagoons. The lagoons are host to several varieties of native-Midwestern birds, including Caspian terns, great blue herons and white-crowned herons.


An autumn meadowhaw perches on a twig in Washington Park (Photo by Michael LaBarbera)

“The lagoons are artificial, and those are surrounded by some areas that [the Chicago Park Service] planted with native plants,” he said. “They’re not unique plants, but given that we’ve plowed onto the prairie, they’re not exactly common either these days.” Though Washington Park was designed in 1871 to host the Columbian Exhibition and is not a natural park, “it’s the closest to a wild piece of land we’ve got in Hyde Park.”

Preservationists worry that Washington Park, one of urban planner Fredrick Law Olmsted’s most significant design projects after New York City’s Central Park, will have its National Landmark status revoked if Olympic proposals do not conform to the Park’s historic design plans. Some preservationist organizations and members of local sports teams have also probed Chicago 2016 officials in recent community forums on how many years the park may be closed to traffic during construction.

According to LaBarbera, the wildlife should not be affected by Olympics construction much more than it currently is during the summer months, when the park plays host to several festivals and a Fourth of July celebration.

“The whole park is completely packed with people, and more smell of barbecue lighter than you can imagine,” he said. “And you do see an impact on the wildlife. The birds go away for a couple of days. But then they come back.”

"It's very hard to construct a venue without devastating the area around it, and if you later disassemble the venues then there’s nothing but field around you," according to architect Martin Felsen, who spoke at an open meeting about the legacy of the Burnham Plan on Tuesday.

Felsen, co-founder of the urban design firm UrbanLab and professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, has been working with the Chicago 2016 committee on creating ecologically-forward plans. "We've looked at how communities can use the parks more, since [parklands] are not in such great condition some times, and then asked how people can engage open space more." To him, the Olympics could be an opportunity to promote physical health and community spirit, while exploring "green" urban planning initiatives.

Madiem Kawa echoes LaBarbera’s ambivalence. Kawa is a resident of Washington Park, the neighborhood on the park’s western border, and volunteers as the park’s nature area stewardess, organizing community clean-up events and tending to the park’s butterfly and dragonfly habitats. “I’m not opposed to the Olympics,"she says, but Kawa still has reservations.

“I don’t know what kinds of construction [Chicago 2016] will ultimately have in the Park, but I am concerned. If our tree population is taken away, for example, that would impact the number of bird habitats we have,” she said.

The Washington Park Arboretum, which Kawa describes as a ‘living tree museum,’ contains Lindens, Hickories and Bur Oaks, some of which have been alive since before the 1893 Columbian Exhibition. The arboretum is located in the park’s northwest end, close to the proposed Olympic Aquatic Center.

Like LaBarbera, Kawa can also list the species of birds she has seen in the park with ease: ducks, cardinals, finches, warblers, and one great white egret.

Kawa helps organize free bird-watching tours of the park and classes on plant-identification. “How can we educate the public and the Olympic committee to make sure [the nature areas] are not effected? That’s what I’m concerned about.”

Chicago 2016 has not responded to interview requests.



A green heron grabs lunch in Washington Park (Photo by Michael LaBarbera)


“If Chicago 2016 controls access to the park, I think they could actually preserve that wild area quite well,” LaBarbera said of the arboretum. “If they allow people to roam, it won’t be protected. But if they’re smart, they could actually take advantage of the peace and the tranquility of that area.”

Olympics News Roundup: 8/3

(Today's roundup is Chicago Tribune heavy, but not intentionally so)

The Chicago Tribune suggests that Lollapalooza organizers are trying to cement the annual music festival's Chicago identity by offering high-profile support and promotional opportunities to Chicago 2016—for example by giving the bid-organization the chance to name one of its largest concert venues ...

... And lauds World Sport Chicago, an off-shoot of Chicago 2016 that has been funding youth sports programs from the outset of the city's Olympic bid, for inspiring children to pursue swimming, track and field, and gymnastics. "There's a reservoir of untapped potential in Chicago because of a lack of facilities and programs for kids," the article says.

Meanwhile, Chicago 2016 hopes to postpone (again) filing its tax forms with the IRS, citing "a work-flow issue." A tax-exempt, non-profit organization, Chicago 2016 was originally asked to file a detailed report of its revenues, expenses and employees' salaries last May.

Could the Olympics see Chicago through the recession?

Mayor Daley and Chicago 2016 say the 2016 Olympics are just the stimulus Chicago needs to ride out the current economic recession, according to a story in today's New York Times:

"To hear Ms. [Lori] Healey and other bid leaders tell it, there is no downside. If the International Olympics Committee were to choose Chicago over Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo on Oct. 2, advocates predict the Games would not only break even but would also make money (as have, they say, earlier Olympics in the United States), generate more than $22 billion in indirect economic impact on the city and create $1 billion in new tax revenue. Many of the sites needed for the events would not require construction because they already exist."

I've met Chicagoans who agree with Healey's statement, and others who hear Chicago 2016 officials speak and instinctively clutch their pocketbooks tighter.

George Tolley, prof. emeritus of economics at the University of Chicago, is one South Sider who is still hesitant to say that Chicago will not have to draw from tax dollars to finance the bid.

"I don’t know what [Daley] really has in mind...he might be able to line up enough commitments from the private sector, if they're willing to commit themselves in a legally binding way," he said. But Daley "still has quite a bit of time to figure it out."

Butler Adams, a resident of Woodlawn, just southeast of the proposed Olympic Stadium and Aquatic Center sites, has been optimistic of the bid from early on—and his support remains strong, despite the weakened economy.

"You’ve got to spend money to make money. Its like an investment. If you put enough heart and spirit into that stock, there’s a greater chance you’ll be a beneficiary," he said.

Adams would like to see the city prove naysayers—and the groundswell of opposition that has formed in response to Mayor Daley's promise that Chicago will cover all potential losses for the International Olympic Committee—wrong.

"Chicago held the 1933 World’s Fair during the Great Depression, and it was so successful it was held over to another year. That could happen again."


UPDATE: Chicago isn't the only city rethinking its Olympic dreams in the face of an economic downturn; according to BBC News, London may move some 2012 Olympics venues to stay within its approximately $10 billion budget

Turnout is low among Washington Park residents at latest Olympics planning meeting

Some Chicagoans are eager to help Chicago 2016 plan for the Olympic bid, but Washington Park has few representatives at community meetings

Close to 60 Chicagoans debated the merits of plans for Washington Park in Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid Saturday morning at the third Washington Park Olympic Venue Legacy meeting.

Despite the high turnout from residents of Hyde Park, Kenwood and a few North Side communities, Cecilia Butler, president of the Washington Park Advisory Council, was concerned that most of the attendees were not from Washington Park proper—the neighborhood just west of the park that expects to see substantial re-developments should Chicago win the bid.

“As a community resident and an active member of my park, I am somewhat disturbed…We have a lot of people in this room talking about this park who don’t live here.” Butler said in her opening remarks to the group. “Think about that, how would you like it if some people came to your community and talked on your behalf? Make sure you are an active user of this park before you feel like making decisions about it.”

Butler said in an interview that she estimates Washington Park residents accounted for no more than one quarter to one third of the meeting’s members, who came to discuss plans for temporary and permanent changes to the park and recommend planning improvements to the Chicago 2016 committee.

“I’m not so concerned about the Olympics in the park. No. I’m concerned for that community west of the park that will be really affected; the people who use this park and drive through it… the people who live on Cottage Grove,” she said. “Where are they?”

But Arnold Randall, Chicago 2016’s director of neighborhood outreach, who led the meeting, held at the Washington Park Refectory, 55th and King Drive, insisted that every opinion counted—not just residents of Washington Park.

“I think it’s important to stress that a lot of the people who come to these meetings use the park every day,” he said. “[Chicago 2016] thinks it’s important to hear what everybody has to say about it …from a community perspective.”

Butler said that Chicago 2016 has so far addressed most of the issues identified by her Council, which issued a “26-Point Plan” for how it thinks the Games should be operated. But the WPAC is still waiting for the committee to clarify what will happen to the local cricket and soccer teams who play in the park, and how soon park roads would be closed to through traffic after construction begins. WPAC supports the bid, Butler said, but only if Chicago 2016 meets all of their demands, which include, “Building trade contracts and On-the-Job training programs for the African-American community,” and a stipulation that re-located local sports teams be able to have their user fees at other recreational sites eliminated or reduced.

During the meeting, Randall emphasized the importance of community support for Chicago 2016’s plans, which include building a collapsible stadium and an aquatic center with four Olympic-sized pools, but did not distinguish between attendees from inside and outside Washington Park. According to Randall, the purpose of the meeting’s presentation and break-out sessions was foremost to gain input from residents about what structures should ideally remain in the park after the Games, and where they should go.

The possibilities include relocating three of the four swimming pools to other park districts while leaving the fourth in Washington Park for public use and to complement the already-existing Dyett community pool, he said; Chicago 2016 is also considering leaving behind a down-sized version of the Olympic stadium with 25 to 35 hundred seats to be used for festivals and public gatherings.

Randall and spokespeople for the Chicago Park District distributed worksheets to the collection of nearly one-dozen breakout session groups, and asked them to describe how they envision the Aquatic Center and stadium's legacies in the Park after the Games. Chicago 2016 officials later collected and recorded the groups’ recommendations into a power-point presentation.

Jonathan Fine, executive director of Preservation Chicago, a North Side-based advocacy group, lead his breakout session group. “We reject the proposal to build an Olympic stadium in Washington Park, and recommend that Chicago 2016 find an alternative venue,” Fine read from his sheet. Other members of the group, all hailing from Hyde Park, North Kenwood or Bronzeville, debated whether or not that message was too strong.

But Kublai Toure, who sat at a neighboring table, was less conflicted. “As a black man who has lived in this community for over 50 years, I’m very concerned about my people being displaced,” he said. “There’s a lot of elderly people still in the community who have fixed incomes, and [the economic changes the Olympics might bring] create a problem for them. We have no confidence in this city government whatsoever.”

Toure, who lives just north of the park on Grand Boulevard and acts as executive director of the neighborhood advocacy group Amer-I-Can Illinois, said he did not come to the planning meeting expecting to sway Chicago 2016 in any direction. “I think it’s a done deal—I didn’t get anything out of the meeting. I just wanted to let them know that there’s a lot of people who feel like I do.”

Madiem Kawa, another Washington Park resident, speculated that poor advertising might be responsible for the low attendance of local community members. Despite subscribing to the email list-host of her district’s alderman, Willie Cochran, Kawa did not learn about the planning meeting until she attended an un-related community meeting in Jackson Park.

Kawa is the volunteer stewardess of Washington Park’s nature areas, and leads volunteer programs in the park for the Chicago Park District. “They hold this meeting on one of my [volunteer group’s] regular work days,” she said. “We can’t normally attend the meetings unless they change the date or time.”

Olympics News Roundup: 7/22

*The city's biggest summer music festival, Lollapalooza, will show its support for the Olympic bid by displaying Chicago 2016 banner on the main stage.

*President Obama is working overtime to promote Chicago's bid to African delegates of the International Olympic Committee, a Nigerian paper reports.

*Olympics Movement followers at Around the Rings support Chicago's decision to create three U.S. Tennis Association Regional Training Centers because of their potential to be used by local youth.

South Side community members express skepticism at latest forum on 2016 Olympics

Some South Shore neighborhood residents were in no mood to play games with Chicago 2016 on Wednesday night at the South Shore Cultural Center.

Despite a slick multi-media presentation from the bid committee, complete with a virtual tour of the city’s potential Olympic venues, skepticism was high among the South Shore crowd, which filled the Cultural Center’s ballroom for the latest community forum on the bid.


At the meeting, the fifth to be hosted by Chicago 2016 in the wake of rising concerns over how the city will pay for the bid, Chairman Pat Ryan and President Lori Healy promised that the Games could only benefit the lakefront community. And as Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th Ward) noted in her opening remarks, City Hall and the Chicago Park District were responsible for renovating the spacious, turn–of-the-century country club—and would be equally attentive to other community needs should Chicago win the bid.



Some residents of the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th wards arrived early for the Chicago 2016 community forum, which filled the recently renovated South Shore Cultural Center almost to capacity on Wed. evening

Community members nonetheless lobbed questions and criticism during the Q&A concerning tax-money, displacement, and whether or not they could trust the committee. The seated crowd chanted at the moderators at one point to return the microphone to a man who tried to ask a negative follow-up question about how the bid will be funded.

Chicago 2016 officials repeated at length throughout the evening that their organization was receiving no public funding, and had little connection to Mayor Richard Daley.

“To say that this money will be diverted from other programs is a false choice,” Ryan said. The $4.8 billion pledged to the bid “only comes in to play if we win.”

“We are very fortunate that we have the lakefront, that we have the United Center,” Ryan said, arguing that such existing resources should reduce the amount of additional investment needed for the Games. “I want to be clear that we do not need to acquire any land for our venue plan. There will be no displacement of city residents through this plan.”

Even so, protestors turned out from No Games Chicago and Save Michael Reese Hospital, both oppositions groups formed around the bid, soliciting attendees as they entered the center, located at 7059 S South Shore Dr. Members of Housing Bronzeville also stood around the entrance to the Center’s lobby with their leader, Bob Gannett. They voiced concerns that housing prices in Bronzeville, a South Side neighborhood near the proposed site of the 2016 Olympic Village, could rise if the bid succeeds.

“We’ve been working on [bringing affordable housing to Bronzeville] for five years now, so our concerns are not just something that sprung up because of the Olympics,” said Gannett, a community organizer and director of the Institute for Community Empowerment. Nonetheless, he said Housing Bronzeville will be attending every community planning meeting to express worries about how the Olympics might displace current Bronzeville residents and make the historic community even less affordable.

“We want to tell [Chicago 2016] that they need to step up and listen to the concerns of the community,” he added. “And Chicago 2016 should use their influence with the city of Chicago to get the city to respond—but that’s a stronger nut to crack.”

Attendees were no less critical inside the meeting hall:

“I just want to say this city doesn’t belong to the 2016 bid committee,” said one attendee, who identified herself only as Rhoda, during the Q&A. “If we wanted to go out and use the land, we would have to go out and pay fees.”

Other protestors passed out No Games Chicago stickers, and carried banners with the opposition group’s slogan, “No Blank Check,” but declined to be identified as part of No Games Chicago.

Local critics of the bid aren’t taking into account the amenities and commerce it will bring to the South Side, according to Shirley Newsome, who represents the 4th Ward (Hyde Park and North Kenwood) on Chicago 2016’s bid committee.

“There’s the idea of having an actual performance venue in Washington Park—something that their advisory council has been trying to get for years; the idea of improved infrastructure; funding for security during the Games [from the federal government],” she said.

Newsome also cited job training as another perk of the Games. “We’re preparing people for employment pre and post Olympic Games. These jobs will be in services, professional sectors, any number of areas—not just construction, because we all know those jobs are temporary.”

Newsome said she is perplexed by the outcry from organizations like Housing Bronzeville, and others who fear the Olympics will displace the South Side’s poorer residents. “I’m trying to figure out where [people would be displaced from]. No people live at Michael Reese. No people live in Washington Park. No people live on the lakefront.” And as for housing prices going up, “the community’s been going through gentrification for the past ten years already,” she said. “That’s nothing new.”




Long-time Hyde Park Resident Joni Jackson is excited about the bid, but wary of Chicago 2016's message

Joni Jackson, one attendee, said she would like to acknowledge the bid’s positives, like increased funding to improve transit and parks, but is most concerned about the economic impact on taxpayers – an issue she feels the bid committee has not sufficiently addressed.

“We are currently facing the highest sales tax in the country,” she said. “I love living in the Chicago area, and I would like to be able to remain here.”

Jackson, a graduate of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and educator from Hyde Park, said she came to the meeting to hear Chicago 2016 answer tough questions from community members. “I saw news snippets of the past meeting [at McKinley Park] and it didn’t appear that [Chicago 2016] was answering questions at all,” she said on her way out of the meeting. “I would love to believe what they’re saying but I don’t. I’m highly skeptical.”

Additional Coverage of the community forum: More Chicagoans say no to Olympics at the Examiner.

Olympics News Roundup (7/9)

*Mayor Richard Daley has a response for opponents of the Olympic bid: "If people keep throwing darts at it, maybe [Chicago] will not get it." Who exactly has been throwing darts? Daley isn't sure, but he told a Chicago Sun-Times reporter: "I would never bankrupt the city of Chicago."

And Chicago 2016 has launched a plan to host meetings about the Olympic bid in all of the city's 50 wards to foster support. (Check back here for coverage of some of the upcoming South Side planning meetings)...


...But Daley may have more to worry about than citizens grumbling, the Chicago Tribune reports: TV rights squabble may hurt Chicago's bid

The Uninvited Guest

University of Chicago sports economist Allen Sanderson talks about your tax dollars, Olympic stadiums, and what makes Chicago a bad party host

Rachel Cromidas: You and others have argued that the city’s financial plans for the 2016 Olympic bid will put taxpayers “on the hook” for more money than the city has. Could you unpack what costs the Olympics will place on the city if Chicago gets the bid?

Allen Sanderson: The budget of building the Olympic Village, stadium, tennis courts, swimming pool, and whatever else, plus the operating budget, is at $4.8 billion dollars now. That’s what it will cost to build the facilities and have the two month-long Olympic and Para-Olympic Games. The U.S. government will largely pick up the security costs, which will probably be huge because this the first Olympic games on American soil since 9/11. If we end up spending the $4.8 billion dollars, the city would get some fraction in ticket revenues, sales taxes, and a slice of the broadcasting pie. This means there is enough potential revenue to cover $4.8 billion dollars.

But the Chicago 2016 has also provided a guarantee. [The committee] says that if we can’t recover the expenditures, we have guaranteed the [International Olympic Committee] that we will cover all losses. This means that the taxpayers or the city or the state are on the hook—it’s not like the U.S. government or [Mayor Richard Daley] has put up their own money. We’re liable.

The Mayor let the cat out of the bag in Switzerland [when he announced that the city will sign the IOC’s host cities agreement]. But this was not new news. If a city really wants to be viable it has to sign this contract that says, “You are 100 percent liable for any budget deficits.” So now that’s unlimited exposure for Chicago. If we spend $4.8 billion dollars, will we be able to cover it? Yeah, I think so. If we spend $5.8, will we still be able to? Yup. The problem is, what if we don’t spend $4.8, but $14.8, or $24.8 [billion]? If that happens, Chicago or IL taxpayers will be advised to get out of state and take up residence somewhere else.



Allen Sanderson discusses the city's 2016 Olympic bid in his office amidst paraphernalia from past Games

RC: Do you think it will likely cost the city more than $4.8 billion to host the Games?

AS: Athens, Greece had a huge problem because they estimated it would cost $4 or $5 billion [to host the summer Games] and depending on how one counts, they spent between $20 and $25[billion] . London will spend over $20 billion. Beijing spent $45 [billion]. The mayor, or Mr. Ryan will say that Athens wanted to build a transportation system, London wanted to redo the whole East End…But so do we. The way cities get in trouble is that you can’t just stop spending money, because there are special interest groups all over the place—every construction unit, developer, every printer and alderman in town.

If you build a rail-line or a housing structure, it will last for 50 years. The Olympics lasts for two months. [Chicago] is letting this short-term project drive long-term, capital investments. Could we use more affordable housing, and more public transportation? Yes. But we should ask what makes [sense] for the city of Chicago in kind of a Burnham Plan sense, in terms of parks, recreation, transit, and then say “Oh, by the way, we’re having this party in the summer of 2016.” But instead of fitting the “party” into our long-term plans, Chicago is saying “We’re going to have a party in the summer of 2016. Now how can we reconfigure our neighborhoods, our transportation, our infrastructure and everything else to accommodate the Olympics?” That’s just stupid.

RC: Don’t you think the prospect of a party, or some other event that brings international attention, is sometimes the stimulus a city or community needs to start redeveloping?

AS: I’ve heard people say: “We never clean our house unless we have people over for dinner.” Well, if that’s the only time you clean your house, you’re sort of a slob. So I don’t really buy that analogy with regard to the Games.

RC: Some supporters of the bid have argued that the Games will bring new jobs and commercial activity to Washington Park, one of the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods. What do you think about that?

AS: I don’t want to point fingers here, but the city has spent more money on the North Side than the South Side. So, irrespective of anything and totally without any consideration of the Olympics, do I think the city should spend more money on the South Side? Absolutely. It’s a shame that they haven’t. But, on what exactly? That’s a larger conversation; a Daniel Burnham conversation, not a 2016 conversation. A possible scenario—I might even say a likely scenario—is that one would bring the Olympics athletes down Lake Shore Drive, they go across the Midway and they go into the park to compete, and then eventually they go back to the Olympic Village and then back to O’Hare. In that narrow model, there’s no need to do anything north, south or west of the stadium itself. To go back to the dinner party example, if we didn’t have the excuse to clean up, we would never do it otherwise.

Some people really believe that here’s a golden opportunity to fix up a huge chunk of the city. But come 2017, I think it’s very possible that things will look a lot like they do in 2009.

RC: You’ve written several Op-ed pieces about Chicago’s Olympic bid, and you have been quoted in the Chicago Tribune and elsewhere saying that the Games would have a negative impact on Chicago. Why have you been so vocal?

AS: I don’t think this [bid] is much different in some ways than a car salesman or the AARP, or the National Rifle Association; the 2016 Olympic committee is just a special interest group. And somebody may regard them as having a wonderful mission, but other people are going to disagree. I think its important for there at least to be another side; in other words, somebody to say “Well yes, but…” I think it’s important for somebody to say [to Chicago 2016], “Can you explain this? What’s the other side?” I’m not pro-Olympics or anti-Olympics, I just want to be that person, and keep Mr. Ryan and the mayor as honest as I can.

RC: Do you think the city officials behind the bid need someone to “keep them honest?”

AS: Let me put it this way. If I were gong to buy a car, I would want some information first. In this case, I’m trying to provide the information or ask the questions that will force [Chicago 2016] to ante up. For the mayor to have a press conference in Laussane, Switzerland to announce that he’s going to sign the [host cities’ agreement] is, quite frankly, bizarre. He’s the mayor of Chicago, not Laussane, and he’s a citizen of the U.S., not Switzerland, so why didn’t he have a press conference here first?

RC: You wrote an article on May 12 for the Chicago Tribune asking Chicago's committee to write a bid book for Chicagoans What more information about the bid do you think the city needs to hear from Chicago 2016?

AS: I said if you’re going to send a bid book to Laussane, why don’t you write a bid book for Chicago? Tell us, when are you going to start closing off Washington Park, and how long will it be closed? A few of the reporters for the Tribune picked up on that, and they were able to find out that Washington Park will probably be closed for four or five years. I’m not a heavy user of Washington Park, but a lot of people certainly are seven months out of the year. Closed, for a two month long party, we understand that. But are you saying that for 4 or 5 years we have no access to that park?

RC: Have you looked at the various Olympic stadium proposals that may be built in Washington Park, which include plans for either a large, collapsible stadium or a smaller permanent one?

AS: Let me give you a real minority opinion here – not that I haven’t already. Ten years ago [the city was] having similar discussions about what to do with Soldier Field. [Soldier Field] is kind of a mess; it’s not really very good as a football stadium… because they have built the smallest stadium in the National Football League. It’s ugly, it’s horribly dysfunctional, and there’s very little else you can do in a stadium of that size. We should build a stadium that we can be proud of as a city [for the Olympics]. One that would probably have a retractable dome; the Bears could use it, but we could also have bigger events, from political conventions to the Super Bowl to Miley Cyrus or whatever.

RC: So you would advocate for the Olympics Committee to build a larger stadium in Washington Park?

AS: No. Take Soldier Field—we could level it. I wouldn’t put the Olympic Stadium in Washington Park, I would put it at Soldier Field. People might say, “Well isn’t that expensive?” But it’s not that much more expensive. I don’t want to build a facility that we’re going to use for two months. I want a stadium that can be used for years. Now, that’s a really unpopular, minority opinion around here, but I don’t think it’s stupid. If I had to spend a billion bucks [on a stadium], that’s where I’d spend it.

…Also, its not obvious to me what the $350 million [budget to build the Washington Park stadium] is going to cover. Is it just building the stadium? Is it tearing down the stadium, or is that extra? [Chicago 2016] hasn’t made that clear.

RC: Pat Ryan, chairman of Chicago 2016, has said that the economists who argue that the Olympics will be a bad investment for the city don’t really understand the financial approach the committee is taking. What would you say to him if you could sit down together and go over the numbers?

AS: I have nothing against Mr. Ryan. He’s been a good corporate and individual citizen to the city of Chicago. But I’m not unknown to Mr. Ryan, and I’m easy to find. I know he’s got a lot on his plate between now and Oct. 2, but nevertheless I would have welcomed at any point a conversation or several conversations with him [about the bid’s finances]. Sometimes in press conferences the press will say, “Allen Sanderson says this…” and Ryan says he’ll give me a call and explain it. That never happens. I have told [Chicago 2016] my phone number and my teaching schedule and that I’ll make any other times work.

When they wanted to do an economic impact study—which they did—I would have been glad to do it for free…but they never asked. There were hundreds of firms and individuals they could have used that I think would have given them a more accurate proposal, but [the assessment they used] is horribly inaccurate. Until Mr. Ryan can convince me otherwise, that’s the story I’m going to tell. And I can’t really call Mr. Ryan up and say, ”I’ve got something to tell you,” can I? It’s his party, not mine; I can't just invite myself over.


Allen Sanderson is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago and a Senior Research Scientist at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). The interview transcript has been edited to fit this space.

Olympics loom over South Side community issues

Members of South Side Together Organizing for Power (STOP), and other community organizations protested the closing of a University of Chicago Medical Center clinic on Tuesday afternoon, but the city's Olympic bid was not far from protesters' minds.

A handful of South Side residents, University of Chicago students, and representatives from No Games Chicago, STOP, and the Illinois Single Payer Coalition marched with posters and chanted "healthcare is a human right!" to decry the Medical Center's decision to close a women's clinic on 47th St. at the end of June. Though the protest primarily criticized the Medical Center for disregarding poor people, it nonetheless implicated the city's Olympic bid—and the bid's potential cost for taxpayers—as part of the problem.

Some of the posters raised the question of what public service trade-offs the city may make to fund the Olympics: several read "Better Clinics—No Olympic Games," and one asked, "what do you get tax breaks for?"

For Tom Tresser, the No Games member who brought the "Better Clinics..." posters, the issues of medical services and the 2016 Olympics are inextricable.

"We have the same goals," Tresser, a resident of Lincoln Park, said of the protesters and No Games. "we're trying to make the city better from a grassroots level. One of the things [No Games] has been saying all along is that we want better trains, better schools, better clinics—and not the Games."

Guidi Weiss of the Ill. Single Payer Coalition expressed similar concerns to Tresser's but cautioned that the point of the protest was not to criticize the Olympic bid.

"Today is specifically about the closing of the women's health clinic," she said. The Medical Center "is basically saying 'we don't make money by serving the community.' ... We the tax payers are funding this hospital and the hospital is refusing to serve us."

The Olympics and the health clinic's closing are "completely separate issues," Weiss, a Hyde Park resident, added. "But it's true that the money we spend on the Olympics won't be spent on health care."

"That money is all coming from the same source; it's coming from us, the taxpayers, and we should have a say in where [it] is going."

No Small Plans is on Flickr!

Please take a look at my Flickr page to see a gallery of photos of Washington Park, Chicago 2016 Olympics paraphernalia, and more.

I'm still working on getting this blog to link to Flickr in the sidebar, but it can be done.


Coming up next: South Side Together Organizer for Power (STOP) and others protest the closing of one of the University of Chicago's clinics, and discuss how healthcare and the 2016 Olympics relate.

Olympics bring inspiration, challenges, to Washington Park Consortium

If you ask Brandon Johnson, Washington Park has forgotten how beautiful it is.

“But now that it’s getting attention from some famous people,” he said, like a person who has just looked in the mirror for the first time in years, “The neighborhood is remembering it’s attractive again.” The famous people Johnson is talking about are members of the International Olympics Committee, and they may vote in October to place the 2016 Games in the park.

Washington Park is a small, urban community on Chicago South Side; it neighbors the University of Chicago and encircles one of the city’s largest greenscapes, a park designed by urban planning legend Fredrick Law Olmsted. But the area is also caught in a century-long economic decline that has left its 13,000 residents with some of the highest crime rates in the nation and median household incomes approaching $15,000 a year.

Nonetheless, with its 372 acres of park land and 20 minute train ride from the Loop, it’s little surprise to community leaders like Johnson, executive director of the Washington Park Consortium, that the blighted neighborhood has attracted international attention as the proposed site of the 2016 Olympic stadium in Chicago’s bid.

“When you’re in a depressed socioeconomic state, it clouds your perspective on where you actually are in life,” Johnson explained, “and I think the attention of the Olympics is again allowing Washington Park to see itself as a Chicago neighborhood with mainstream potential.”



Man fishes in a Washington Park lagoon on a Tuesday afternoon (6/23)

A Neighborhood in Flux

Johnson has seen the community change first-hand; he grew up at 55th and Cottage Grove just steps away from where the Olympic Stadium would be built, and now he is tasked with executing the Washington Park Quality of Life Plan, a proposal on how community members want to see their home develop over the next decade. The plan was created in a partnership between 20th Ward Alderman Willie Cochran, the non-profit community development organization LISC, and a steering committee of neighborhood volunteers that began brainstorming in the late 1990s, according to Johnson.

But Alderman Cochran thinks the prospect of the Olympics is exactly the inspiration Washington Park needs to turn the plan, which addresses senior issues, urban agriculture and schools, from a blueprint into reality.

Viewing the arrival of the Olympics and the Quality of Life Plan as the cornerstones of community revitalization, Cochran said at the plan’s unveiling in May, “Washington Park will be one of the best, most sought after, thriving locations this city has to offer.”

Besides improving schools and after-school programming for neighborhood youth, the plan is heavily focused on bringing businesses to Washington Park’s main thoroughfares, such as Garfield Blvd., State St., and 63rd St., and planting community vegetable gardens in empty lots on 56th and Indiana and elsewhere.

Johnson, whom Cochran appointed to lead the community revitalization efforts, is “for the Olympics.” But Washington Park has a history of adversity to overcome before it can play an active role in planning for the Games, he says.

“As long as Washington Park is viewed as a desolate ghetto, then [people will say] that any development is warranted, even necessary, whether or not the community has input. Until the neighborhood is perceived as self-sufficient and independent, the impulse will be to interact with us through kinds of missionary behaviors, you know, ‘save the natives kinds of stuff.’”

Johnson’s worries about how Chicago’s Olympics committee might transform the neighborhood are not unfounded. Past redevelopment initiatives from the United Center built west of the Loop to the White Sox stadium in Armor Square have raised housing prices in many of Chicago's low-income areas, displacing some residents and drawing criticism for “gentrifying” their surroundings.

Survival Mode

“People here are generally in survival mode, so 2016 seems like a long way away.” Facing high unemployment rates, high crimes rates, and a recession with no end in sight, Johnson said Washington Park has a great potential to be taken advantage of should the city begin development of Olympian proportions in the park soon.

Johnson’s advice to Chicago’s Olympics committee is to look to Washington Park’s history of hosting sports events and the World’s Fair—a source of pride for a neighborhood that has come to be defined by its historic parklands—and view the park’s neighbors as community partners, not low-income residents to be dispensed of.

Now that Washington Park has a clear set of collective goals, Johnson said he would like to see a freer flow of information between Chicago 2016 and residents on the Olympic bid—rather than the organization's current emphasis on attracting the IOC's attention.

“I’m not impressed by their community outreach or their community vision so far,” he said, leaning back in his desk chair inside Alderman Cochran’s office on 63rd and Cottage Grove.

Does Johnson foresee Chicago 2016 heightening its community outreach after the city has secured the bid?

“Yeah, I think so. I hope so.”

Olympics News Roundup: 6/24

ESPN covers Olympic Day in Washington Park from a different angle than my story ...

... And Chicago 2016 Chairman Pat Ryan promises to brief the city's aldermen in 'the next 60 days or so' about the insurance plan to finance the Games ...

While Salt Lake City, Grand Rapids, and Pocatello, Idaho, mayors show their support for Chicago's bid.

Friendship (and sun) shines in Washington Park as Chicago 2016 kicks off Olympic Day celebration

Washington Park youth and paralympians Joshua George and Amanda McGrory wait for the start of the Olympic Day "Fun Run."

U.S. Track star Jackie Joyner-Kersee was more worried about making sure no one got hurt than introducing herself at Washington Park’s Olympic Day celebration.

“Right now we’re all on each others heels,” she said to the neighborhood youth crowding behind the starting line. “We don’t want to paw all over each other and hurt each other as I start this race.”

Joyner-Kersee honked her bull-horn, kicking off a short race beside the Washington Park Armory, and a full day of city celebrations in honor of the anniversary of the 1896 Olympics.

Members of Chicago 2016, the city’s Olympics organizing and fundraising body, looked on as several hundred local children in bright "Kids Back the Bid" t-shirts sprinted down the road.

Pat Ryan, chairman of Chicago 2016, marveled at the community enthusiasm. “It’s wonderful to see all these young people out there. Many of the kids who ran here could actually be Olympians some day,” he said in an interview.

The youth “Fun Run” was a welcomed bright spot for Chicago 2016, which has faced mounting criticism over its nebulous plans to finance Chicago’s bid for the International Olympic Committee. The IOC requires cities to sign an agreement fully committing themselves to insure the Games against financial losses.

Ryan insists that the bid will not over-burden taxpayers—and critics of Chicago 2016’s plan should take a closer look at the numbers.

The critics “have never called; they never asked to go over the numbers with us—We would welcome that, particularly some of the [University of Chicago] economists like Mr. [Allen] Sanderson,” he said. “They got the numbers, but they haven’t had the explanation; you’ve got to go through it and discuss it.”

Despite the push-back from local opposition groups like No Games Chicago and South Side Together Organizing for Power (STOP), Ryan is enthusiastic about the opportunities the Olympic Games could bring to the park and surrounding neighborhood. “Lots of volunteer jobs, and real jobs will be created in the neighborhood [if Chicago wins the bid]. It’s really a stimulus financially and emotionally.”

“For the next six or seven years a kid will grow up watching this area get built, and he can say ‘hey, I played there. I played there in that exact same park. I watched them put those bricks down.’ That’s pretty awesome,” said April Holmes, a paralympian who competed in track and field for the U.S. at the Para-Olympics in Beijing.



Children race in Washington Park on Olympic Day


Paralympian Joshua George, who also competed for the U.S. track and field team in Beijing, thinks the Games can play a unique role in inspiring children. Like Holmes, George and his fellow teammate Amanda McGrory were invited by Chicago 2016 to speak at the Washington Park “Fun Run.”

“I’ve gotten the privilege to go into a few schools around the city as well,” George said. “It’s going to be huge, because by the time the games come to Chicago [these students] will be 18, 19 years old. Some of them will be athletes, and some will probably be spectators.”

Olympics News Roundup 6/22

Members of No Games Chicago returned from Lausanne, Switzerland, where they flew last week to protest the city's bid to members of the International Olympic Committee ...

... While Hawaii celebrated the international air travel that the Chicago Olympics would bring to the state's capital ...

... And President Obama gives America the "it-factor" that might push the second city ahead of its competition.




Volunteers for Chicago 2016 pass out "Olympic Rings" wristbands in Federal Plaza (6/18)

Tuesday is Olympic Day, and Chicago 2016 is hosting a morning of speeches and athleticism in Washington Park. Check back here for updates.

Aldermen, analysts, wary of Chicago’s new plans to finance 2016 Olympics

Mayor Richard M. Daley announced Wednesday that Chicago will take on full financial responsibility for the 2016 Olympics, a plan that may drive the cost of hosting the Games beyond the $500 million in private insurance already bracketed by City Council.

5th Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston learned of the new guarantee plan with the rest of Chicago—on the news.

“It was a shock,” she said. “The deal is something that should have gone before the city council …[it] shouldn’t have been made unilaterally.”

The city has already put forward $450 million in "rainy day funds,” close to $375 million in IOC cancellation insurance, $500 million in insurance coverage, and another $500 million guarantee of taxpayer money from the city to be used as a “last resort.” City officials say the guarantee will be financed through the city’s organizing committee, Chicago 2016.

Daley’s promise, made at the International Olympics Committee meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, will make the city fully responsible for any financial loses the Olympics may incur on top of the $4.8 billion projected cost of hosting the games—a plan that diverges from previous talks about pioneering a limited-guarantee plan for the city.

“The benefits of the Olympics are great,” Hairston said, but she would be more comfortable with the deal if Mayor Daley had presented the Council with transparent research on the guarantee’s possible financial impact on the city first.

“From everything I’ve heard, Chicago stands to do really well, but I would still like to see the numbers…and that hasn’t been provided yet,” she said.

4th Ward Alderman Toni Preckwinkle echoed Hairston’s concern that Daley did not brief the city’s aldermen before announcing the decision—but she wasn’t so surprised to hear the news.

“My understanding is that cities have all signed the agreement in the past,” she said, referring to the host city’s agreement that all bid candidates will be required to sign two days before the IOC announces its decision on Oct. 2. The agreement makes Olympics host cities completely responsible for the games’ financial loses.

According to Preckwinkle, the city council signed an ordinance earlier this year giving the Mayor the power to sign contracts on behalf of the city at the IOC, including the host city’s agreement. Though the promise of a financial guarantee will make the city a much more viable contender against Tokyo, Madrid, and Rio de Janeiro, the new plan faces skepticism, especially over how much Chicago taxpayers will be on the hook to cover the losses.

“The more you put on the line, the more you’re going to lose,” said Richard Taub, a sociologist at the University of Chicago. “As far as we know, the Olympics in Atlanta and the Olympics in Seattle ended up costing a lot of money, and it didn’t make money for those cities at all.”

Taub, author of There Goes the Neighborhood: Racial, Ethnic, and Class Tensions in Four Chicago Neighborhoods and Their Meaning for America, compares the city’s approach to the Olympics to the way American cities have approached sports stadium-building.

“When a city uses tax dollars to build stadiums, they never pay off for the city or the people in the city. If you’re going to put [tax dollars], at risk then you’re going to get in trouble,” because individual citizens do not stand to gain from the Games, he said.

Preckwinkle is more optimistic; “The reason Mayor Daley has chosen to pursue this so energetically is because he wants to raise Chicago up on the international stage,” she said.

“I think when people think of the U.S. internationally, they think of New York, they think of L.A., maybe Disney World,” she said. “But Chicago is a really beautiful city and I think [Daley] believes this will really benefit us.”

More news on the full financial guarantee:

*from the Chicago Tribune: "Olympics funding: City Council in no mood for games."

*from Chicago Public Radio: "Alderman Wants to Cap City Spending on Olympics."