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.