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Over the last few years, Mayor Daley's boosters (like his father's) have had one standby response (see comments below posts) to any criticism of his reign: without him, we'd be Detroit.
It's a curious response. I know it's code for something, but I'm not sure what. I mean, of all the cities to compare Chicago to, why Detroit? Why not, oh, I don't know, Minneapolis or Seattle or Toronto?
Do the mayor's supporters really believe that whatever differences may exist between Chicago and Detroit come down to Mayor Daley and his leadership?
If so, what exactly has Mayor Daley done to keep Chicago from becoming Detroit?
For that matter, are there parts of Chicago that actually are like Detroit?
If so, why hasn't Mayor Daley helped them?
Keeping downtown packed with stores, tourists and workers has been really, really important to Daley, which makes sense--it's where all the media is, it's the big transportation hub, and it's where most of the city's major attractions are.
And in fairness: Downtown, South Loop, and River North going up along the lake are in reasonably good shape. The question is what's being neglected, and it's also fair to say much of the city is being neglected.
So that's the part of the city that gets the most attention. If you keep that part nice, then the perception of the city will be better than it deserves--and that goes for infrastructure as well as neighborhoods and services.
Are you pulling our collective leg here, Ben?
We all know damned well that's code for the notion that Detroit still has too many black people, while our fine City is finding every way possible to scoot them - the poor ones, at least - out of the city proper.
timely article to The Chicago Reader about the comparison of the present evil system making ALL worker's sick/ill, AND the better system proposed by Henry George in his books "Progress and Poverty", AND "Social Problems"; the editor's rejected it out-of-hand!!! So NOW it's up to ALL you to call the Henry George School, 312-362-9302; WWW.hgchicago.org; or the Robert Schalkenbach Fdtn., 1-800-269-9555; FAX: 212-683-6454; E-Mail: staff@schalkenbach.org; Website: www.schalkenbach.org to order the TWO books I mentioned earlier, above. To quote John Dewey: "You cannot consider yourself a TRULY educated human beingin social/economic thought if you haven't read Henry George book's"! The REAL culprit's of the present system are the absentee land-owner's who monopolize/speculate/land bank/crooked developer's too!!! That ALL ties in with the ALL the garbage that's going on; TIF's, being pocketed by Mayor Daley, and defended by hacks like Paul Keller, of I.T.I.A., Mayor Daley is a Board member. Abolish ALL taxes: income/sales/distribution/production, the present property tax which makes YOU the sucker, if you're not savvy, or ruthless enough in in NOT being able to pay your fair share!!! Incarceration rate of African-American/Hispanic-Latin Youth is 50 to 80% higher than whites. And when ALL you people, Male/Female-Women ACTUALLY see me at bus stop's, waiting for a bus, or a Medium rail elevated/subway station platform same as you, PLEASE don't reject/invalidate/discount/ignore ME when I personally hand you information about the Chicago Henry George School people, I'm JUST TRYING to SAVE YOUR present AND future economic/social/political/business/work future's!!! Especially ALL YOU people in school/work, or BOTH!!! ONLY I GIVE YOU AND TELL/INFORM, AND EDUCATE ALL of YOU in THE REAL TRUTH!!! Can anybody or ANY educational, or work isnstitution DO what I DO To help ALL of YOU SEE the light of Henry George?!?!? NO!!! A hundred, EVEN A thousand TIMES NO!!! NEVER!!! EVER!!!!
Bottom line is the Mayor does have a lot to do with it.