Chicago invests in citizens - Mayor Richard M. Daley address - Transcript

Parks & Recreation, Jan, 2002

REMARKS FROM MAYOR RICHARD M. DALEY

ADDRESS TO "GREAT PARKS GREAT CITIES" CONFERENCE

TUESDAY, JULY 31, 2001

I'm pleased to be here today to talk about my favorite subject, the City of Chicago, and I want to invite all of you to visit my city the next chance you get.

If you haven't been to Chicago for a number of years, I predict you'll have the same reaction that we hear time and again from our visitors.

They always tell us, "I had no idea Chicago was such a beautiful city."

We heard that often from reporters and others who came to Chicago for the 1996 Democratic National Convention.

The syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer wrote in 1998 that "Chicago might just be our most stunning city."

As recently as last May, a writer for the New York Times discovered, to his surprise, that Chicago's lakefront is spectacular, and full of recreational and cultural opportunities.

He had expected steakhouses and smoky bars -- and we do have them. We also have elevated trains that show up all the time in movies and television shows. We have plenty of factories, railroads and hard-working people who are responsible for one of our nicknames: City of the Big Shoulders.

But there's a softer side of Chicago, and that's what I'm here to talk about today. It's reflected in projects as small as the window boxes on City Hall and the playlots in our neighborhoods, and as large as our new Millennium Park, which is being built over downtown railroad tracks at a cost of $320 million, most of it from the private sector.

Come to Chicago and you'll see flowers and shrubs in the street medians, not just downtown, but in the neighborhoods as well. This is a result of our Landscape Ordinance, which requires developers of everything from office buildings to parking lots to install -- and maintain -- landscaping around their property and on the public way.

You'll see neighborhood fountains. We've built and renovated a dozen of them, including one that was 117 years old. Besides being beautiful, fountains are natural gathering places and they cool off a public space during hot summer days.

You'll probably see more trees than you expected. We've planted more than 300,000 since I became mayor in 1989, to beautify the city and reduce noise, air pollution and summer heat.

On top of City Hall, there's a rooftop garden, containing 20,000 plants of more than 150 species. Because green roofs are cooler than dark roofs, we expect to save $4,000 a year in heating bills and we hope to inspire the owners of private buildings to build their own gardens.

If you walk around downtown this summer, you'll see something that's intriguing and a little bit offbeat: displays of fiberglass street furniture decorated by local artists. We have more than 300 pieces on sidewalks, parkways and plazas.

This, of course, is a sequel to our highly successful Cows on Parade exhibit, which has been replicated in many cities, including New York.

If flowers and trees add color and softness to a city, cows and street furniture add humor and whimsy. They tell you to slow down, calm down and smile.

In many of our neighborhood business districts you'll see what we call streetscapes. These usually include new sidewalks, curbs and gutters; trees with tree grates; bicycle racks; benches; planters; decorative paving and drinking fountains.

Wherever possible, we include decorative structures appropriate to the community. For example, there's a Chinese dragon theme on concrete pillars in Chinatown; decorative bronze medallions of the Aztec calendar in a Mexican-American community; gateway structures resembling Greek temples in Greektown; and rainbow-colored pillars in a gay and lesbian community.

These streetscapes help generate community pride, they create a sense of place and they help attract customers for neighborhood businesses.

This is quite a wide variety of amenities -- everything from fiberglass cows to playlots -- but they all have this in common: they improve the quality of life.

And I believe very strongly that the cities that pay attention -- really pay attention -- to quality of life will be the cities that thrive in the 21st century.

Part of this is psychological. Cities are vibrant and exciting, but they also can be overwhelming and intimidating. Trees, flowers, a small park, even a sidewalk bench can soften the rough edges of a city, calm your nerves and make you feel a little more in control of things.

Parks play an equally important role in residential areas. They are essential building blocks of strong neighborhoods.

Over the last 50 years, many Chicago neighborhoods lost their cohesion as families moved to the suburbs.

I'm convinced the main reason for this flight was the decline of the city's public schools. And if you've followed what we've been doing in Chicago for the last six years you know that education is my number-one priority.

I believe the education of our children is central to everything else we're trying to accomplish in Chicago: creating jobs, reducing crime, attracting industry and ending poverty.