In 10 years, close to 500,000 people will be living in the city center – an area bounded by the Stevenson Expressway, North Avenue, the lake, and Ashland Avenue or Halsted Street – according to the projections Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd) has seen.
“Let’s think about where the parking is, where the congestion is,” he said to a crowd Tuesday evening at the Cassidy Theater at the Cultural Center. “Where is the transportation, the infrastructure?”
Fioretti and Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) spoke at Friends of Downtown’s New Alderman Forum, a panel discussion and Q&A with the newly elected leaders. As it turned out, most of the questions were about development.
Fioretti on what will happen if the 7 percent property tax cap isn’t reinstated:
“A trickle will become a flood, and an exodus of people will leave the city of Chicago.”
Reilly on the downtown congestion tax proposed by Ald. Ed Burke (14th):
“In order for that to be a pragmatic solution, you need to be well-funded…you need a solvent, reliable public transportation system, you need to give riders a viable alternative to driving.”
Fioretti on the homegenity of businesses moving into developing neighborhoods: “Retail all ends up being the same. We have a cleaners, we have some video store, and…And maybe we’re going to have a Starbucks or something along those lines. Well, that has to end.”
Reilly on listening to constituents’ voices:“That’s not anarchy, that’s democracy with a small ‘d’.”
That’s it? YOu don’t have more than that?
Honestly, jokes aside…Is that all the information you have on the downtown alderman meeting? I’d think there was more discussed than that the two items you addressed? But, I may be wrong. Pls advise.
Good grief…for a moment there I thought the guy on the left was Donald Trump!
The forum was roughly an hour long, so those were just some of the things discussed. In the interests of time, space and an avoidance of what some other media outlets opted to report on, this was what we chose.
There is also some dimly-lit video of the forum that we hope can be edited into a product that will be viewable for all of you.
Is there a link to more coverage of this event? Can you please provide it?
I’m wondering if there was any substantive followup to Fioretti’s comment on businesses downtown. Or did he just leave it at that?
As Mark noted, we will have some video up early next week at the latest. You’ll hopefully be able to see the entire thing, or large chunks of it.
My main concern with these two babes in the woods is the possiblity that we might have a couple of glorified poll-takers on our hands here. What we need is real vision, leadership – not governance by polls. If I wanted to live in a downtown in which every proposed development needed to have dozens of meetings and every resident’s voice heard endless times, I would live in Boston, or San Francisco or New York – NOT Chicago!!
Fioretti also worries me with his goofy anti-chain store talk. Why don’t we just have some more ill-conceived retail regulation legislation while we’re at it?
Fioretti: “We have a cleaners, we have some video store, and…and maybe we’re going to have a Starbucks or something along those lines. Well, that has to end”
I just love where this is going. Let me know if anything good happens while I get a beer.
Anyone notice that pretty much the only threads that get a lot of comments are about the South or West Loop?
Jeff
A little bit of Uptown-bashing also brings out the comments.
Joe,
start some Uptown bashing. Open a thread.
It does bring such joy to your heart.
Generally anything Uptown related will likely get more comments. Just an area that people like to comment on.
I hate Uptown!