"Well, today’s Chicago is broke. And, in the short term, it’s hard to imagine the city implementing anything like Millennium Park, the massively successful civic endeavor of two decades ago. We’re entering the second week of December and we don’t even have a 2025 budget or any clear consensus toward achieving one. Just plenty of red ink."
Downtown and the near north side isn’t too far away from an urban poor and cyberpunk dystopian sin city, something straight of a movie, with nightclubs, prostitution, vice, drugs and cannabis, bars and restaurants and gambling all in one walkable location, with bright flashing lights, and the other smells and sounds of a gritty, dystopian urban environment. That’s where it’s heading, a sort of Chicago’s version of 1970’s Time Sq. with peep shows and all the rest.
A bit like Weimar – era Berlin, in that Chicago is a decaying and decadent place, dancing on the edge of a precipice. But unlike 1920’s Berlin, Chicago lacks the cultural creativity and technical innovation that Berlin gave us, and that still resonates all over the world a century later. Berlin had Einstein, Brecht, the Bauhaus, and Marlene Dietrich – while we have the mental dregs of a Preckwinkle, a Mayor Johnson, and the CTU…
mqyl
1 year ago
The Chicago pols have already started implementing their reimagining of downtown Chicago. As most rational people can see, the result isn’t good.
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
Downtown and the near north side isn’t too far away from an urban poor and cyberpunk dystopian sin city, something straight of a movie, with nightclubs, prostitution, vice, drugs and cannabis, bars and restaurants and gambling all in one walkable location, with bright flashing lights, and the other smells and sounds of a gritty, dystopian urban environment. That’s where it’s heading, a sort of Chicago’s version of 1970’s Time Sq. with peep shows and all the rest.
A bit like Weimar – era Berlin, in that Chicago is a decaying and decadent place, dancing on the edge of a precipice. But unlike 1920’s Berlin, Chicago lacks the cultural creativity and technical innovation that Berlin gave us, and that still resonates all over the world a century later. Berlin had Einstein, Brecht, the Bauhaus, and Marlene Dietrich – while we have the mental dregs of a Preckwinkle, a Mayor Johnson, and the CTU…
The Chicago pols have already started implementing their reimagining of downtown Chicago. As most rational people can see, the result isn’t good.