Is Chicago's "Tourist Bubble" Worth It?

This past week we read about how Chicago has invested millions of dollars in tourist-oriented development. Millennium Park, Navy Pier, McCormick Place, the new museum campus and the new Soldier Field-- all of these attractions have either been built or newly renovated in the past 20 years and have been moderately successful at pulling in visitors from around the world. But critics charge that such attractions are not much used by the city residents whose tax dollars paid for then in the first place. SOOOO the question of the week is: Is such tourist-oriented development worth it? Was Millennium Park worth the 100s of millions that the city spent building it? Or should the city be investing its scarce resources in other kinds of development?

Chicago's racial divide

Chicago today is still very much a city divided by race. While blacks and whites in the Chicago metropolitan area work together, play sports together and engage in various other civic activities together, the evidence suggests that they continue to live in neighborhoods -- and to send their children to schools-- that are very strictly segregated along racial lines. And though conditions in the city's majority African American neighborhoods have improved since Martin Luther King arrived in town to protest against the plight of those confined to the ghetto, the improvement has not been very dramatic. This raises a big question: What do you think accounts for the persistence of racial divide in 21st century Chicago? And, perhaps more importantly, what, if anything, could be done to dismantle residential segregation in the city AND its suburbs?

Immigrant Chicago

Chicago-- like New York-- has long been known as an immigrant city. Last week, we visited one of Chicago's most famous immigrant neighborhoods, Pilsen, formerly a Czech stronghold and now the capital of Mexican Chicago. Based on both on what you've read for this course amd on your own experiences of the city so far this term, in what ways would you say immigration and immigrants are still important to the city culturally and economically? How are the obstacles and challenges faced by recent immigrants to Chicago today different than they were back in the 19th century or in the 1930s when Zorbaugh was writing The Gold Coast and the Slum? What has changed and what has remained constant in the immigrant experience over the years? And how is the immigrant experience different for, say, Mexicans than it was and is for white Europeans (like Poles and the Irish)?

Make No Small Plans?

On page 98 in his book, Smith quotes this critical passage from Burnham's landmark 1909 Plan of Chicago: “At no period in its history has the city looked far enough ahead...There can be no responsible fear lest any plans that may be adopted shall prove too broad or comprehensive.” Considering the challenges before Chicago at the time of the plan as well as in the present, are Burnham's claims here justified? How might the city look “far enough ahead” today? What sorts of challenges loom on Chicago's horizons some 100 years after Burnham first laid out his sweeping vision for the city?

Urbanism as a Way of Life

In the 1938 classic article by Louis Wirth that you read for our first class meeting, "Urbanism as a Way of Life," he attempts to define sociologically the essential characteristics of a city and to describe the distinctive "way of life" to which these characteristics give rise. Does Wirth's definition of the city still hold true today? Do you agree with Wirth's characterization of the urban way of life? Can you think of any essential features or problems associated with city living that he leaves out of account or does not emphasize sufficiently?

Welcome to the Course Blog for USS 300

Hi all. Welcome to the course blog for the Chicago Term section of USS 300. Look here for blog prompts, course announcements and items of interest to students in the course.