Emanuel’s Chicago: A city on the move
A scene in the 2014 series “Chicagoland” captured a philosophy that has driven Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration since his election in 2011. In the CNN documentary starring Emanuel as he took over City Hall — the city’s first new mayor in 22 years — Emanuel described his goal to nurture Chicago’s global stature.
“There’s 100 cities that really drive the world economy. Chicago’s in that,” he said while answering his flip phone — yes, it was dinosaur technology even then — and winding through the city in a black sport utility vehicle. “But unlike a Berlin, unlike a New York or a Shanghai, we’re not guaranteed a slot. What we do in these next two to three years will determine whether in 20 to 30 years we’re in the top 50 or we slide back. I’m determined to keep us in that top 50 and moving.”
Top 50 and moving. What does that look like? A city that attracts businesses and young professionals. A city that draws tourism and invests in transportation. A city of diversity, of growth, of expansion. A place that’s alive.
Under Emanuel, more than 50 corporate headquarters have moved inside the city limits, including some that hopped just a few miles from the suburbs. That’s the appeal of a thriving downtown. During the last eight years, Chicago has evolved as an entrepreneurial and technology hub. The success of meeting space 1871 in the Merchandise Mart, the revival of the old main post office, the arrival of new residential developments and the boom of breweries and upscale dining improved Chicago’s stature in that global city category.
Parts of the Near West Side that would have been unimaginable for expensive condos and Top Chef restaurateurs are exploding with growth. The modernization of Navy Pier, the completion of its “flyover” to enhance the pedestrian experience, and investments along the Chicago Riverwalk and the lakefront are all infrastructure improvements Emanuel pushed even as he juggled tight city finances.
Last year, more than 58 million visitors descended upon Chicago, a tourism number Emanuel’s office described as recordsetting. That’s not a fluke. It is due in large part to confidence in the city’s vibrancy and its future, which Emanuel has been good at selling. For as much as Chicago is a tale of two cities — and it is — feeding its nucleus has been a strategy that has paid dividends. Chicago’s downtown blooms year round.
The other Chicago
Other parts of the city, however, have not flourished under Emanuel. They’ve worsened. So while construction cranes hover over neighborhoods like Streeterville, a high tax burden, crime, corruption and mediocre public schools have driven families, especially middle-class AfricanAmericans, to flee. In their wake: hollowedout neighborhoods on the West and South sides.
The fraught issue of police accountability also stalked Emanuel’s City Hall. Just a few months into his second term in 2015, a judge ruled in favor of releasing a police shooting video that would forever change Emanuel’s legacy. The under-wraps video of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, shot 16 times by Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke, didn’t just rock Chicago. It fueled a widespread distrust in Emanuel from which he never recovered. It strained an already tense relationship between the Chicago Police Department and black neighborhoods. And some say it contributed to a horrific spike in homicides the following year when the murder toll soared to more than 760, the worst in two decades. More exodus.
Then-presidential candidate Donald Trump began talking and tweeting about Chicago violence, calling it “out of control” and “worse than some of the places we’re hearing about, like Afghanistan.” Emanuel pushed back against the rhetoric. But violence in certain neighborhoods on the South and West sides continues to be a crisis. There is no sugar-coating it. Even though homicides have trended downward, Chicago’s appalling crime epidemic is unfinished business that Emanuel leaves for the next mayor, Lori Lightfoot. Can she quell it?
There’s another scene in the series “Chicagoland” where Emanuel visits a community garden alongside Whole Foods CEO Walter Robb. Emanuel nudges Robb and another executive to cough up $100,000 to support the garden. They agree. Emanuel drops a celebratory swear word on two women working at the garden, slaps them a high-five and flips a tomato in the air.
Conflating work of Chicagoans and image of their mayor
It’s classic Emanuel. High energy. Camera ready. Foul-mouthed. Eight years ago, he was an experiment — a seasoned Washington, D.C., insider known for his impatience and at times his petulance. A former congressman. A Democratic fundraiser. A White House chief of staff. Could he be a Chicago-style mayor? It’s a question that has shaded his two terms in office. Emanuel was never able to connect with working class Chicago, not in the way his predecessor, Richard M. Daley, did. Emanuel’s inability to listen, to meaningfully engage and to admit mistakes, dragged on his agenda. As he exits there’s a sense of potential unfulfilled.
Just about everything he did, from a morning meeting at City Hall to a school visit to a cultural event, revolved around his campaign apparatus. His public relations machine didn’t distinguish between celebrating the work of Chicagoans and boosting the image of their mayor. Those purposes got conflated: One didn’t happen without the other. And Chicagoans saw through it. Emanuel’s obsession with his reputation and his national profile reflected his own worst instincts for self-promotion. It’s one reason why polls last spring began to expose Emanuel’s tough re-election prospects if he opted for a third term. Shrewdly, he decided to search for some new future.
Eight years ago, Chicago needed a mayor to bridge Chicago’s past and its future. A mayor who finally forced the city to move away from financial crutches — under Daley the city was selling assets to balance budgets — and to force action on pension reform. Emanuel did that. The city’s four pension funds are not fixed, not even close. Emanuel pushed legislative reforms that would have cut taxpayers’ costs, but he couldn’t circumvent rigid legalities that blocked him. He instead pushed tax hikes through the City Council and Springfield. The funds are more stable; their unfunded liabilities haven’t skidded backward as much as they likely would have under Daley. It’s progress, mild as it is.
We wish Emanuel had moved more aggressively, sooner, to confront citizens with the financial mess Daley had left him, including at Chicago Public Schools. Uncharacteristically, Emanuel held his tongue. Had he leveled with Chicago, his financial fixes, too, could have come sooner and had bigger impacts. He distanced himself from scandals rather than owning them. He fought efforts to govern more transparently. All of that said, we can almost hear him humming the refrain from an Anna Kendrick song, “You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone.”
Probably yes. Because in the end, Mayor Emanuel kept his word. He pushed Chicago to keep moving, to shuffle forward, to improve its rank as a global city.
Not many big-city mayors can say that.