After hearing Jody Weis and the mayor denounce and attempt to explain the swell of violence in Chicago since January, I now believe that Steven Colbert has some serious competition for the title of top political satirist in America. The mayor rambles something about wanting to make Chicago the city of children and Jody Weiss reminds us that it's warm out, so you know, people'll be shooting each other. And then he scolds parents for not knowing where their children are and what they are doing at all times. Our illustrious press corps lets the mayor off without asking about whose children Chicago will be a city for and how he can wag his portly finger at parents. Will Chicago be the city of children for those who parent(s) aren't home all the time because they have to ride two unreliable CTA buses to work because Mayor Daley can't take time from his Olympic dreams to make a world class city have at least a reliable transportation system? The 2000 census found that workers from Englewood and Woodlawn, for example, had average travel times of 45 and 42 minutes respectively. Those are acceptable travel times if you live in Naperville or Lombard, not if you live 10 miles from the Loop. Where are the innovative solutions from the mayor that would help support working families who don't own cars? Oh, right, let's make the curfew earlier so that kids can be locked in their homes staring at the walls or can have more positive interactions with the friendly tactical teams of the CPD. Good call.
Will Chicago be a city of children for those kids who have to ride the aforementioned fantastic CTA to go to a school outside of their neighborhood because their local school has been closed by Mayor Daley's CPS? Youth workers and gang crime experts for years decried the possibility of increased violence as students are shipped across turf lines to schools already on edge. It is the worst of ironies that Hyde Park Academy, close by the home of the decent yet perhaps overmatched Arne Duncan's family, has seen soaring violence rates since students from closed schools further south and west have been forced to enroll.
Will Chicago be a city of children for those kids who have to move out of their neighborhoods because of gentrification to new neighborhoods bereft of the institutions and spaces they remember and hold fast to? Will Chicago be a city of children despite the fact that job training, workforce development, and the attraction of decent wage jobs to this city has not been a priority for city hall since the days of Harold Washington? I guess all those South and West Side kids Mayor Daley so wants to shell out absurd amounts of money for tickets to go to the new Children's Museum can all work at the new Wal-Marts or Targets he'll bring to the city.
Oh, and for what it's worth, thank goodness Jody Weiss got big coin to head the CPD. Certainly, the past weekend's violence has complex causes, but according to our crack new FBI trained police wiz, it's all about the sunshine. Which begs the question, can't the man get an Accu-Weather widget on his desktop?
Preventing youth violence requires a full effort by both the police and non-profit social service sector, as in the Ten Point Coalition in Boston. It may even require the mayor to shake free some of his Olympic kitty from his TIF slush fund. If we really want to Chicago to be a city of children or at least a place where kids don't get shot at school, it'll take more than surface gestures like planting trees or tougher curfews.
Anthony / April 24, 2008 11:35 PM
To use a stat from the year 2000 is ridiculous and unfair. I travel via public transportation from an area less than one mile south of Englewood and average about 25-30 minutes start to finish. Occasionally I do encounter a delay but this is not the norm.
The number of murders on the south and west sides of Chicago have been consistenly high years before there was ever any talk of bringing the Olympics to Chicago. I do agree that there are better ways to attack the problems that plague these communities...but I sense that this effort has to begin in the households of these killers with parents taking greater responsibilty for themselves, their children and their duty to society at large. Just step into a courtroom when one of these murderous thugs gets caught and tried and you'll find no sympathy for the victims, only a general sense of hostility toward society if you find anyone there at all.
The Olympics may never come to Chicago but murder in this big city will always exist. So lets keep this tendentious Olympic hogwash to a minimum and work on more pragmatic ways to improve the lives of all the people in this city.