Percentage of Illinoisans polled who could not name a single member of the state legislature: 77 (Northern Illinois University 1991 Illinois Policy Survey).
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
“Those who have worked for independent candidates learn a certain grudging respect for the skills of the old precinct captains,” writes Mary O’Connell in Salt (January). “I remember working a precinct, systematically ringing every doorbell. I probably caught one fourth of the people at home; the others remained names on a poll sheet. On election day I sat in the polling place next to the precinct captain. As people came up to vote, their names were called out, and the precinct captain would greet each one, ‘Hi Jimmy, is the wife feeling any better?’ ‘Hello there, Jose, how’s your son doing at the university?’ ‘Alice, did they ever deliver those garbage cans I ordered for you? Good, good.’ His candidate carried that precinct over mine by two to one.”
“Measuring the quality of life in American cities solely by the amount of new construction, the number of new middle-class residents, or the growth of service jobs ignores the negative consequences of urban restructuring,” write Wim Wiewel of UIC and Philip Nyden of Loyola in their new book Challenging Uneven Development: An Urban Agenda for the 1990s. “Implicit in this pro-growth ideology is an acceptance of uneven development –an acceptance that there will be winners and losers, that some people will benefit while others will not.ÉThose who have accepted this mind set criticize as obstructionist or backward any policy proposals that promote more even development, [or] any civic organizations that question unfettered growth…This volume…is oriented to those who, unlike the actors in the growth coalition, do not define the city merely as a place to manipulate for personal profit. Rather, it is oriented to people who define the city as a place to live and work…These people are not merely treating the city as an urban high-rise stock exchange in which to invest their money with the expectation of generous returns.”
