“Chicago”
The following passage is adapted from an article titled “Taming the Savage City” by Carl Smith (© 2009).
- “Chicago! Chicago, queen and
- guttersnipe of cities, cynosure
- and cesspool of the world!” So
- the young British journalist
- G. W. Steevens exclaimed upon
- his visit in 1896. He confessed
- himself unable to express in
- words the “splendid chaos” of the
- place, “where the keen air from
- lake and prairie is ever in the
- nostrils, and the stench of foul
- smoke is never out of the throat.”
- If New York was the country’s
- largest metropolis, Chicago
- epitomized the spectacular
- velocity of urbanization. An
- obscure frontier outpost in
- the early 1830s, Chicago had
- grown to two million residents
- by 1909, and some predicted it
- would soon be the largest city
- in the world. Reform groups
- asserted that something must
- be done to reduce inefficiency
- and improve degraded sections
- of the city. Business leaders
- publicly fretted that congestion
- and pollution might drive
- investors and workers elsewhere.
- The key, they contended, was to
- find a way to ensure Chicago’s
- eminence by reducing obstacles
- to its expansion and making
- the most of its strengths.
- While a number of groups and
- individuals suggested changes
- in this or that part of Chicago,
- one organization proposed the
- wholesale transformation of
- the city. In 1909, the
- Commercial Club published
- the Plan of Chicago. Arguably
- the most influential document
- in American city planning
- history, the Plan states that
- the inefficient, unsightly, and
- unhealthy American cityscape
- can and must be redeemed.
- The Plan’s creators had no
- intention of settling merely for
- order and convenience. They
- sought to remake the city so
- brilliantly that it would equal
- or even surpass the glory of
- ancient Athens and Rome.
- Modern Paris was the
- contemporary model the
- planners had most in mind.
- The club would likely not
- have undertaken the Plan,
- however, had it not had among
- its members the architect
- Daniel H. Burnham. Burnham’s
- transformation into city
- planner came with his efforts
- in directing the construction
- of the 1893 World’s Columbian
- Exposition in Jackson Park,
- noted for its dazzling array of
- colossal neoclassical buildings.
- The exposition inspired
- Chicagoans to rethink their
- city on the elegant model of
- the transitory one within the
- fair’s gates.
- Readers opened the Plan of
- Chicago to behold a host of
- observations and proposals,
- large and small, abundantly
- illustrated with over 140
- paintings, renderings,
- elevations, diagrams, and
- photographs. Far more than
- a dry inventory of
- recommendations, it
- maintained that Chicago must
- think of the city and the
- surrounding area as an
- integrated region, and in
- doing so must pursue certain
- ideals: convenience,
- efficiency, order, cleanliness,
- health, beauty, harmony, unity,
- and dignity. Taken together,
- these ideals define what is
- called the City Beautiful
- movement, which saw them
- embodied most fully in the
- stately lines, formal balance,
- and grand scale of Beaux Arts
- architecture.
- In the Plan’s view, the best
- way to build a prosperous city
- is to make it beautiful and
- healthy. Dirt, noise, and
- squalor are far more costly
- than any attempt to banish
- them. Chicago Federation of
- Labor president John J.
- Fitzpatrick was particularly
- blunt about the Plan’s
- disregard of the city’s vast
- population of working people.
- He charged that its main
- purpose was to assist the same
- commercial and industrial
- interests who worked their
- employees “long hours at
- starvation wages.”
- Preoccupied with the efficient
- movement of traffic and
- goods and the city’s physical
- appeal, the published Plan
- pays limited attention to
- social services, housing, and
- the quality of neighborhood
- street life. Its solution to the
- problem of slums is not to
- seek out their root cause in
- fundamental inequities but
- to remedy them through “the
- cutting of broad thoroughfares
- through the unwholesome
- district” and strictly enforcing
- sanitary regulations. It holds
- out the threat of public control
- if negligent property owners
- do not shape up.
- Perhaps the Plan’s most
- important legacy, however, is
- its contention that the world
- in which we live is neither
- inevitable nor unalterable,
- and we must constantly be
- attuned to how we can make
- it better. The Plan states at
- the outset that it is meant “to
- direct the development of the
- city towards an end that must
- seem ideal, but is practical.”
- In doing so, it argues, we
- need to think holistically,
- considering Chicago as a
- complex system or organism
- with a special relationship to
- the region, the nation, and the
- world. And all efforts to renew
- and remake it must be
- animated by the idea of a
- humane and productive and
- beautiful city that truly stirs
- the blood and captures the
- imagination.