Community Conversations

Enhance wraparound services for youth.

Allow/Make more non for profits who service children to work together for a larger impact on youth creating wraparound services.

Ongoing Citywide People's Assemblies

Civic culture and democratic processes are not something which should only be encouraged and funded during the election period. We need support for democratic culture to be sustained throughout the year in order to make the regular election cycle more deeply meaningful. Ongoing citywide People's Assemblies could be the catalyst for a richer, deeper democracy at the level of neighborhoods which can surge upward towards the other parts of municipal government. A People's Assembly is mostly self explanatory in its name, but the process of building collective voice and shared power within a community while creating a regular space for every community to raise issues of deep concern can push issues which have been largely ignored onto the agendas of elected officials. As these bodies build structure and consistent participation, they could supplant some of the functions of elected alderman. Participatory budgeting should be a part of every ward and the power of that purse could be help by the assembly. Alderwoman Maria Hadden has taken some steps to implement assembly style politics in her ward by building deeply participatory communication channels with her constituents, regularly explaining her decisions at length, and leaning into critique of those decisions while being open to shifting her position. Most aldermanic powers and decisions could be delegated to ward or neighborhood assembly rather easily which brings daylight and transparency to our current shadowy practices of deals being negotiated in closed offices. Building this type of civic culture has proven to raise democratic participation and practice across channels. If we want deeper participation in election cycles, fund the work of build civic practice in the smaller spaces of block clubs, neighborhood associations and independent political organizations.

Partner With Loop Property Owners In Transition to Residential Post COVID

Demand won’t be as high for commercial leases downtown. We now have hundreds of companies with long term leases but no requirement that their staff go to the office. I worked in Central Standard building - my company still leases 5 floors and no one is required to ever go to the office again. This hurts the myriad shops in the area due to lack of foot traffic. If it’s inevitable that downtown cores will see weak commercial demand when these leases finally are up, I think we have an opportunity to get ahead of the curve and keep downtown thriving. Partner with the private sector to see how the city can help convert the incredible architecture downtown into the best Loop neighborhood Chicago has ever seen. We can focus the streets towards pedestrians since fewer commuters need to be accommodated. The park district, CPS, etc. can open indoor (winter) spaces. We can get cultural/arts/start up incubators involved. Perhaps most importantly, getting a bunch of new housing units available quickly would drive down home prices and lead to population growth. There’s so much opportunity here if we can get past these pre-COVID leases that are freezing the market in place.

Create safe, pedestrian friendly neighborhoods

No parent should have to worry about letting their kids cross the street to go visit friends. I want to see the use of greenspace, protective barriers and other traffic calming measures to make sure that even our most vulnerable populations feel safe crossing our roads. Imagine how it would feel to raise a family in Chicago not having to worry about traffic violence and giving your child the same independence that kids in countries like the Netherlands have (video for context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98). And imagine how much nicer it would be to walk in your own neighborhood if you didn't have to worry about cars - not to mention all the added space for plants, public art and recreation you'd have right outside your front door.

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