City Of Big Shoulders: Chicago Governance Shaping City Geography

City of Big Shoulders: Chicago Governance Shaping City Geography
“Vote early, vote often,� this was the phrase that the Chicago mobsters told its “employees� to do in early Chicago political elections (www.cfmedia). This idea is one that can help to emphasize the amount of corruption in Chicago governance. This paper will be looking at not only corruption in governance, but also issues in city finance, and the city’s role in planning and development. This paper will look more at the business and industry aspect of Chicago governance, with the underlying theme that because of the city’s actions in some way or another, the physical shape and geography of the city is a manifestation of city activities in governance.
Corruption in Chicago is not a thing of the past. Corruption exists in all time periods of Chicago history. For the sake of this paper, time periods of corruption will be broken down to the time before 1975 and the time from 1975 to present day. This allows for a better look of how corruption had an effect on the geography of Chicago.
As seen with the opening quote of this paper, corruption was a part of early Chicago history. The most significant and noticeable source of corruption in early Chicago

City finance is a very important in governance. It provides the money and funds for the city to better itself and provide for its citizens. An example of this is how Chicago brought businesses to the magnificent mile, such as Armani, and with these businesses in place Chicago taxes and outrageous ten percent on sales. Planning and the need for money to build an infrastructure brought on these taxes. Bringing in the businesses would not be possible with out the role of the government in planning and developing the city. The primary role of finance and development is to shape and change the city for the better and to keep it alive in the changing global world. Chicago plays its part well to adapt to the new economies of the world and ways of life, and provide infrastructure to its citizens.

The corruption that took place from 1975 to now looks much different to that of the 1920s. Now the payoffs are in the form of campaign contributions, and the corruption that takes place is in the form of logrolling (you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours). This can be seen with the example Stone Park (who changed the geography of the city). The Chicago Tribune website said that the mayor was arrested for getting kickbacks. The mayor received the kickbacks because he gave his “friends” tax exemptions and special zoning to build a strip club in a residential neighborhood, right next to city hall. Zoning and tax breaks seem to be the new form of corruption along with campaign contributions. There are countless examples of logrolling in Chicago. Who knows how many roads, buildings, and business contracts, etc. were awarded because of unethical doings? All of these helped to shape the physical city, as we know it today.

Now with the officers and politicians looking the other way, gangsters and even priests were unknowingly shaping Chicago history and geography. The gangsters needed a place to hang out and drink alcohol. So they would build or buy a business and that would engage in legal activity, but by night the business would turn into a speakeasy, or a casino. These neighborhoods would now be transformed into a gangster’s playground, where the cops that patrolled those streets where in their pocket (Spinney 176-181). Each “playground” or neighborhood was also divided up according to ethnicity. The Italians and the Irish were key gangster ethnicities in early Chicago. Thus the corrupt mafias shaped Chicago because people of the same ethnicities occupy most of those neighborhoods as they did in the 1920s. Another way that corruption shaped Chicago is that today some of the 1920s speakeasies and notorious places of mafia business are deemed historical. The City does this to protect landmarks from demolition and improper restoration (City of Chicago website).

Now to go along with the financial aspect of governance comes the planning and development aspect, looking more specifically at planning due to busine