Could something like this ever happen in Philadelphia? In just over six years, Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley transformed a gaping 24.5-acre eyesore in the middle of downtown Chicago -- once the largest undeveloped parcel of prime real estate in any major U.S. city -- into the architectural tour de force that is Millennium Park. Featuring a sleek outside pavilion designed by Frank Gehry, a theater, an ice-skating rink, fountains, promenades, a veritable garden of sculptures and monuments, Millennium Park is simply in a class of its own, crowning the city of Chicago as the capital of American architecture.
The famed Chicago architect Daniel Burnham once said, "Make no small plans." But beyond making no small plans, as Millennium Park so beautifully attests, Chicago has an admirable track record of actually fulfilling those plans, unlike Philadelphia. Thus, I believe that Philadelphia, and City Hall, can learn a few things from Chicago and Mayor Daley in how to promote, finance and ultimately make the city embrace a proactive approach to urban renewal initiatives.
Philadelphia sorely needs urban renewal initiatives like Millennium Park. Witness the Windy City -- take a stroll through downtown Chicago, and you will not notice any "missing teeth," as I like to call them: empty tracts of prime real estate just waiting to be sold and developed. Conversely, I once compared Philadelphia to a beautiful woman who was gorgeous until she smiled, because she had so many missing teeth.
Look around you. Stroll down the Avenue of the Arts. Across the street from the Kimmel Center lies a fallow tract of land teeming with unlimited potential for profitability, art, architecture, anything at all to add character to the Avenue of the Arts beyond grass. Or walk down Walnut Street and, in between 19th and 20th streets, right in the middle of a streak of cafes and shops, you will come upon another missing tooth, another project with positive net present value just waiting to be taken up. They're everywhere. In some places, they're covered up with parking lots -- fake teeth. Don't smile, Philadelphia. You need a serious dentist.
Enter Mayor Daley. How did he do it? For one thing, Daley didn't get rid of the gaping hole in Chicago's mouth, Philadelphia-style. "At first, somebody said, 'Let's just put a cover on it, and some grass,'" Daley told the Chicago Sun-Times in an interview. Instead, Daley listened to the public, threw his support behind the Millennium Park project and never looked back, despite his critics. "But, you listen to people who have great ideas. ... I deeply appreciate all the people who said, 'We can do it. Forget about the naysayers.'"
What would Philadelphia have done in this situation? It would have given the naysayers a loudspeaker; the very reason why Comcast Tower will likely not grace the Philadelphia skyline is that our city council caved in to all the special interests in Center City, such as competing real estate owners, and rescinded the tax breaks to Comcast. Now, the developers have no incentive to build the tower, since their largest tenant won't be able to afford it.
The area around 17th Street and John F. Kennedy Plaza will remain a fallow field, which is good, I guess, because Center City needs more grass and less jobs and skyscrapers. Obviously, vision and determination are essential; our city government must be proactively dedicated to improving our city's architecture and skyline for it to happen.
That doesn't mean that Philadelphia should buy every privately held piece of land in the city and turn it into a park. Instead, the system of tax breaks designed to lure jobs and urban development to Philadelphia -- the Keystone Opportunity Act -- was a definite step in the right direction, since City Hall must give landholders a positive financial incentive to turn their urban farmland into great economic and architectural projects. And even if the city does decide to undertake a project as great as Millennium Park, money shouldn't be a problem.
Yes, Millennium Park ran grossly over budget -- announced as a $150 million project in 1998, completed this year with a price tag of $475 million -- but thanks to a creative mix of taxes, public bonds and $205 million worth of private donations, the taxpayer burden was much alleviated. For $270 million, Millennium Park was a steal to the taxpayers of Chicago. There's no reason why Philadelphia can't do the same in financing its public projects.
Or can it? Here's a litmus test: This past June, the Philadelphia Daily News published a massive insert detailing numerous ways to revitalize the Ben Franklin Parkway by making it more pedestrian-friendly, luring new businesses to the area, improving recreation and parking space and making the parkway live up to its original vision.
The parkway was "no small plan," but we didn't see it through to the end. Immediately after the Daily News piece, the naysayers said, "It can't be done," and, "It's too expensive." But I was much encouraged by Mayor John Street's announcement the next day, concurring that something should be done to improve the parkway.
So let's do it, Chicago-style.
Cezary Podkul is a junior Management and Philosophy major in Wharton and the College from Chicago, Ill. Cezary Salad appears on Mondays.
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