Earlier today Caterpillar announced that it was moving its corporate headquarters from Peoria to Chicago. The move affects about 300 top-level executives. The company will retain a large presence in Peoria. This is in line with what I've written about before: the rise of the executive headquarters, where a company moves its executive suite (anywhere from 50-500 people) to a major city like Chicago while leaving the back office elsewhere. Chicago has benefitted from this more than any other city I know. In addition to many corporate HQ … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2017
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s City of Spectacle
Building the City of Spectacle: Mayor Richard M. Daley and the Remaking of Chicago by Costas Spirou and Dennis R. Judd Richard M. Daley took office as mayor of Chicago in 1989. The city was at a low ebb following the bitter racial conflicts of the so-called Council Wars period, when a largely white city council fought to stymie Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor. During Daley’s 22 years in office, many of the Windy City’s neighborhoods gentrified, in part because of a blizzard of municipal-improvement projects originating with … [Read more...]
The Brooklynization of Brooklyn
The New Brooklyn: What It Takes to Bring a City Back by Kay Hymowitz My City Journal colleague Kay Hymowitz has written a number of great articles on Brooklyn, the borough that is her home. This inspired her to write a great book on the topic of the transformation of Brooklyn called The New Brooklyn. It starts with a two-chapter history of the borough from its earliest settlement to the present day, followed by a series of chapters looking at Brooklyn today. This includes the transformation of Park Slope (where she and her husband moved … [Read more...]
Detroit’s New Streetlights Show Service Rebuilding in Action
I've been arguing that one thing struggling post-industrial cities need to do is take care of their own business, doing things like addressing legacy liabilities and rebuilding of core public services. Last week I write about Buffalo doing just this by completely re-writing its zoning code and creating a new land use map of the city to bring its planning ordinances up to date for the 21st century. Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic at the New York Times, recently wrote a feature on another good example: the replacement of Detroit's … [Read more...]
Buffalo Rezones Entire City, Eliminates Parking Minimums Citywide
In my major City Journal feature on Buffalo last year, I mentioned the city's work on its so-called "Buffalo Green Code" as one of the positive developments to watch. Last week the city gave final approval to this complete rewrite of the city's planning and zoning code, and a new land use map for the city. I review the highlights over at City Journal: As an older city, Buffalo is already built [in an urban form] in many areas. But past zoning choices have had lingering negative consequences. “Sixty years ago planners sought to replace the … [Read more...]