Economist.com Cities Guide: Chicago Briefing - June 2005

News this month

A resurrected Rod

Rod Blagojevich, Illinois's Democratic governor, spent much of the spring out of the public eye, as accusations of cronyism and mismanagement sent his poll numbers spiralling downward. But as the state legislature adjourned for the summer at 10pm on May 31st, Mr Blagojevich was in front of the cameras, glad-handing and basking in the glow of a budget that even some Republicans concede has granted the governor a new lease on political life. Highlights include no income-tax increases, a limit on punitive claims of medical malpractice for both doctors and hospitals, a $315m boost for education funding, a ban on sales or rentals of sexually explicit video games to minors, and background checks for guns bought at gun shows.

Unfortunately, nothing good is free: in order to keep taxes steady and still boost spending, Mr Blagojevich's budget borrows $2.2 billion in funds earmarked for state pension systems over the next two years, raising the possibility of a headache long after he has left office. The state's pension system is already $35 billion in debt, and the next governor will almost certainly have to raise taxes to fund it. But the budget frees the governor to spend next year worrying more about his re-election than his budget.

What the futures hold

On June 22nd, the venerable Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) will vote on a proposal to take the institution public in an IPO estimated at $150m. The IPO got its first boost last April, when board members voted to restructure the entity as a for-profit enterprise. The June vote would let board members raise cash in any way they see fit, including taking the company public. The CBOT filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission, naming Credit Suisse First Boston, JP Morgan, Citigroup, William Blair, and Keefe, Bruyette & Woods as its underwriters. Since the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, another Chicago entity, went public in 2002, it has seen its share prices rise sixfold. Futures and options trading at the CBOT is up 11% compared to its May 2004 levels.

Better late than never

The body of Emmett Till, a black teenager murdered in 1955 for whistling at a white woman, was exhumed on June 1st in preparation for an autopsy. Till, a Chicago native, was killed while visiting his family in Mississippi; his mutilated body was found wrapped in barbed wire in a river. Nobody has ever been convicted of his murder. The two men accused—the husband and brother-in-law of Carolyn Bryant, at whom Till allegedly whistled—were acquitted by an all-white jury. Jurors said they did not believe the body was Till's, even though his mother positively identified it before the burial in an Alsip cemetery, 20 miles outside of Chicago. Till's mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, held an open-casket funeral for her son, and the grisly images of his corpse broadcast on televisions across America helped spark the civil-rights movement.

The FBI reopened the investigation into Till's death in 2004, when investigators found that no autopsy had ever been performed. A similar post-exhumation autopsy helped convict Byron de la Beckwith, a white supremacist, of the murder of Medgar Evers, a civil-rights activist shot to death in 1963. Investigators tied bullet fragments pulled from Evers's lungs to a high-powered rifle owned by De La Beckwith, who died in jail. Authorities declined to say what they hope to find in Till's corpse, though they noted that since both men originally accused of his murder are dead, they are most likely looking for accomplices rather than direct suspects.

Wrong, but strictly local

Yet another scandal is now dogging the administration of Richard Daley. But after months under federal investigation, he must be relieved that this latest outrage involves strictly local malfeasance. At the end of May, two senior officials in the city's Buildings Department, Kimberly Brown and Tim Hutchinson, resigned over their role in awarding an illegal building permit. The development was a 44-unit condominium on North Morgan Street, in the Kinzie Corridor Planned Manufacturing District. Its 1998 permit was revoked in 2000, when zoning laws restricted the area to manufacturing. But the city department reissued the permit, contravening the law, and work on the condos began last summer. Local businesses want the development stopped and all work torn down; the developer, Jerry Cedicci, claims that since his original permit preceded current zoning laws, the development should stand.

Suspiciously, Mr Cedicci and his brother travelled with Ms Brown to Brazil, paying all of her expenses as well. Mr Cedicci explained that his brother Anthony paid as an act of chivalry. “He's a single guy. She's a single girl. Two single people can do whatever they want, can't they?” he wondered.

Shocked again

Since the Boston Red Sox won baseball's World Series last year for the first time since 1918, the two teams that have gone longest without a championship are both from Chicago: the Cubs, representing (more or less) the city's North Side, and the White Sox on the South Side. The Cubs last won in 1908, but many tipped them to take the crown this year before this season began. The White Sox last won in 1917, and most believed they would once again finish near the bottom of the league. As it turns out, the opposite has happened: the White Sox—with a small payroll, a feisty manager, and a scrappy style of play—have the best record in baseball. The Cubs, meanwhile, are struggling to stay even, having been beset by injuries both routine and bizarre (in late May, their best pitcher took a line drive to his elbow).

The northsiders' most recent scandal, however, has a more disturbing edge: the Cubs traded LaTroy Hawkins, a pitcher who grew up near Chicago, but who had put up meagre results over the past two seasons. After he landed with his new team in San Francisco, he revealed that he had received hate-mail containing racial slurs. The Cubs' manager, Dusty Baker (who, like Hawkins, is black), said, “It's not very pleasant to read, especially when this is your hometown.”

Catch if you can

June 2005

The Floating World Emerges: Selections from the Clarence Buckingham Collection, Part Two

Until July 31st 2005

The “floating world” (ukiyo-e) style of Japanese painting and woodblock print originated during the period of Shogunate power, and centred in Edo (Tokyo). In the west, it is most closely associated with its two most famous practitioners, Hiroshige and Hokusai, whose iconic images of urban life and ocean waves, respectively, have almost become kitsch.

But ukiyo-e is much richer and more diverse than that. Many prints advertised the physical pleasures of metropolitan life (theatres, teahouses, geisha and courtesans), but a love of nature invariably worked its way into them, even if only as a lovingly detailed patch of grass in the background of a drunken scene. The Art Institute of Chicago has one of the finest collections of ukiyo-e prints anywhere outside of Japan; this exhibition offers a rare chance to see some early works (1680-1760) by lesser-known artists (eg, Hishikawa Moronobu, Sugimura Jihei, Kaigetsudo Anchi, Okumura Masanobu).

Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S Michigan Ave. Tel: +1 (312) 443-3600. Suggested admission: $12. Open: Mon-Fri, 10.30am-4.30pm (Weds to 8pm); Sat-Sun 10.30am-5pm. See the museum's website.

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