Economist.com Cities Guide: Chicago Briefing - April 2006

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Chicagoans went to the polls for this year’s primary elections on March 21st. The winner of the Democratic gubernatorial primary came as no surprise: Rob Blagojevich, the Democratic governor of Illinois, held a commanding lead over Edwin Eisendrath, despite widespread dissatisfaction with his first-term performance. The Republican primary was more contentious, with five challengers vying to outdo each other. Judy Baar Topinka, Illinois’s state treasurer, won the primary with just 38% of the vote. She can now direct her attention to unseating Mr Blagojevich in a race that promises to be brutal.

Meanwhile in the suburbs of Chicago, a race for a traditionally Republican seat in the US House of Representatives drew national attention. Democrats warred over the right to run for a seat held by Henry Hyde, a jowly Republican stalwart who will retire after 30 years in Congress. In the end, Tammy Duckworth, a Democratic war veteran who lost both her legs in the Iraq war, won the primary. Ms Duckworth managed to raise far more money than her fellow Democratic challengers, with many contributions coming from out of state. She will face the Republican candidate, Peter Roskam, in November’s election.

The deliberations begin

After more than five months of testimony, hundreds of documents and 117 witnesses, the jury finally began its deliberations in the trial of George Ryan on March 13th. Mr Ryan, Illinois’s former Republican governor, is charged with 22 counts of fraud and racketeering. Mr Ryan and Larry Warner, a close friend, allegedly accepted holidays and other gifts in exchange for steering lucrative state contracts to favoured companies.

The charges follow an eight-year federal investigation, stretching back to Mr Ryan’s tenure as secretary of state for Illinois from 1991-99, when he was accused of taking bribes in exchange for supplying trucking licences. So far 79 former state officials, lobbyists and truck drivers have been also been charged.

Tritium troubles

The state of Illinois has sued Exelon, a nuclear power company that owns the Braidwood nuclear station near Chicago, for leaking radioactive tritium into groundwater and keeping quiet about it. Tritium is a by-product of reactors in the production of electricity. Not only were there four separate tritium leaks between 1996 and 2003, but Exelon tried to stifle environmental reviews and public discussion of the effects of tritium, which can increase the risk of cancer and cause birth defects.

After repeated urging from Braidwood's neighbours, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency finally tested local groundwater and found traces of tritium. Exelon officials say that tritium levels are so low that they are not cause for concern. Local residents aren’t quite so sanguine.

His kinda town

Ray Meyer, the former coach of the men’s basketball team at Chicago’s DePaul University, died on March 17th at the age of 92. Mr Meyer was one of the sport’s most beloved figures. Between 1942 and 1984 he turned DePaul from an obscure Catholic university, whose basketball team played in a dusty gym beneath the El tracks, into a renowned basketball powerhouse. Although his teams won a national tournament only once (in 1945), they reached the post-season 20 times. Over the course of Mr Meyer's career, his teams won more games than those of all but four coaches in the history of college basketball.

Mr Meyer relied mostly on local ballers. Legions of coaches and scouts fanned out across the country competing to sign the best high-school players; Mr Meyer didn’t make his first out-of-state recruiting trip until he was 69. A native Chicagoan, he exemplified the city’s masculine ideal: tough, hot-tempered, big-hearted, old-fashioned and with plenty of local pride. Digger Phelps, one of his coaching contemporaries, said, “Nobody had more love for Chicago than Ray”.

The return of “King Coal”

More coal can be found beneath the state of Illinois than in any other state but Wyoming and Montana. Until recently, this was little cause for celebration: many mines in Illinois—and across America—became defunct over the past 50 years as cheap oil supplanted coal as a preferred energy source and the government clamped down on coal emissions. But with oil prices soaring and power plants using chemical treatments to produce cleaner-burning coal, this trend seems to be reversing. Three new mines capable of producing 9m tonnes of coal per year will open in Illinois in 2006, bringing the total of working mines in the state to 12. With mining jobs paying between $50,000 and $70,000, the new mines are more than welcome.

“King Coal” once ruled central and southern Illinois—in 1918 the state produced 89m tonnes. It is unlikely that Illinois's coal production will reach this level again in the near future, but the industry’s resurgence is real. The national Energy Information Administration predicts that American demand for coal will rise by about 2% each year for the next 20 years.

Catch if you can

April 2006

Girodet: Romantic Rebel

Until April 30th 2006

This is the first American retrospective devoted to the paintings and drawings of Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, a French artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Girodet, who trained under Jacques-Louis David, rejected the neoclassical style then prevalent in France. Instead he favoured treating his subjects in a dark, dreamlike manner. His often violent paintings pushed the boundaries of what was considered acceptable. In this way and others, he prefigured what would be known as Romanticism.

The Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan Ave. Tel: +1 (312) 443-3600. Open: Mon-Fri, 10.30am-4.30pm (Thursdays until 8.30pm); Weekends, 10am-5pm. Entry: $12. For more information, visit the institute’s website.

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